The research team at the Shanghai Municipal Institute for Lifelong Education, East China Normal University, has long focused on lifelong learning, community education, comparative and international education, education for sustainable development, and digital transformation in education. Amid growing environmental challenges, climate risk, and rapid digital change, the team explores how education can equip individuals and communities with the competencies, networks and capabilities needed to take meaningful action. Recently, full-time postdoctoral researcher Joshua Ampofo and his colleagues published three articles in leading SSCI-indexed journals: Journal of Environmental Psychology , Journal of International Development , and Review of Educational Research , the flagship journal of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Approaching lifelong learning through the lenses of community education, comparative and international education, and adult digital literacy, the three studies offer complementary evidence on how education can foster sustainable, resilient, and inclusive societies.
The first article, published in Journal of Environmental Psychology , examines how community-based education is associated with pro-environmental behavior and whether this association operates through green literacy, an integrated competence encompassing functional, critical, and relational dimensions. Drawing on Social Cognitive Theory and the Value-Belief-Norm framework, the study finds that green literacy accounts for approximately 62% of the overall association between community-based education and pro-environmental behavior. Critical literacy, the capacity to evaluate environmental claims, weigh policy trade-offs, and identify root causes, carries the strongest indirect effect. The pathway from community-based education to pro-environmental behavior is more than twice as strong in rural communities as in urban ones (β = .42 versus β = .18), an advantage that the interviews trace to close-knit social networks, collective efficacy, place-based identity, and intergenerational co-presence. Based on these findings, the study advocates a tiered, community-centric approach to environmental education policies, built on a common national framework for critical literacy.
The second article, published in Journal of International Development , presents the first systematic comparative mapping of lateral knowledge flows in community-based climate adaptation education among three megacities in the Global South: Shanghai, São Paulo, and Mumbai. The study identifies three channels through which knowledge circulates, namely formal intergovernmental exchanges, professional and organizational networks, and informal grassroots connections. Of these, grassroots exchanges prove most consequential at the community level. Measured with the purpose-built Knowledge Flow Intensity Index, these flows are markedly asymmetric, with each city acting as a sender in some domains and a receiver in others: Shanghai leads in curricular integration and institutional capacity, São Paulo in community engagement and pedagogical innovation, and Mumbai in the incorporation of indigenous ecological knowledge. Building on these findings, the study proposes "differentiated circulation" as a new theoretical framework. It calls for South–South cooperation to invest in the informal architecture of knowledge exchange and redistribute epistemic authority toward the communities that generate adaptation knowledge.
The third article, published in Review of Educational Research , is a PRISMA-guided and PROSPERO-registered systematic review. It synthesizes 89 empirical studies, screened from 2,847 records, on digital literacy education for adult learners in lifelong learning contexts. It identifies three dominant theoretical paradigms, techno-functionalist, socio-critical, and ecological, and finds that authentic problem-based learning and culturally responsive methods outperform decontextualized skill-building in learner engagement, skill retention, and transfer. These benefits are particularly evident when digital literacy education is embedded in activities adults already value, such as job search, health management, and civic participation. The review also documents persistent equity gaps: 76% of the studies were conducted in high-income countries, few employed intersectional analyses, and few measured the life outcomes most valued by adult learners. To bring the field's complementary traditions into dialogue, the study proposes an integrated, equity-centered digital capabilities framework encompassing functional, critical, adaptive, and transformative dimensions. The framework offers researchers, practitioners, and policymakers a shared vocabulary and a practical roadmap for advancing equitable digital literacy education for adults.
Looking ahead, the team plans to extend these lines of research through longitudinal, experimental, and participatory designs; alongside broader comparative studies across the Global South, including sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Future work will also explore emerging competencies such as artificial intelligence literacy. Through these efforts, the team aims to strengthen the evidence base for a lifelong learning system that is more inclusive, sustainable, and responsive to the opportunities and challenges of the digital age.