UNESCO Chair in global adult education : second international conference on critical adult education and learning : the book of abstracts

Abstract

The University of Malta Valletta Campus hosted, once again following 2023, an international conference organised by the UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education on 6–7 November 2025. The conference brought together over 70 participants from South and North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, reflecting the global reach and relevance of Critical Adult Learning and Education (CALE). Building on the earlier conference held in May 2023 in the context of the International Critical Education Conference (ICCE), CALE 2025 focused exclusively on critical adult education and learning. The conference took place at a historical moment marked by rampant populism, the erosion of distinctions between fact and fiction, intensifying militarisation, corporate encroachment into public spaces, and the growing reduction of education to a narrow technical activity. Against this backdrop, CALE 2025 sought to reaffirm the urgency of critical adult education research and practice. In the spirit of its predecessor, the conference aimed to move beyond critique as denunciation, embracing critique as a generative practice—one that combines critical analysis with the exploration of emancipatory possibilities. The guiding imperative was clear: liberating praxis or sheer barbarism. The strong engagement and enthusiasm of participants reaffirmed CALE as a significant space for international dialogue in adult and continuing education. [Foreword by Prof. Peter Mayo]