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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
A research-based foundational overview of contemporary adult education Foundations of Adult and Continuing Education distills decades of scholarship in the field to provide students and practitioners with an up-to-date practical resource. Grounded in research and focused on the unique needs of adult learners, this book provides a foundational overview of adult education, and an introduction to the organizations and practices developed to support adult learning in a variety of contexts. The discussion also includes select understandings of international adult education, policy, and methods alongside theoretical frameworks, contemporary and historical contexts, and the guiding principles of adult education today. Coverage of emerging issues includes the aging society, social justice, and more, with expert insight from leading authorities in the field. Many adult educators begin practice through the context of their own experiences in the field. This book provides the broader research, theory, and practice needed for a deeper understanding of adult education and its place in society. * Learn the key philosophical and theoretical frameworks of adult education * Survey the landscape of the field through contemporary and historical foundations * Examine key guiding understandings and practices targeted to adult learners * Delve into newer concerns including technology, globalization, and more Foundations of Adult and Continuing Education provides an expertly-led overview of the field, and an essential introduction to real-world practice.
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Seitenzahl: 835
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Audience
Purpose
Overview of the Contents
Acknowledgments
References
About the Authors
Chapter 1: What Counts as Adult Education?
Early Use of the Term
Adult Education
Defining Adult Education
Typologies of Adult Education
Social Forces Contributing to the Expansion of Adult Education Today
Some Key Questions Surrounding Adult Education
Summary
References
Chapter 2: Who Participates in Adult and Continuing Education?: Mapping the Adult Learning Landscape
Historic Background
Contemporary Understandings of Adult Participation
The Landscape Demographics of Adult Learner Participation
Relationship of Prior Formal Education on Adult Participation
Adult Participation Viewed through the Lens of Social Class
Race and Ethnicity as Factors of Influence in Relation to Participation
Adult Participation in Relation to Adult Work Roles
Marginalized Adults, the Work World, and Participation in Learning
The Future Landscape of Adult Participation and Adult and Continuing Education
Summary
References
Chapter 3: Who Are Adult Educators, and What Do They Do?
Historic Perspectives on Roles of Adult Educators
Contemporary Discussions of the Roles of Adult Educators
Metaphoric Roles of Adult Educators
Discussions of Adult Educator Roles in Specialized Contexts
Focus on Specific Adult Educator Roles
Perspectives on Professional Preparation
Current Issues Related to Adult Educator Roles
Summary
References
Chapter 4: Adult and Continuing Education as an Evolving Profession
Historical Development of the Field of Adult and Continuing Education
The Profession, the Professional Field, and Professional Identity
Professional Identity and Professionalism
Summary
References
Chapter 5: Philosophy
What Is Philosophy?
The Nature of Belief
Philosophical Orientations
Viewing Adult Education through a Philosophical Lens
Implications for Practice
Summary
References
Chapter 6: Historical Perspectives: Contexts or Contours
The Value of History
Historical Research
Adults, Adulthood, and Diffusion of Knowledge or Self‐Enrichment
Higher Education
Adult Literacy, Basic and Secondary Education
Work‐Related Learning
Learning for Social Justice or Advocacy and Development
Summary
References
Chapter 7: The Adult Learner
Definitions of an Adult Learner
Characteristics of Adult Learners Based in Andragogy
Self‐Directed, Self‐Regulated, and Learning How to Learn Efforts
Neuroscience, Neurobiology, and Cognition Research
Intelligence and Intellectual Development
Cognitive Development
Critical Reflection and Transformative Learning
Embodied and Spiritual Learning
Group and Organizational Adult Learning
Summary
References
Chapter 8: Policy and Politics
Dimensions of Public Policy
Contexts of US Adult Education Public Policy
Higher Education and Adult Education
Advocacy and the Politics of Adult Continuing Education
Policy in Organizations
Summary
References
Chapter 9: Technology and Adult Learning
Historical Perspectives
Current Adult Participation in Internet Technology
Adult and Continuing Education Providers and Their Use of Technology
Neuroscience, Technology, and Adult Learning
Effective Program Designs for Adult Learning through Technology
Summary
References
Chapter 10: The Landscape of Adult Education: Prominent Organizational Contexts of Adult Education
Work‐Related Adult Education and Learning
Postsecondary Education of Adults
Basic Education and English as a Second Language Education for Adults
Adult Education within and for the Military
Summary
References
Chapter 11: The Landscape of Adult Education: Community-Based and Community Action Contexts of Adult Education
Adults Learning within the Community
Adult Education by and for the Community
Adult Education for Societal Change
Summary
References
Chapter 12: Changing Boundaries of Adult and Continuing Education
Trends and Issues
Summary
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 1
TABLE 1.1 PERSONS OBTAINING LEGAL PERMANENT RESIDENT STATUS BY REGION AND SELECTED COUNTRY OF LAST RESIDENCE: FISCAL YEARS 2000–2010
Chapter 2
TABLE 2.1 TYPES OF CONSTRAINTS
Chapter 3
TABLE 3.1 ADULT EDUCATOR CATEGORIES AND ROLES
TABLE 3.2 CHAPTERS ON ADULT EDUCATOR ROLES: AAACE HANDBOOKS ON ADULT AND CONTINUING EDUCATION
TABLE 3.3 EUROPEAN PROJECTS ON ADULT EDUCATOR COMPETENCIES AND PREPARATION
Chapter 11
TABLE 11.1 A CONTINUUM MODEL OF COMMUNITY‐BASED ADULT EDUCATION
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Foundations of Adult and Continuing Education
Jovita M. Ross-Gordon, Amy D. Rose, Carol E. Kasworm
Copyright © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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FIRST EDITION
PREFACE
Adult and continuing education is an important segment of the education enterprise. It creates and transforms structures, strategies, delivery systems, and policies that focus upon the effective facilitation and impact of adult learning. And it provides leadership and advocacy for those who serve adults within organizations and within our society. Adult learners come from all walks of life; adult and continuing educators reflect this diversity of place, identity, and knowledge of particular contexts, life or work roles, and specialized expertise in adult learning, program designs, and administration of learning settings.
