Adult education and lifelong learning
Dr. Michael Bernhard
Researcher and Lecturer in the Department of Adult Education and Lifelong Learning, Goethe University Frankfurt
I research and teach how adults learn — through, and in spite of, the transformations of work, life, and society they navigate.
About
I focus on what enables adults to learn through career and life transitions, especially in contexts shaped by the digital transformation of work, global mobility, and shifts in how work is organized.
This work draws on more than two decades of applied experience — in non-profit leadership, university–community partnerships, work-integrated learning, and active-travel program development across Canada, the United States, France, and Germany. This practitioner background informs my research and grounds the consulting work I do through Akotor on organizational learning and adult learning in processes of change. The thread connecting these strands has been a steady one: helping people and organizations learn, unlearn, and transform in order to realize their potential.
Research
My current research investigates adult learning in career and work transitions in the context of technological transformation. This builds on doctoral work, completed at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2024, on adult learning in migration transitions — an inquiry into how adults shape and are shaped by transitions across socially constructed boundaries, framed through pragmatist and practice-theoretical perspectives.
A recent co-edited volume, Adult Education in Changing Times: Learning at the Nexus of Life, Work, and Transitions (Routledge, 2026), brings together international perspectives on adult learning across the life course in a period of rapid social, technological, and economic change.
A current list of publications is maintained on ResearchGate and at the Goethe University faculty website.
Teaching
At Goethe University Frankfurt I teach across the Bachelor’s and Master’s programs in Educational Sciences on topics including adult learning in the (post-)digital age, learning during work and career transitions, adult education and sustainable development, community development, and non-Western perspectives on adult learning.
Earlier teaching contexts include community-engaged scholarship coordination at Wilfrid Laurier University, work-integrated learning and field instruction in social work at the University of Waterloo, experiential outdoor education in Canada, physiotherapy instruction in Ecuador, computer skills training in a women’s prison, and workplace learning design in non-profit and for-profit organizations.
Practice
Through Akotor, I take on selected consulting and facilitation engagements on organizational learning and adult learning in change processes, drawing on research and on more than two decades of applied work in 20+ countries. Engagements typically focus on organizations working through transformation, transition, and longer arcs of strategic change.
I approach this work from a stewardship orientation, attending to the conditions that allow people to find autonomy, mastery, and purpose in their work.