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The article uses insights from the capability approach as a theoretical framework. It investigates the potential of higher education to provide fertile advantages regarding young adults’ participation in nonformal education and whether this potential is bounded by people’s individual characteristics and the wider social context in which they live. Applying descriptive statistics and multilevel modelling, we conducted a secondary data analysis of the Adult Education Survey for 29 European countries. The findings go beyond previous research by clearly demonstrating that the fertile advantages of higher education regarding participation in adult nonformal education are not absolute and straightforward. They are bounded not only by certain important individual characteristics (such as individuals’ social background and household income) but are also context-dependent. More concretely, they differ among countries and depend on various country-level factors, such as level of innovation and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to suggest a better—theoretically and empirically grounded—understanding of the complex character of social justice in higher education. Theoretically, this article conceptualises social justice in higher education as mediating participation in, completion of and outcomes from higher education. It introduces the concept of composite capability for achieving higher education that captures capabilities to participate in, complete and gain outcomes from higher education. This study also develops a methodology for building an empirically based classification of countries regarding social justice in participation in higher education, taking into account the assessed inequality in students' pathways to higher education as well as inequality in their social conditions, associated with students' social origin. In so doing, it develops three indices: the index of inequalities in students' pathways, the index of inequalities in students' social conditions and the index of participation in higher education. Using microdata from the EUROSTUDENT VII survey (2019–2021) for 12 European countries, it applies the developed methodology to classify countries, for which data are available, by the degree of fairness in participation in higher education. This study's results demonstrate the social embeddedness of social justice in higher education in different economic and political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article synthesizes ideas from the capability approach, the embeddedness approach, and Nancy Fraser's three-dimensional scale of justice and develops a theoretical framework for understanding subjective well-being (SWB) as a positive functioning. It also proposes an instrument for measuring SWB and its relationship with participation in non-formal adult education. Using data from the European Social Survey, carried out in 2012, for 24 European countries and applying multilevel linear models for the analysis, the study finds evidence for a positive association between participation in non-formal adult education and SWB. The results show that differences in the SWB among people who have participated in non-formal adult education and those who have not are higher for those who have no higher education and are unemployed than for those who have higher education and paid work. This study also reveals that when people live in countries with better economic and democratic development and a more individualistic culture, the differences in their SWB by participating in non-formal adult education are smaller than when they live in countries with worse economic and democratic development and a more collectivistic culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]