Adult Literacy & Adult Education SIG 4
 
SIG Purpose
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The Adult Literacy and Adult Education SIG (ALAE) is dedicated to research, development, policy, and practice in adult literacy and adult education. The group takes an interdisciplinary, lifespan perspective on learning and instruction among diverse populations. 

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The Adult Literacy and Adult Education (ALAE) SIG is one of the few places in AERA to connect with researchers working with adult populations. It also offers opportunities to be part of the community of adult education researchers and to meet people who work with or have connections to institutions that fund research, hire adult education researchers, and publish adult education manuscripts.

The ALAE SIG currently has more than 150 members, and we are always looking to continue to build our vibrant scholarly community. Please invite your colleagues and graduate students to join our SIG. If you are not already an AERA member, go to the website.  When joining, be sure to select ALAE membership ($10). If you are already an AERA member, you can update your existing membership online through the AERA site and select our Special Interest Group as one of our SIGs (note: we are ALAE SIG #4).
 
 
Message from SIG Chair
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I am pleased to say that the field of adult literacy and adult education is seeing an increase in activity and interest. The SIG received a very healthy number of submissions for the AERA 2015 annual meeting, and a record number of members volunteered to serve as reviewers. 

There are also other developments, which we will be featuring in the Key Initiatives section of this website from time to time. For example, the federally-funded Center for the Study of Adult Literacy http://csal.gsu.edu/, under the direction of ALAE  SIG member Daphne Greenberg, is well underway. The center is conducting important research on the reading skills of adult literacy students. 

Also, a new effort, entitled “Improving the Lives of Adults and Families: Identifying Individual and Systems-level Factors Relating Education, Health, Civic Engagement, and Economic Well-being,” has been launched by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child and Human Development, the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research and the U.S. Department of Education (Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education. This initiative will provide support for the publication of investigations at the intersect of adult competencies, health, educational attainment, civic engagement, and economic well-being 
(http://blogs.plos.org/blog/2014/07/28/relationships-education-health-skills-improving-lives-adults-families-call-papers-new-plos-collection/).  

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE)  has a regular newsletter that contains information of interest to the adult literacy and adult learning community (free subscription: https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USED/subscriber/new?topic_id=USED_2)  
OCTAE has a regular blog http://www.ed.gov/edblogs/ovae/ with important information for our field, including updates on OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). 

In addition, the Literacy Information and Communication System, or LINCS, community of adult literacy practitioners http://lincs.ed.gov/ has become very active, with numerous study circles, webinars, listserve discussions, and online networking opportunities. This community is also making available many resources, which are vetted by adult literacy experts, for use in adult literacy instruction, administration, and research. 

Further, another organization, World Education [email protected] has many projects, which include adult literacy and adult education professional development, postsecondary transition, and dissemination of resources for adult basic education.

Finally, the Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy www.caalusa.org continues to inform policy, such as in its recent efforts in regard to enactment of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), which President Obama signed into law on July 22nd. 

I am sure there are more initiatives than the ones I’ve described but with these alone, we see a burgeoning of effort to serve our constituency of adult learners and their instructors and administrators. 

I am honored to serve as Chair and am looking forward to seeing you at the 2015 AERA annual meeting!

With best wishes, 

Dolores

(Dolores Perin, Teachers College, Columbia University, [email protected])  
 
 
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