Studying the legacy of second-chance adult education in Flanders

Every year, third-year bachelor students participating in a course on adult education at the University of Leuven (Belgium) conduct an interview with adult educators working within a particular setting of adult education, such as civic integration courses, detention education, etc. In this article, we elaborate on one particular case, viz., adult educators working in second-chance education for adults who still want to obtain their secondary diploma. We show how their profession as an adult educator can become a common concern for both third bachelor students of educational sciences and for adult educators in second-chance adult education celebrating in 2021 their 40 years of existence in Flanders. This means that our analysis in this article will also show how a university can become a place where their daily professional practice as adult educators, viz., their ambitions and doubts, ambiguities and contradictions, can fully materialize as collective study material.