Enrollments of students over 18 years old in part-time education and training programs were studied in 1981, with special emphasis on adults studying the humanities. Information is provided on: the characteristics of adult students enrolled in humanities courses, the subjects that they studied, reasons adult students studied the humanities, the sponsors of the humanities courses, who paid for the humanities courses, and how humanities students compared with other adult learners. The over 21,000 responses to the 1981 Participation in Adult Education survey were weighted to reflect the composition of the American population. Findings include the following: persons with less than 12 years of formal education took humanities courses more often than did college graduates; humanities courses represented 7.7 percent of all courses in the study; about 38 percent of all humanities courses were taken for job-related reasons; an estimated 13 percent of all Americans participated in adult education and training in 1981; and over half of all humanities courses were taken at two- and four-year colleges and one-third were taken for college credit. Appended are the questionnaire, data on courses taken by adult students, and information on the variables used in regression equations. (SW)