Whether adults are engaged in self‐directed learning, in face‐to‐face learning groups, or through various learning designs offered via audio and video technology, they seek out learning for many reasons. These include the desire for improved skills, for information, and for deeper knowledge about themselves, their families, institutions, and communities. Consider the myriad of contexts for adult learning, whether through formal or nonformal educational programs offered by providers such as educational organizations, government agencies, professional associations, or workplaces; or though informal learning, either in communities or self‐directed with the aid of modern technologies and social networks—adult learning is ubiquitous. Of importance is the growing emphasis on professionalization and specialization and of adults seeking out adult learning resources and expertise to enhance innovative practices, such as participation in continuing medical education, military professional development, or creative exploration of uses of technology for teaching adults in online environments. Adult learners are an important and significant segment of the learning society.
For you as the reader, this text provides an exploration of this world of adult learners, the profession of adult and continuing education, and the broader social contexts of adult learning. Key insights and updated theory and research, as well as the continuing dilemmas faced by adult and continuing educators, are considered. The book will acquaint you with the historic foundations of more than one hundred years ago in the United States, when professional educators gathered together to form the first professional organization committed to serving fellow adult educators and adult learners. It will also introduce you to key resources of the field of adult and continuing education, beginning with the first edited handbook volume, the 1934 Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education (Rowden, 1934) and subsequent handbooks, as well as the first foundations text coauthored by Merriam and Darkenwald (Darkenwald & Merriam, 1982) approximately thirty‐five years ago. And it builds upon the more recent updated Merriam and Brockett introductory editions of The Profession and Practice of Adult Education (Merriam & Brockett, 1997, 2007).
This current text represents a contemporary overview of the adult and continuing education profession. It offers baseline descriptions of key aspects of the knowledge of the field and, we hope, offers encouragement to new entrants into the field to focus upon best practices and future pursuits in professional development. Whether you are committed to serving adults in communities, in the workplace, in educational organizations, or through other formal and nonformal settings, your work can be enhanced and nurtured through a broad understanding of the development and the current status of the field.
Audience
This book is designed to be a foundational text for beginning graduate students, primarily at the master's level, as well as for professionals engaged in practice in the field. Because adult education is a field that does not require any specified credential or license, the majority of beginning professionals and graduate students have a limited understanding of the breadth of adult and continuing education. They typically are grounded in their own context of practice and specific adult learner group. And they typically possess a limited awareness of the broader field of adult learners as well as of research, theory, and practice in adult and continuing education. Therefore, a foundations text serves a crucial need in the field—of acquainting practitioners and emerging scholars alike with the historical and contemporary context of the field and its place in society. Our aim is to provide an up‐to‐date compendium of current understandings for practitioners and also to provide assistance in understanding for those professionals and practitioners who work with adult learners outside of traditional adult and continuing education contexts. This text may also have potential value for practitioners and students in other countries who desire to understand the current status of American adult and continuing education.
Purpose
This book offers an overview of the field, delineating key features of adult education and adult learning in the contemporary United States. Our aim is to provide an introduction to the guiding understandings of the practices and contexts of adult learning. In addition, we have interwoven contemporary concerns of social justice, cultural diversity, technology, and the aging society within key facets of adult and continuing education.
Overview of the Contents
The Foundations of Adult and Continuing Education provides an introduction to the major areas of theory, research, and practice of the field of adult and continuing education. It offers a descriptive landscape of the field, the history and contemporary practices of adult and continuing education, as well as highlights the increased challenges facing adult learners and the profession. This text is presented in three major sections. The first four chapters of the text define contemporary understandings of the field of adult education. The next four chapters consider the foundations of the field, and the final four chapters focus upon the contexts of adult and continuing education.
Examining the scope of the field, chapter 1 considers how conceptions of adult education have evolved over time, as well as the typologies of purposes, forms, and providers of adult education. It explicates key social forces that have contributed to the expansiveness of adult education in today's world, including technological expansion, demographic shifts, and globalization. Last, it explores what constitutes knowledge and adult learning, as well as relationships between adult education and other parts of the world of education. Chapter 2 considers key societal life contexts affecting the field of adult and continuing education. Through the lens of adult participation in adult and continuing learning, this chapter explores adult involvement in formal, nonformal, and informal learning. In addition, it discusses a contemporary model of adult access and participation based in the constraints of the policies and practices affecting adult participation in adult and continuing education.
What are the key roles for adult and continuing educators? Chapter 3 examines these key roles, both as categorized in the past, beginning with Houle's oft‐cited pyramid of adult educators, and as reflected in more contemporary literature of the field. The chapter highlights those roles that have remained prominent over time, such as teaching and developing programs for adults, and roles that have become more prominent in contemporary society, such as coaching and designing media. The chapter also shares metaphors that have been used to characterize the work of adult educators, along with recommendations for the preparation and professional development of adult educators. Chapter 4 examines the diverse and evolving understandings of the profession and the practice worlds of adult and continuing education. Providing an historical overview of the development of the field and profession of adult and continuing education, it considers the context of its early beginnings in relation to today's specialized boundaries of practice. It also explores the tensions of valuing specialization while also desiring a unified voice and presence for adult and continuing education. The second part of chapter 4 considers the nature of professions in our current society and the broader notions of the professional field and of professional identity for adult and continuing educators.
