College Continuing Education: Invisible and Unrecognized?

Overview & Synopsis

Based on a systematic literature review, we demonstrate that college continuing education in Quebec is poorly represented in colleges' specialized publications and generally absent from the field of educational research, despite its importance in the field of professional and technical training. We first describe the context of adult college education and training in Quebec and demonstrate its significance as a distinct training sector. We then present findings from our exhaustive literature review. Using these results, we show that despite its role in adult education, college continuing education in Quebec remains an unexplored research area. To conclude, we present hypotheses that may explain this lack of visibility and suggest potential research avenues on a subject that merits greater consideration.