In May 2026, Assoc. Prof. Petya Ilieva-Trichkova, PhD, researcher within the ProSkills2Work project, participated in the prestigious international conference of the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA) Network on Policy Studies in Adult Education, held from 13 to 15 May at the University of Hamburg, Germany.
At the conference, Assoc. Prof. Petya Ilieva-Trichkova presented a joint paper entitled “A Social Justice Perspective towards Skills-First Policies in Adult Learning and Education”, co-authored with Prof. Emeritus Pepka Boyadjieva (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and member of the Advisory Board of the ProSkills2Work project).
Building on a theoretical framework which includes the capabilities approach by Martha Nussbaum and the three-dimensional model of social justice by Nancy Fraser and drawing on data from the Adult Education Survey (AES) 2022 for 30 European countries and from Cedefop European Skills and Jobs Survey (ESJS) 2021 for 27 European countries, the analysis has shown that all three dimensions of social justice are essential for understanding adult learning and education: redistribution, recognition and representation and that skills required in contemporary societies are not only technical, but also social/civic.
Among the main highlights of the paper was the need for adult education and Skills-First policies to move beyond narrowly defined economic and labour-market goals. According to the authors, adult learning supports not only employability and professional realization, but also personal well-being, democratic participation, social inclusion, and civic engagement. From this perspective, the central message of the paper is that the necessary balance in adult education and Skills-First policies should combine their importance for economic growth and individual professional fulfilment with their indispensable role in promoting personal well-being and the flourishing of democratic societies through fostering a diversity of skills, attitudes, and knowledge.