Chapters 5 through 8 examine the foundations of the field, including philosophy, history, the basic understandings of the adult learner, and the growing importance of policy. Chapter 5 explores varying philosophical approaches to adult education. It begins with the myriad philosophical approaches and premises that pervade the field. It then considers the ways that adult education is unique and the ways that philosophical arguments define the adult and the purposes of adult education. Finally, ethical issues related to the practice and research of adult and continuing education are examined.
Chapter 6 considers the historical foundations of the field. Offering a chronological approach, it focuses upon historic organizations, policies, and groups through thematic events. Additionally, this chapter examines the uses of adult education for social change; the ways it has been used to resolve social conflict; the varying adult education efforts for cultural maintenance through diffusion, and the varying ways education has been used in the workplace.
At the heart of adult and continuing education is its focus upon the adult learner. Chapter 7 considers both the historic and current understandings of andragogy, as well as contemporary understandings of cognition, intelligence, cognitive development, neuroscience, and emotions. It explores the complexity of adult learning and various influences on the adult learning process. Additional exploration of critical reflection, transformative learning, and embodied learning as well as group and organizational learning are considered.
Chapter 8 discusses the interplay among policy, politics, and adult education. In particular, it examines the various and complex federal legislative initiatives in the United States, how they are implemented, and how key issues emerge from this interplay between policies and politics. Because policy is a strong component of the international discussion on adult education, ways that policies are instituted and implemented in other areas of the world are explored. Our aim is to interpret the ways that political imperatives and funding exigencies have driven policy decisions on the national, state, local, and institutional levels.
The last four chapters in the text consider the landscape of formal, nonformal, and informal adult education contexts, as well as the context of technology in adult learning environments. Chapter 9 examines five major perspectives concerning adult learning and technology, including exploration of historic perspectives and current adult participation in technology. Key providers and their usage of technology are discussed, as well as major elements in designing effective adult learning programs through technology. Last, recent research on neuroscience, its relation to technology use, and its potential influences on adult learning are considered.
Chapter 10 explores prominent organizational contexts of adult and continuing education. The first discussion centers on work‐related learning within the contexts of both human resource development (HRD) and continuing professional education (CPE). The second discussion focuses upon an examination of adult higher education in terms of both functions and features of community colleges and responses of four‐year universities to adult and nontraditional students. Third, adult basic and secondary education programs, including English as a Second Language (ESL) programs, are examined as important contexts. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the organizational contexts of military education.
Chapter 11 considers community‐based and community action contexts of adult and continuing education. This chapter scrutinizes adult learning through traditional and evolving community‐based providers of nonformal and informal adult education, as well as community‐based adult education as a vehicle for community development. Also considered in the chapter is adult education for social change as a part of contemporary social movements focusing on human rights struggles.
The final chapter, chapter 12, examines the changing boundaries of adult and continuing education. It offers a final discussion of some of the important trends and changes found in adult continuing education today.
Acknowledgments
This book could not have been written without the contributions of previous textbooks and their authors. First and foremost we acknowledge the work of Sharan Merriam, Ralph Brockett, and Gordon Darkenwald. It has been our privilege to continue in the traditions of our predecessors. We trust that we have honored their work by developing this volume and hope that it will be of value to those who use it to inform their practice. In addition, we thank Sharan Merriam for inviting us to undertake this project and David Brightman for his early support. We also thank Alison Knowles at Wiley for her patience and consistent support throughout this project.
We are also very appreciative of the following colleagues who offered invaluable feedback in the development of these chapters: Chad Hoggan, Kathy Lohr, Gary Dean, Linda O'Neill, and Tom Nesbit. In particular, we thank Kayon Murray‐Johnson, Renée Jones, and Merih Ug˘urel Kamisli, who provided assistance with literature searches and toiled over reference checks. Finally, we thank our families for understanding the exigencies of this project and for putting up with our engagement in the project for way too long.
References
Darkenwald, G., & Merriam, S. (1982).
Adult education: Foundations of practice
. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Merriam, S., & Brockett, R. (1997).
The profession and practice of adult education: An introduction
(1st ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass.
Merriam, S., & Brockett, R. (2007).
The profession and practice of adult education: An introduction
(Updated ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass.
Rowden, D. (Ed.). (1934).
Handbook of adult education in the United States 1934
.
New York, NY: American Association for Adult Education.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jovita M. Ross‐Gordon is professor of adult education at Texas State University; she taught previously at Penn State University, St. Edward's University, and the University of South Florida. Her research centers on teaching and learning of adults, focusing particularly on adult learners in higher education and on issues of diversity and equity. Dr. Ross‐Gordon is a coeditor of the Handbook of Adult Continuing Education: 2010 Edition; coauthor of SuperVision and Instructional Leadership: A Developmental Approach; and author or coauthor of numerous articles and book chapters. She serves as coeditor‐in‐chief for the New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education series and has served as the coeditor of Adult Education Quarterly. Dr. Ross‐Gordon's positions of leadership in adult and continuing education have included serving as chair of the Commission of Professors of Adult Education; on publications, nominations, and Okes Research Award Committees of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education; and on steering and host committees of the Adult Education Research Conference. Her recent honors include the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame; the Career Achievement Award of the Commission of Professors of Adult Education, and the Distinguished Alumni—Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Georgia College of Education.
