Adult emergency education: the tacit andragogical fight against the COVID-19 pandemic

Adult education has yet to fully develop its potential for addressing social states of emergency. As an initial stride towards a critical adult emergency education, this paper investigates andragogical aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In pursuit of this objective, varying levels of tacit andragogisation concerning the pandemic are examined: 1. The (tacit) andragogical means employed by political leaders (in Sweden, Italy, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Austria) in their speeches at the beginning of the pandemic. 2. An examination of the interplay between the Chancellor's addresses, the media appearances of scientists, and the regionalisation of pandemic measures in Germany. 3. Memes posted online as a public response to the government's (tacit) andragogical approach. The data, consisting of political speeches, science podcasts, newspaper articles, and memes sampled throughout 2020, was analysed using the Documentary Method. These empirical analyses contribute to advance scholarship on critical adult emergency education.