The m ain objective of this paper is to explore the potential of the qualitative research paradigm in addressing complex topics related to identity formation and development. There has been a shift in conceptualizations of education’s purpose, with scholars arguing that the paradigm of identity formation (rather than the paradigm of preparation) should be promoted in educational contexts. This implies that education should aim to enhance personhood and facilitate the formation of personal identities in young individuals. Traditional quantitative studies, relying on statistical analyses of numerical data, are becoming less effective in providing insights into the increasingly diverse pathways of human development and the dynamic environments in which they take place. Quantification of human experience and development is encountering a growing pushback in the postmodernity. Conversely, the qualitative research paradigm offers a fresh and authentic perspective by delving into real-life biographies and encompassing the entirety of human experience. However, it is important to note that the qualitative paradigm has specific epistemological characteristics that define the scope of inquiry it generates.

The paper deals with theoretical and methodological aspects of examining the position of religion within the university context. The first section offers an overview of assumptions within three recent pieces of research on this topic. In its second section, the paper examines the possibility of applying the curriculum theory to investigating the position of religion within the higher education context of public universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The results show that, in the analysed programmes, there is still no separate subject that would, as an introductory course, familiarise students with doctrinal and ritual fundamentals of religions, as well as with the main events of their historical existence. At the same time, there are a certain number of courses that include religion into a wider discourse of a given study, treating it as a philosophical, sociological, historical or cultural phenomenon. The paper also identifies courses that, within a wider theoretical discussion, include the issue of religion, whether as a substantive or an accidental element.

The paper presents an analysis of the key processes in the field of adult education in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) referring to its socialist past and current tendencies dominantly motivated by the country’s aspiration towards accession to the European Union (EU). Any effort to offer a systematic overview of the history of adult education in BiH faces ambiguity and a lack of systematic data. Unlike other parts of the education system where historical accounts are to a certain extent preserved and subject to scholarly studies and investigations, adult education in BiH seems to be a field without a documented past. Based on critical discourse analysis, the paper intends to unravel the intricate socio-political texture that has shaped the key themes in adult education both in the country’s socialist past and its democratic present. The results of the analysis indicate several quite clear patterns: (a) the ambiguous treatment of the socialist past, from romanticising to annihilating its achievements and arrangements; (b) the rise of private institutions in adult education in the post-socialist period and the diversification of the education on offer; and (c) tensions between aspirations towards global and European trends on the one hand and insistence on localisation in terms of shaping adult education policy on the other.