Amy D. Rose is emeritus professor of adult education at Northern Illinois University, where she taught for more than twenty‐five years. She has written and presented on issues related to history and policy analyses in the areas of literacy and adults in higher education. In her research, she focuses primarily on historical and qualitative methodologies, although recently she has been part of a team analyzing Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data. In addition she has served as a president of the American Association of Adult and Continuing Education; a coeditor of the Adult Education Quarterly; and a coeditor of the Handbook of Adult Continuing Education: 2010 Edition. She has also served on the board of the American Education Research Association—Adult Literacy and Adult Education (ALAE) Special Interest Group (SIG) as secretary/treasurer and member at large. She is currently a coeditor of the Journal of Research and Practice for Adult Literacy, Secondary, and Basic Education.
Carol E. Kasworm is the W. Dallas Herring Emerita Professor of Adult and Community College Education at North Carolina State University. Dr. Kasworm's career has included leadership, administration, instructional, and program development efforts in faculty and academic administrative roles at North Carolina State University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Houston‐Clear Lake, University of Tennessee‐Knoxville, University of South Florida, and Michigan State University. Her main research and writing interests have focused upon the adult undergraduate experience, including the nature of learning engagement, the situated influences of varied higher education contexts on adult learners, and the role of adult higher education in a lifelong learning society. Her scholarship includes five books, thirty‐two book chapters, eighty‐five refereed and nonrefereed journal articles and proceedings, as well as numerous papers and presentations. She has served on a number of national and international editorial boards for the adult education profession. Honors have included International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame; Career Achievement Award from the Commission of Professors of Adult Education, American Association of Adult and Continuing Education; and Distinguished Professional Achievement Alumni Award from the College of Education, University of Georgia.
Chapter 1WHAT COUNTS AS ADULT EDUCATION?
In all likelihood you come to this text with certain notions of adult education, informed by your own experience as a learner and perhaps as a professional, as well as what you have heard about adult education from relatives, friends, associates, and the media. If you have previously enrolled in a course on adult education, you are among the relatively few adult educators for whom this is true. In this chapter we share definitions of adult education as they have evolved over time, as well as other terms that have been used to refer to adult education activities. You are likely to encounter conceptions of adult education that do not correspond to your current understandings of the field; they may even challenge your conceptions of the field. If you are reading and discussing this text with others, you may not all arrive at exactly the same place. But we hope your understanding of the field will be affected by the information shared here.
Early Use of the Term Adult Education
Certainly forms of adult education have existed since the beginning of time in all societies and cultures. As authors of this survey text serving the professional field, our interest is in sharing the evolution of the concept of adult education as the field of study evolved. Our primary emphasis is on that evolution as it occurred in North America, although parallel developments elsewhere will in some cases be noted. Stubblefield and Rachal (1992) described this evolution in their article titled “On the Origins of the Term and Meanings of Adult Education in the US.” They maintained that though the origin of the term adult education to describe the field of practice is frequently traced to the 1919 Report by the British Ministry of Reconstruction and said not to have come into usage in the United States until 1924 with the birth of the American Association for Adult Education, the term was used by at least five Americans prior to this time. They credited its original usage to Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian in 1875, when he used the term to describe how local scientific societies could carry on the tradition of amateur scientists. Herbert Baxter Adams is said to have used the term next in 1891, in an article referring to the university extension movement. Henry Marcus Leipziger is reported to have used the term at least twice in 1898, first in addressing a conference of librarians and later in addressing the American Social Science Association. Finally, Bradford Knapp is reported as using the term in 1916 to refer to the work of his father, Seaman Knapp, as a farm demonstrator. Thus, Stubblefield and Rachal (1992) concluded, “By the 1900s several people had used the phrase to describe particular activities, and a few were beginning to see the emerging term as a broader rubric for different types of education for adults” (p. 112). The diverse mix of activities referred to as adult education by this point in time can be seen as indicative of the state of the field to this day.
It is important to note, however, that the term adult education was not immediately adopted as the best term to describe the range of activities we now think of as adult education. Stubblefield and Rachal (1992) discussed three other terms that vied for acceptance: home education, popular education, and educational extension. They also noted that Melvil Dewey (of library cataloguing fame) introduced the term home education at a conference to refer to the education of adults outside of schools and colleges, and Herbert Baxter Adams, who also referred to popular education, wrote a monograph in 1901 about educational extension. They noted that by 1904 the term extension acquired such acceptance that it was used as a label for one of three sections of the History of Education in the United States written by Edwin Grant Dexter. Yet, they contended that the growing prominence of the term adult education during the second decade of the twentieth century was apparent when an entire section, consisting of fifteen articles, was devoted to “The Extension of Opportunities for Adult Education” in the prestigious Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences.
Defining Adult Education
Defining the expansive field of adult education had already become a challenge by the time the first professional organization in the United States focusing broadly on adult education, the American Association for Adult Education (AAAE), was established in 1926. There is still not a universally accepted definition today. Nonetheless, certain trends can be observed in how the term has been defined over time, with common themes influenced by developments in society as well as within the field itself.
