Study of women-only training centers established by the European Social Fund shows how they can be closed communities in which differences of race, class, or sexual preference can be identified as relationships of power, privilege, and inequality. (SK)

Analysis of a government-funded project at the University of Warwick illustrates the nature, scope, and funding of continuing education research and the difficulties that arise and the processes of institutional innovation in universities. (SK)

Surveys of Access Course students and providers at British universities as well as those who inquired about them yielded 1,471 responses. