This text makes explicit the links between education and gerontology and the academic base for preretirement education. "Concepts of Retirement in Historical Perspective" (Joanna Walker) looks at retirement as the following: event, period, social institution, the Third Age, a life stage, productive aging, and a subject of industrial gerontology. "Models of Retirement and Educational Practice" (Walker) starts to make the links between educational concepts and practices and the changing experience of retirement. "Educational Gerontology" (Walker) focuses on the study of retirement and education. "Older Adults and Learning" (Walker) provides an overview of the older adult's learning. "Adapting and Surviving" (David James) considers basic aspects of how one learns and can help oneself and others learn to cope with, enjoy, and prosper in retirement. "Managing Change in Mid and Later Life" (Anthony Chiva) reviews how an individual's potential at birth and developmental and maintenance processes operate into retirement. "Development and Personal Growth" (Lorna Andrew) proposes that one's emotional development is the strongest lifelong influence. "The Ageing Self" (Mike Hepworth) discusses how the subjective experience of aging diverges from the experience of the aging body and the ways in which society categorizes older adults. "Being and Learning in the Late Twentieth Century" (Peter Jarvis) explores three relationships between biography and experience: congruence, disjuncture, and divergence. "Disadvantage in Later Life" (Mary Davies) addresses barriers to continuing education. "Education for an Ageing Society" (Walker) discusses the need to clarify the vision for future policy and action. "Public Education and Social Advocacy" (Walker) focuses on the challenges for research and theory and to older adults and their advocates regarding agendas for educational gerontology. The book contains 163 references and an index. (YLB)