Eduard Lindeman, writing at the time that AAAE was founded (Lindeman, 1926), painted a vision of adult education with a broad stroke, noting “The whole of life is learning, therefore education can have no endings. This new venture is called adult education—not because it is confined to adults but because adulthood, maturity, defines its limits” (p. 6). In contrast to the prominence of work‐related adult education in many contexts today, he added:
Secondly, education conceived as a process coterminous with life revolves about non‐vocational ideals. In this world of specialists every one will of necessity learn to do his work, and if education of any variety can assist in this and in the further end of helping the worker to see the meaning of his labour, it will be education of a high order. But adult education more accurately defined begins where vocational education leaves off. Its purpose is to put meaning into the whole of life. (p. 7)
Equally broad in scope, but in seeming contrast to Lindeman's notion of adult education as embedded throughout all aspects of life, Bryson (1936), as cited by Hallenbeck (Hallenbeck et al., 1955), suggested that “adult education includes all the activities with an educational purpose that are carried out by people outside the ordinary business of life” (p. 3). Hallenbeck embraced Bryson's broad definition, and added the interpretation that adult education encompassed three key elements: (1) it is purposeful and orderly, (2) participation is voluntary, and (3) participation in adult education is supplementary to adults' main responsibilities. In the same article, Sheats (Hallenbeck et al., 1955) stressed that adult education includes at least three elements: purpose, planned study, and organization. These definitions share a common emphasis on orderliness that was to become even more apparent as the field became increasingly professionalized. Furthering this trend, a frequently cited definition offered by Verner (1964) preserved the emphasis on planning reflected in the definitions of Sheats and Hallenbeck, adding that adult education is supplementary to the main business of adult lives as articulated by Hallenbeck, but also stressing the role of an educational agent as the person responsible for organizing adult education. He defined adult education as
a relationship between an educational agent and a learner in which the agent selects, arranges, and continuously directs a sequence of progressive tasks that provide systematic experiences to achieve learning for people who participation in such activities is subsidiary and supplemental to a primary productive role in society. (p. 32)
Yet, it should not be assumed that the increasing emphasis on planning and organization found in definitions offered during the period of heightened professionalism during the 1950s and 1960s was universal among spokespersons of the field. For instance, in the compendium of nine invited brief essays on adult education in a 1955 issue of Adult Education, the journal of the Adult Education Association of the U.S.A. (AEA/USA), which featured the definitions offered by Hallenbeck and Sheats, not all the perspectives shared emphasized orderliness as a common feature of adult education, or even the unique “adultness” of adult education. R. J. Blakely's essay took the position that “since growth is the essence of education, no useful distinction can be made between what is educational for the physically immature and the mature” (Hallenbeck et al., 1955, p. 142). He added, “So I would take the adjective off ‘adult education’ and preserve the unqualified noun education for the process of deliberately educed growth, regardless of the age of the person” (p. 143). This definition reflects the persistent diversity of perspectives within the field. This “big tent” approach within the profession is praised by many as a strength of the field, although others interpret this as a failure to find unity in the field.
Continuing our time‐travel analysis of the evolution of definitions of the adult education, at least two definitions offered during the 1970s deserve mention. Houle's (1972) brief and seemingly simple definition stresses the process of adult education, whatever form it takes:
Adult education is the process by which men and women (alone, in groups, or in institutional settings) seek to improve themselves or their society by increasing their skill, knowledge, or sensitiveness; or it is any process by which individuals, group, or institutions try to help men and women improve in those ways. (p. 32)
This definition seems to suggest a reversal of the prominent trend in definitions published in the 1950s and 1960s toward a narrower notion of adult education, emphasizing planning activities supervised by “educational agents” and institutions. It emphasizes the process of improvement experienced by adults, whether those processes are guided by institutions, groups, or individuals acting alone. Notably, this mention of individuals planning their own learning marks the emergence within the field of an interest in the learning of adults as a means of self‐education (Knowles, 1975). Continuing in the direction of more expansive definitions a few years later, Knowles (1980) built on Houle's description of adult education as process, but delineated two other meanings: adult education as a set of organized activities, and adult education as a movement or field of social practice.
Authors of the two most recent foundational texts focusing on adult education in the United States also offered definitions. In Adult Education: Foundations of Practice, Darkenwald and Merriam (1982) offer the following definition:
Adult education is a process whereby persons whose major social roles are characteristic of adult status undertake systematic and sustained learned activities for the purpose of bringing about changes in knowledge, attitudes, values, or skills. (p. 9)
This definition can be seen as inclusive regarding the settings and contexts for adult education and leaves the door open for inclusion of self‐educative activities. Yet the definition is bounded by the expectation that adult learning must be systematic and sustained to be identified as adult education. Unlike many previous definitions, and in contrast to the definition proffered by Blakely in 1955, it is also explicit about who is considered an adult: Those whose social roles are characteristic of adult status (Hallenbeck et al., 1955). It would seem to exclude the full‐time college student, and might inadvertently exclude other adults not currently engaged in expected adult social roles, whether by choice or circumstance, such as adults who have difficulty becoming employed because of a disability (Gerber, 2012; Shier, Graham, & Jones, 2009) or adults who return home to live with their parents during a weak economy. Merriam seems to have addressed this concern in the definition offered in the foundations text The Profession and Practice of Adult Education that she coauthored with Brockett several years later (Merriam & Brockett, 1997, 2007). There, adult education is defined as “activities intentionally designed for the purpose of bringing about learning among those whose age, social roles, or self‐perception, define them as adults” (2007, p. 8). The comparison of these two definitions by the same author illustrates how the concept of adult has evolved over time as the field evolves along with the social context in which it exists.
