Tomas Bata University in Zlín

Short Biography

Jan Kalenda is Associate Professor of adult education and head of PhD studies at the Faculty of Humanities (FH), Tomas Bata University (TBU), with extensive managerial and research skills. Between 2017 and 2022, he served as TBU´s vice-rector for educational activities and quality management. He was responsible for implementing new standards for higher education institutions at TBU and developing its quality assurance system, including obtaining national and European (EUA) accreditation for TBU. He was appointed to this function as one of the youngest academics in the Czech Republic. In this role, he led several large-scale projects from the EU funds with a cumulative budget of over €25 million. Since the beginning of his job contract at TBU, he has been honoured three times as the best employee of the FH, TBU.

After the end of this administrative tenure, he spent the academic year 2022/2023 as a Fulbright fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he wrote “Adult Learning Systems in Central Europe” (Kalenda, 2024). As a researcher, he has participated in many scientific projects focusing on adult education and learning and related policy, supported by the Czech Science Agency (GAČR), Slovakia Science Agency (VEGA), European Training Foundation (ETF), Norwegian Funds, CEDEFOP, or ERASMUS plus from the European Commission. For over ten years, he has been actively involved in research on adult learning and education participation, its barriers and drivers, adult learning systems and policies and self-regulation of learning (for details, see sections Research Profile and Achievements below).

Beyond his Fulbright fellowship at UCLA, he has gained vital international experience from his research stays and collaboration with colleagues from the University of Glasgow, the German Institute of Adult Education (DIE – Deutsche Institut fur Erwaschenenbildung), the Arctic University of Norway, Trømso and many others.

Research Profile

Since the beginning of his research career, he has developed a diverse interdisciplinary profile, which has allowed him to extend his research interests beyond the field of adult learning and education. Drawing on approaches and methods borrowed from sociology, psychology, digital studies, and historical institutionalism, he has been trying to enrich research regarding adult learning and education participation. His primary research aim is to push the frontiers of knowledge concerning engagement in adult learning and the evolution of adult learning systems.

His research up to this date has focused on three interrelated topics:

1/ Participation in adult learning and education: Factors and processes affecting participation in adult learning and education, including not only social and institutional factors but also psychosocial factors, like motivation, perceived barriers and attitudes;

2/ Theoretical and methodological innovations: Applying new theoretical and methodological approaches to Czech social science, especially education, including situational analysis, historical institutionalism, political economy of education and self-determination theory;

3/ Institutional framework of adult learning and education: Historical analysis of institutions responsible for adult learning and education provision, policy and coordination. In this regard, he has published “Adult Learning Systems in Central Europe” (Kalenda, 2024) and “Uncertain Triumph: Development of Non-formal Adult Education in the Czech Republic between 1997–2016” (Kalenda, 2021). His newest book, “Modern Guided to Adult Learning Systems,” coedited with prof. Richard Desjardins, will be published by Edward Elgar in 2025.

He has published or co-published four books and more than 60 research articles, chapters and papers in conference proceedings. His research has been published in distinguished peer-reviewed journals, including: Adult Education Quarterly, Journal of Further and Higher Education, European Journal of Education, Higher Education Quarterly, Studies in Continuing Education, International Journal of Lifelong Education, Journal of Education and Work, Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment and many others (for list of relevant research achievements for this call see below).

Skills and Leadership

Kalenda possesses a broad range of methodological skills, including qualitative and advanced quantitative research methods. In terms of large-scale survey design, he has led multiple international projects involving data collection across four or more European countries. In 2018, he was involved in a study collecting data from respondents in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. In 2020, he led a data collection initiative targeting adult learners in Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Sweden. This project included the development of a specialised web-based platform designed for the collection of behavioural data. Subsequently, in 2022, he directed a survey that collected data about lifelong learning among respondents from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Currently, together with Professor Richard Desjardins (UCLA) and Professor Ellen Boeren (University of Glasgow), he is directing a survey about adult learning systems (SILAS 2024) in five involved countries (Italy, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden).

Furthermore, he has extensive project management and leadership skills. Throughout his career, he was responsible for the preparation and management of five significant investment projects funded by the EU, with a combined budget exceeding €25 million (Strategic Project of TBU I., Strategic Investment Project of TBU I., IKAROS, DUO – Strategic Project of TBU II., Strategic Investment Project II. and ADAPT TBU). In those projects, he had the role of principal investigator or project team co-leader.

Additionally, he served as the principal investigator or a team member in nine medium-scale research projects, with a cumulative budget surpassing €1.2 million from: (1) Czech Science Agency (Projects: “Blind Spots of Non-Formal Adult Education in the Czech Republic”; “Roads towards 21^st Century Inclusive School: An ethnographic approach”), (2) Slovakia Science Agency (Project: “Concept of Docility in Theory of Adult Education”), (3) Visegrad Fund (Project: “Measuring university excellence in the V4 region”), (4) European Training Foundation (Project: “New Learning Environment of Adults”), (6) CEDEFOF (Project: “Apprenticeships for Adults in Europe”), (7) ERASMUS plus (Project: “Development of diagnostic and intervention apparatus of adult docility phenomenon”), (8) Fulbright Commission (Project: “Political Economy of Adult Learning Systems in Central Europe: From their Emergence to Liberalization”), (9) Norwegian Funds (Project: “Czech-Norwegian Hub for the Study and Prevention of Inequalities in Educational Systems”).

Beyond that, he contributed to over a dozen more minor research and development projects at the national scale in the fields of education, lifelong learning, sociology, and higher education.

 

Current Research

Currently, his focus is on consolidating a team capable of advancing our conceptual, methodological and empirical understanding of participation in adult learning and education (see topic (1) a (2) above in his research profile). In this regard, together with Prof. Boeren (University of Glasgow), he is currently co-editing the special issue of the International Journal of Lifelong Education with the title “Adult Participation and Large-Scale Survey Data: Conceptual and Methodological Debates.” Simultaneously, he collaborates with Prof. Desjardins (University of California, Los Angeles) on redefining how we conceptualise adult learning systems in advanced industrial and post-industrial countries (see topic (3) above). For this purpose, they are coediting a new book focused on the evolution of adult learning systems around the world – “Modern Guide to Adult Learning Systems” (Edward Elgar). With fifteen countries involved, it represents the most extensive collection of national case studies of adult learning systems to this date.

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Teaching

Consulting hours

Friday: 13:30pm - 15:30pm

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Curriculum vitae

Education

• 2010–2013: Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc, doctoral degree in Sociology
• 2008–2010: Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc, master’s degree in Sociology – Andragogy
• 2005–2008: Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc, bachelor’s degree in Sociology – Andragogy

Process of employment

• 2023 - Head of PhD studies at the Faculty of Humanities, TBU
• 2022-2023: Visiting professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), School of Education and Information Science
• 2019-2022: Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Vice-rector for Quality Management
• 2017-2019: Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Vice-rector for Pedagogical Activities
• 2013–2017: Tomas Bata University in Zlín, head of the Research Centre of the Faculty of Humanities
• 2014–2016: Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc, Department of Sociology, Andragogy, and Cultural Anthropology
• 2012–2013: Tomas Bata University in Zlín, assistant professor at the Department of Pedagogical Sciences, Faculty of Humanities.

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Creative activities

Publications

Project outputs