The six articles in this first issue comprise a critical discourse about theories, practices, and research with the intent of realizing the potential of adult learning to bring about social change. "Adult Education and Empowerment for Individual and Community Development" (Jack Mezirow) outlines and updates the author's transformation…

During the fiscal year 1992-1993, the Fort Collins Public Library (Colorado) conducted a project that involved the recruitment of tutors and adult learners, public awareness, training, and collection development. The project served a community of over 200,000 people, and had a target population of the local minority population, with an emphasis on…

A common pattern in all studies of adult learning is that informal learning seems to be a very normal, very natural human activity. A 30-year old study and the 1998 Livingstone study show parallel findings. One of the most important findings is that about 90 percent of people had done some sort of intentional learning in the last year. The 10…

This document contains three papers on action learning. "Action Learning: Case Studies of Most Valued Learning and Application" (Suzanne D. Butterfield) reports on a qualitative study in which longitudinal data was collected from document analysis and first-line consulting managers who had participated in action learning. The study…

A research project studied in depth four organizations using organizational learning approaches to embed continuous learning within actual work processes. The most sustainable benefits, in terms of both individual and organizational needs, tended to result from "action" or "situated" learning that is informal and accrues…

Although evidence for the existence of multiple careers is limited, the literature of career development, training, and human resource development has predicted that individuals will have many careers as well as jobs across the lifespan, and small-scale studies and trend analysis suggest that individuals may need to plan and prepare for different…

Adult participation in learning in England and across the nations of the United Kingdom was examined in 2002, and the survey findings were compared to those of earlier surveys. Overall, 42% of the 4,896 people interviewed in the weighted sample survey of adults aged 17 and over reported having engaged in learning in the past 3 years. For the first…

The linguistic behavior of individuals and people in the official literature on lifelong learning (LL) was examined and interpreted in light of the theories of individualization in late modern culture and society, particularly the theories of Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens. The analysis was performed to shed light on that literature's ideological…

The size and scope of online usage in Australia's vocational education and training sector were examined in a four-stage study that included the numerous data collection activities, including the following: a literature review; interviews with 85 institutes; interviews with 10 training organizations and 20 organizations using online learning;…

The quality of communication linkages between farmers and the agricultural agencies responsible for diffusion of innovations in the South West Province of Cameroon was examined in a study of all 25 researchers and 150 extension agents in the province and 385 farmers who were randomly selected from the province's 3,000 farmers. Data were collected…

Current practice in postliteracy (PL) instruction was reviewed. In all cases, PL programs were considered programs of further learning. Some PL programs were concentrating on further developing literacy skills, whereas others were concentrating on skill training, group formation, or further education based on nonformal curricula. Although adult…

These four papers are from a symposium on human resource development (HRD) in the United Kingdom. "HRD and Psychological Contracts: A Case Study of Lifelong Learning" (Graeme Martin, Judy Pate, Jim McGoldrick) explores the influence of a lifelong learning program on employee perceptions of their psychological contracts in a longitudinal…

This workbook, one of six professional development manuals for adult education (AE) teachers, explores instructional methodologies to promote student success, the theories behind them, and their applications in the self-paced, open-entry/open-exit AE classroom. The pretest and posttest appear first. Each of the seven units begins with a list of…

This book, which is intended primarily for students and others interested in the theory and practice of adult education, contains nine essays demonstrating how traditional adult education values that are derived from philosophies of "individualism" also imply a "public" dimension that is referred to as "mutuality" and manifested not only in the…

This booklet, which was produced as a follow-up to the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education, examines monitoring adult learning for knowledge-based policymaking. The following are among the topics discussed in the booklet: (1) the need to reconstruct the reality of adult learning in consideration of the concepts of lifelong learning…