Lest you leave your reading of this chapter in dismay at the number of definitions that have been offered for adult education, consider the following quote offered by Courtney in a chapter in the 1989 Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education:
A facile definition may tell us, not that we have become more skilled at the practice of definition, but that we have socially, politically, and philosophically so confined what adult education is allowed to be that definition is made easy. (1989, p. 23)
In this same chapter, Courtney makes the point that the business of defining adult education has been more an ideological than a conceptual activity. He continues:
It is possible to argue that while the many definitions of adult education often appear as if from nowhere, and bereft of personal, historical, and cultural contexts, they are essentially products of these contexts, these value systems, each of which embodies its own ideological tension and compromise. (1989, pp. 23–24)
As you continue your reading of this text, you will see that adult education is a field that has wrestled with various ideological tensions over the decades since its emergence as a professional field. Still, despite the urging of many that the field might attain greater unity and higher professional status if only those who lead the field would agree on its definitions, purposes, settings, and qualifications for entry, the field of adult education continues in its “big tent” tradition, welcoming all who seek to support the learning of adults as individuals as well as in groups, organizations, and communities. If you are reading this text you may have already found your place in the tent, but as you read on, you will become better acquainted with other sectors of the tent. If you have not found your place in the tent yet, we hope your reading here will help you find that place.
Typologies of Adult Education
Another approach to explaining the scope of adult education has been through the development of various typologies, including those that focus on forms (Coombs & Ahmed, 1974), purposes (Rachal, 1988), functions (Verner, 1964), providers (La Belle, 1982; Merriam & Brockett, 1997; Schroeder, 1970); formats (Houle, 1972); and funding sources (Apps, 1989). In several cases these typologies evolved over time, much as did the terminology used to refer to the core activities of the field.
Forms of Adult Education
Although not unique to the education of adults, three forms of adult education are frequently described in the literature of the field: formal, nonformal, and informal. Most frequently cited in describing these concepts are Coombs and Ahmed (1974). They began their discussion with a focus on informal education, remarking “education can no longer be viewed as a time‐bound, place‐bound process confined to school and measured by years of exposure” (p. 8). They continued:
Informal education as used here is the lifelong process by which every person acquires and accumulates knowledge, skills, attitudes, and insights from daily experiences and exposure to the environment—at home, at work, at play; from the example and attitudes of family and friends; from travel, reading newspapers and books; or by listening to the radio or viewing films or television. Generally informal education is unorganized and often unsystematic; yet it accounts for the great bulk of any person's total lifetime learning—including that of even a highly “schooled” person. (p. 8)
In contrast, they defined formal education as “the highly institutionalized, chronologically graded, and hierarchically structured ‘education system,’ spanning lower primary school and the upper reaches of the university,” while they defined nonformal education as “organized systematic, education activity carried on outside the framework of the formal system to provide selected types of learning to particular subgroups in the population, adults as well as children” (p. 8). Among the examples they shared for nonformal adult education were agricultural extension programs, adult literacy programs, occupational skill training outside the formal system, and various community programs of instruction in health, nutrition, and family planning. Additional examples include correctional education, military training and development, museum education, and many faith‐based adult education programs. They noted that formal and nonformal education have similarly been organized to augment and improve upon informal learning. You may note that their definition of informal education extends beyond the scope of even some of the more inclusive definitions of adult education shared previously, as it seems to encompass naturally occurring learning that would be more accurately described as incidental than intentional. In discussing community‐based learning and civic engagement, Mundel and Schugurensky (2008) used the terms formal education, nonformal education, and informal learning rather than informal education. Their description of informal learning, however, can be seen as including intentional learning that is self‐directed:
Informal learning is learning conceptualized as a residual category for all other learning activities, to include self‐directed learning, incidental learning, and socialization (Schugurensky, 2000). Self‐directed learning is intentional and conscious; incidental learning is unintentional but conscious; learning acquired through socialization (usually values, attitudes, and dispositions) is often unintentional and unconscious. (Mundel & Schugurensky, 2008, p. 50)
La Belle (1982) questioned Coombs and Ahmed's (1974) presentation of nonformal, informal, and formal as discrete modes of learning and suggested they should instead be viewed as predominant modes of learning. From this perspective, he argued these three forms of education may exist simultaneously, whether in conflict or simultaneously. He elaborated:
In a formal education situation, for example, the classroom reflects not only the stated curriculum of the teacher and the school but also the more subtle informal learning associated with how the classroom is organized, the rules by which it operates, and the knowledge transmitted among peers. (p. 162)
Although these examples seem to lean more toward the K–12 realm of education, his idea of co‐occurring forms of education applies well to discussions appearing in adult education literature of contexts such as museum or environmental education (Dudzinska‐Przemitski & Grenier, 2008; Heimlich & Horr, 2010).
