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Contents

FOREWORD

1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS (TAMÁS KOZMA)
1.1. The New Dimensions of Learning
1.2. The Spatial Networks of Learning
1.3. From Theory to Reality: The LeaRn Project

2. PILLAR I: FORMAL LEARNING: LEARNING IN THE SCHOOL SYSTEM (ÁGNES ENGLER AND ZOLTÁN GYÖRGYI)
2.1. Pillar I and the Learning Region: Theoretical Considerations
2.2. Traditional Learners (School and Higher Education)
2.3. Non-Traditional Learners (Re-entry students, migrant and Roma students)
2.4. Learners in the VET System
2.5. Learners in Formal Education: Statistical Indicators

3. PILLAR II: NON-FORMAL LEARNING: LEARNING OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL (ZOLTÁN GYÖRGYI AND EDINA MÁRKUS)
3.1 Pillar II and the Learning Region: Theoretical Considerations
3.2. General Adult Education
3.3. VET Outside the School System
3.4. Non-Formal Learning: Statistical Indicators

4. PILLAR III: CULTURAL LEARNING (ERIKA JUHÁSZ)
4.1. Pillar III and the Learning Region: Theoretical Considerations
4.2. The Scenes of Cultural Learning
4.3. Cultural Learning: Statistical Indicators
4.4. Cultural Learning: Empirical Indices

5. PILLAR IV: COMMUNITY LEARNING (KATALIN R. FORRAY)
5.1. Pillar IV and the Learning Region: Theoretical Considerations
5.2. Community Learning in Small Towns
5.3. Community Learning in Immigrant Communities
5.4. Community Learning in NGOs
5.5. Community Learning: Statistical Indicators

6. THE TERRITORIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FOUR PILLARS (KÁROLY TEPERICS)
6.1. Territorial Characteristics of Lifelong Learning: History and Methodology
6.2. Theoretical Characteristics of Pillar I: Formal Learning
6.3. Theoretical Characteristics of Pillar II: Non-Formal Learning
6.4. Theoretical Characteristics of Pillar III: Cultural Learning
6.5. Theoretical Characteristics of Pillar IV: Community Learning
6.6. Theoretical Characteristics of the Four Pillars: The 'LeaRn Index'
6.7. Comparison of the LI with social and economic indices

7. LEARNING REGIONS IN HUNGARY: SUMMARY (TAMÁS KOZMA)

8. REFERENCES

9. APPENDICES TO CHAPTER 6

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Foreword

This volume provides a summary of the latest findings of the research into learning regions conducted between 2011-2015 (LeaRn project), presenting the surveys and analyses comprehensively for the first time in Hungarian. LeaRn project was subsidised in the above period by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) under no. 2011/K-101867.

The research, which has been conducted for almost half a decade, is interdisciplinary and interdepartmental, organised by two departments (the Department of Adult Education and of Pedagogy) of the Institute of Education Studies at the University of Debrecen, while it was backed by the university's Centre for Higher Education Research and Development as well as the Human Sciences Doctoral Programme (postgraduate programme for education and cultural studies) also operating at the university. The research team included, furthermore, colleagues of the Regional Department of the Institute of Geography and the Sociology Department of the Institute of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Debrecen. Also, the team's work was assisted by the Institute of Education Studies at the University of Pécs and the Education and Society Doctoral Programme operating there. Further participants included the Research and Analysis Centre of the Budapest Institute for Educational Research and Development. The team was registered by the adult education and community learning department of HERA (Hungarian Educational Research Association) as an own activity.

Similarly to other research of this type, the LeaRn project is difficult to classify with regard to any one discipline, as surveys oftentimes walk the line between existing and clarified sciences, subverting and transgressing the limits of those. The list of participants and their departments already show that we have utilised the scientific repositories and research competences of several disciplines (the study of education and teaching, adult education, sociology, social geography, etc.). If we had to classify the LeaRn project in terms of existing disciplines in spite of all the above, we could call it the research of education and learning in the broader field of adult education, mostly in connection to municipal and regional development.

This volume is not a closing report in the traditional sense of the term, but rather a monograph collecting the studies, analyses and surveys conducted within the research toward its goals. The first chapter presents the literature and professional-scientific background of the research, while the second one delineates the key concepts of the LeaRn project (learning region, learning city, learning community). The next four chapters deal with single 'pillars' (dimensions) of the study of the learning region, presenting the empirical research carried out in the appropriate field and proposing indicators for statistical-cartographic analysis). The closing chapter presents the learning regional map of Hungary, as it is being gradually extended - unravelling the problematic of each indicator of the 'pillars'. The volume is closed by a short conclusion and is supplemented by appendices.

Our goal was to produce a monograph; therefore, we do not indicate authors specifically (they have done so in their own articles - see the references and the lists of publications). The editors and authors of the chapters as well as their colleagues have, of course, been listed (see the title page), but the research and the volume were joint responsibilities of the LeaRn team.

January 2016
The editor

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