The first in a series of studies of lifelong learning, this paper discusses educational activities undertaken in Portugal after the fall of the dictatorship in 1974 and through 1976. Intended for educational planners and for those working in popular education, the study emphasizes original strategies and experiments, particulary those encouraging adults to take charge of their own education. Chapter I provides the historical, political, and social background of Portugal's popular education movement including educational policy that closed small schools and kept the rural population culturally isolated during the dictatorship. Chapter II describes seven diverse nonformal education experiments defined and carried through by local groups. Chapter III discusses organization and administration of adult education programs and distinctive features of the Portugese experiment: cooperation between public authorities and local popular organizations, recourse to a variety of group leaders and teachers, grants to enable these individuals to be trained, official recognition of associations for popular education, and the search for new methods of assessing the educational status of adults. Appendices include government decrees concerning organization of Associations for Popular Education. (JH)