Purposes of Adult Education
Though not presented as a typology of purposes, the organization of a section titled “We Need Adult Education,” appearing in Adult Education in Action edited by Mary Ely in 1936 (Ely, 1936), revealed some of the many purposes adult education was seen as serving at that time. The table of contents for this section included the following titles:
To Educate the Whole Man
To Keep Our Minds Open
To Base Our Judgements on Facts
To Meet the Challenge of Free Choice
To Keep Abreast of New Knowledge
To Be Wisely Destructive
To Return to Creative Endeavor
To Prepare for New Occupations
To Restore Unity to Life
To Insure Social Stability
To Direct Social Change
To Better Our Social Order
To Open a New Frontier
To Liberalize the College Curriculum
To Improve Teachers and Teaching
To Attain True Security
To Enlarge Our Horizons
To See the View
According to Rachal (1988), one of the earliest intentional efforts to describe the purposes of adult education was made in the same year by Lyman Bryson, who classified adult education purposes as remedial, occupational, political, liberal (concerned with increasing the breadth of understanding through the humanities), and relational (aimed at achieving an understanding of ourselves in relation to others). Rachal noted that Grattan, writing in 1955, modified Bryson's typology, preserving Bryson's liberal category (adding the social and natural sciences to the humanities), relabeling occupational as vocational, combining Bryson's political, relational, and remedial categories into a new category of informational, and adding a new category of recreational. Writing thirty years later, Rachal (1988) offered his own typology, depicted as a tree, with its roots representing the various settings in which adult education exits and the limbs representing the purposes. He preserved the liberal and occupational categories included by Bryson and Grattan, noting that in the 1980s occupational purposes were clearly dominant in reports of adult education participation. He explained that his third category—self‐help—was similar to Bryson's political and relational as well as Grattan's recreational and informational. It encompassed learning for fun and well as learning how‐to. He offered the following definition for this category: “Self‐help refers to the myriad of learning activities where individuals seek knowledge, information, skill, or recreational learning in order to better adjust to their environments especially outside of the work environment” (p. 22). As his fourth category he renamed the term remedial as compensatory, and described it as including adult basic and secondary education. He added a new category for his fifth category, referred to as scholastic. He used this term to refer to graduate study in adult education.
It is possible to compare Rachal's typology and the categories used to classify adult participation by the National Center on Education Statistics in the National Household Education Surveys (NHES) conducted by that organization between 1991 and 2005; doing so allows ascertaining the most common categories of participation in adult education (Snyder & Dillow, 2011). For the purpose of the NHES surveys, adults are defined as people age seventeen and over who are not enrolled in high school; adult education is defined as all education activities involving an instructor, excluding full‐time enrollment in postsecondary education. Two response categories in the NHES survey related to the occupational category of Rachal (1988). Most notably, in 2005 participation in career or job‐related adult education, as well as apprenticeship education, was reported by 28.2 percent of respondents, constituting the most frequently reported type of adult education activity. As the next most common, 21 percent of respondents to the 2005 survey reported participation in adult education related to personal interest, corresponding most closely to Rachal's category of self‐help. Similar to Rachal's category of compensatory adult education, 1.3 percent of adults reported participating in Basic Skills/GED classes in the 2005 survey; less than 1 percent reported participating in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, sometimes organized with GED classes, although many individuals taking ESL classes have previously completed secondary and even postsecondary level education in their home country. Five percent of adults participated in the seventh category of participation in the NHES surveys: part‐time postsecondary education. There is not an equivalent category in Rachal's typology or those of Bryson or Grattan, although some of the adults participating in postsecondary are pursuing majors that align with Rachal's liberal adult education category (that is, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences).
Providers of Adult Education
The most frequently referenced typologies of adult education are those focusing on providers. According to Stubblefield and Rachal (1992), Melvil Dewey offered the first typology of adult education in 1904, listing five types of adult education: libraries, museums, study clubs, extension teaching, and tests and credentials. Writing in 1955 (Hallenbeck et al., 1955), Sheats referred to organizations with adult education as their primary purpose (public adult schools, university extension divisions, libraries, museums, and agricultural extension) and those with adult education as a secondary purpose to achieve other institutional goals (labor unions, business organizations, and voluntary associations). Not many years later, Knowles (1964), as cited in Rachal (1988), continued along similar lines, suggesting four categories. These were Type I: organizations concerned initially with education or youth, with education of adults as a secondary (for example, public schools and colleges); Type II: agencies devoted more or less exclusively to adult education (for example, agricultural extension programs and proprietary schools); Type III: agencies serving both educational and noneducational community needs (for example, health care agencies); and Type IV: agencies that offer adult education for their own members to further other organizational goals (for example, churches, government, and business and industry). A typology proposed by Schroeder (1970) has been more frequently cited than that developed by Knowles in 1964—that typology is essentially the same as the one proposed by Knowles, except for the reversal of Types I and Type II. This sequence more logically orders the types of institutions in descending order in terms of centrality of the adult education function. Darkenwald and Merriam (cited in Merriam & Brockett, 2007) further refined the typology developed by Schroeder (1970), giving the four types labels that are clearer and more descriptive. The four agency types they identified were (1) independent adult education institutions, such as the Highlander Center for Research and Education, which, as the title suggests, exist for the primary purpose of providing learning opportunities for adults; (2) educational institutions such as public schools and postsecondary institutions that exist primarily to provide education for children and youth but also serve adult learners; (3) quasi‐educational organizations such as museums and libraries, where education is viewed as an allied function to the organizations' primary mission; and (4) noneducational organizations for which adult education is provided as a means of achieving the organizational mission, as true in business and industry, the armed forces, and correctional institutions.
Social Forces Contributing to the Expansion of Adult Education Today
However adult education is defined or categorized, wherever one looks, adults are engaged in adult education today. According to the National Household Education Survey (Snyder & Dillow, 2011) referenced earlier in this chapter, the overall rate of participation in adult education in the United States increased from 33 percent in 1991 to 44 percent in 2005. In 1984 the National Center of Education Statistics reported that only 13.5 percent of adults participated in adult education (Snyder & Hoffman, 1991, p. 319). Several forces have contributed to the increase in adult education both in the United States and worldwide, including demographic changes, the continuing expansion of technology, globalization, and changes in the nature of work and the economy. These forces are all interrelated, making it challenging to identify the best point to begin this discussion.
