International Society for Comparative Adult Education

This article is about the adult education organization. For the Moroccan business school, seeISCAE.

TheInternational Society for Comparative Adult Education(orISCAE) is a network of individuals and organizations with members in more than thirty countries.

Purpose

Comparative educationis a well-established field of study that examineseducationin one country (or group of countries) by using data and insights drawn from the practices and situation in another country or countries.Adult educationfocuses on the unique needs and characteristics of students who are notchildrenoradolescents.The focus of ISCAE then is the study of the education of adults as practiced in various countries; it also explores the methods, problems and pitfalls of internationalcomparative researchin general.

ISCAE serves as a network of contacts for professionals in the field of comparative adult education; suchnetworkingencourages research assistance andcross-fertilization,exchange of information, international cooperation, and similar activities. There are no statutes and no membership fees. Most of the printing and distribution of newsletters and conference proceedings is done by members from the United States, Germany, or Australia.

History

ISCAE's origins can be traced back to 1960, when Dr.Alexander N. Charters,professor of adult education atSyracuse University,and Canadian scholar of adult educationJ. Roby Kiddformed a working group on international and comparative adult education at the first world conference of the World Council for Comparative Education inOttawa.They named their group the Committee for Study and Research in Comparative Adult Education (CSRCAE).

The growing International interest in comparative adult education led, in 1992, to a restructuring with a new board and a new president: Jost Reischmann, Chair ofAndragogyat Bamberg University, Germany), and to a renaming into "International Society for Comparative Adult Education ISCAE". The upcoming new Internet-technology with anhomepageand a mailing list allowed much easier and faster communication and access for scholars from many countries around the globe. These new developments and the conferences increased the number of members from about 50 in 1992 to 250 in 2012. In 2009 Michal Bron Jr, Assoc. Professor Södertörn University, Sweden became new president.

Publications and meetings

ISCAE publishes a newsletter,ISCAE-Communication,irregularly (once or twice a year). Members meet at internationalconferences,held every three or four years in locations around the world: in Bamberg, Germany 1995, Radovljica, Slovenia 1998, St. Louis, Mo, USA 2002, Bamberg, Germany 2006, Las Vegas, USA 2012. At the conferences, individuals presentpaperson completed (or nearly complete) research; others present research in progress or ideas for future research. Studies must include two or more countries in the research in order to qualify as "comparative." ISCAE published two volumes with papers from their conferences:

Comparative Adult Education 1998. The contribution of ISCAE to an emerging field of study. Eds. Jost Reischmann, Michal Bron Jr & Zoran Jelenc, Ljubljana 1999, ISCAE & SIAE.ISBN961-6130-27-7Download.

Comparative Adult Education 2008. Experiences and examples. Eds. Jost Reischmann & Michal Bron Jr. Frankfurt am Main, 2008, Peter Lang Verlag.ISBN978-3-631-58235-0.Download of Volume's table of content/introduction.

External links

• ISCAE home page
• Program from the 2006 conference(pdf format)