Editorial

Adult education in the migration society is more diverse than flight and asylum and yet this topic dominates current discourse in the field. Everything also seems to be dominated by the questions: what competences do refugees bring with them, what education and training can be recognized and how, what educational measures are appropriate for people from other educational systems or what we in Austria understand to be formal education? And how does adult education, which is stuck in the middle of a professionalization debate, handle volunteers or employees of volunteer initiatives who are not trained in the area they work in? This issue of The Austrian Open Access Journal on Adult Education (Magazin erwachsenenbildung.at, Meb) takes on these controversial topics and questions of recognition, transmission of values and volunteer work. Valid data and facts on the need for training and continuing education of refugees are discussed and examples are provided of support for (minor) refugees and asylum seekers that reach from joint learning in the university system to accompaniment by social workers in basic education courses. The issue is complemented by interviews as well as articles on the topic of recognition in practice and metaphors of public-political discourse on immigration and migration. The common thread in all the articles: it is time that adult education accepts the reality of migration and plays a role in shaping it. (Ed.)