Technological Expansion and the Emergence of the Knowledge Society
One of the key developments of the late twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries that has spurred the growth of adult education, both directly and indirectly, is the rapid expansion of technology. Although not writing specifically about adult education, Spring (2008) identified at least three ways in which technology has influenced the transformation of education. He noted, (1) education is needed to enable learners to continually adapt to a work world where technological innovations are occurring almost daily, (2) information technology in turn makes it easier for learners to access the world's knowledge, and (3) technological advances affect the educational process. Spring observed that technology can be seen as a major driver in the emergence of the postindustrial economy first discussed in the 1970s. Bennett and Bell (2010) pointed to the evolution of terms, including information economy, information society, knowledge economy, and finally knowledge society, that have been used to describe the continuing changes in the nature of work and the economy. They maintained, “Codifiable information, primarily accessible to information technology specialists, is but one form of knowledge alongside intuition, judgment, and expertise” (p. 413). Yet, an observer in the second decade of the twenty‐first century need not look far to see how technical innovation continues to rapidly transform the ways in which adults work and learn. Citing the growing use of mobile technologies (also called m‐technology) in business and health organizations as well as the lack of scholarship literature on m‐learning, Peters (2007) conducted a study seeking to discover how employers and educators reported using mobile technologies for work and learning. Separate interview protocols were used to collect data from four manufacturers/software developers, six businesses of varying sizes, and nineteen education providers representing high schools, universities, private training, industry skills council, and Technical and Further Education (TAFE); the largest public provider of vocational education and training in Australia. Businesses were asked about the use of m‐technologies for standing business and training, although educators were asked both if they used m‐technologies and if they discussed their use with students. Business interviews suggested m‐technologies were used for
Flexibility, speed, and efficient networking around the world
Provision of efficient customer service
A more efficient work environment with less paperwork
More efficient training
Improved storage and backup of data
Saving time and money
Creating greater responsiveness to change. (Peters, 2007, para 36)
Approximately one‐half of the educators and trainers interviewed for the study reported discussing m‐technologies with their students. Relatively little integration of m‐technology into teaching or learning was reported, with cost (of ensuring student access to employed technologies) and underdeveloped infrastructure support cited as barriers.
As further evidence of how m‐technologies have influenced the work environment, Felstead and Jewson (2012) examined European data documenting shifts in locations of work. They examined data on work outside of conventional workplaces (defined as offices, factories, and school), including work at home, work on the move, and work in collective offices, with an interest in identifying the skills needed for each of the nonconventional work environments. They ascertained that those who work at home (1) must establish spatial and temporal regimes for work and interaction with family members, (2) must establish boundaries with the outside world (that is, participation in work‐based chat rooms and building in short breaks), and that (3) some who work at home fear being overlooked for promotion and otherwise, sometimes compensating in various ways. They defined work on the move as both work while in motion (cars, planes, and trains) and at stationary points in transportation systems. They found that workers “on the move” must develop such skills as learning how to work in proximity to strangers, learning how to minimize distractions, preparing and taking along all devices and kits (laptop, tablet, and phone), not knowing what the situation may involve, and making use of familiar stop‐offs where they know what to expect (that is, in terms of connectivity), and learning to establish “territories of the self” to limit conversations with strangers. One of the authors of the current text recently experienced a serendipitous encounter illustrating how such workers both establish and deliberately interrupt territories of the self to establish social contact when she was mistaken as a member of a local meet‐up group of remote workers who agree to work at specified times in a local coffee shop. The author had initially assumed this was a group of college students working on a team assignment for class at a nearby university. A chance conversation with a member of the meet‐up group revealed the true reason for the fluid composition of the group, as individuals rotated seats in the crowded coffee shop as they came and went through the afternoon, maintaining their territories of the self much of the time, but periodically interacting. Technology can also be seen as enhancing adult learning. Conole (2012) described five phases of technology development, with the last three including those technological media that can be easily be seen as relevant to evolving delivering systems for adult education in recent decades. The third phase was the first wave of technological media: radio and television; the fourth was the emergence of networked and Internet‐based technologies; and the fifth (and current) is referred to as cyberinfrastructure. Among the key characteristics of fifth‐generation technologies that support learning, she noted that (1) openness and sharing are key facets that encourage transfer of knowledge, (2) content can be multimodal and distributed, (3) they enable user participation; and (4) many of the tools and services enable peer critiquing. She referred to her own earlier work with Alevizou (Alevizou, Conole, & Galley, 2010) on ten types of Web 2.0 technologies, recapping the list below:
Media sharing
Media manipulation
Instant messaging
Online games and virtual worlds
Social networking
Blogging
Social bookmarking
Recommender systems
Wikis and collaborative editing tools
Syndication
Categorizing pedagogies as associative, constructivist, and situative, she noted that situative pedagogies are well supported by Web 2.0 technologies. “These include: cognitive apprenticeships, case‐based and scenario‐based learning, vicarious learning, collaborative learning, and social constructivism” (Conole, 2012, p. 223).
Globalization
According to Merriam (2010), globalization can be “conceptualized as the movement of goods, services, and information across national boundaries and as a borderless marketplace shored up by what is being called the knowledge economy” (p. 402). Spring (2008) credited the origins of the term globalization to Theodore Levitt, who used the term to describe changes in global economies affecting production, consumption, and investment. Spring explicated four different interpretive models that can be found in discussions of globalization as it applies to education: (1) World Cultures model: all cultures are viewed as slowly integrating into a single global culture. The Western school model is said to have globalized because it is viewed as the best model. (2) World Systems model sees the globe as integrated, with two major unequal zones; the core
