How teachers navigate the challenges of inclusive adult education

There is growing research interest in how adult education can better respond to an increasingly diverse student population as part of realising inclusive education. However, less attention has been given to practice oriented perspectives that examine how inclusion is enacted as a dynamic, situated process in everyday teaching. This study examines how teachers navigate the challenges involved in shaping inclusive adult education in Swedish municipal adult education (SMAE), drawing on the theory of practice architectures. Qualitative survey data were collected from teachers in eight SMAE institutions. The findings show that teachers encounter challenges embedded in cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements within a marketised system. These arrangements both enable and constrain their efforts to realise inclusive education. Teachers respond by adopting different strategies, ranging from disengagement and workaround solutions to market responsive and professionally accountable approaches, illustrating the uneven conditions shaping inclusive practice.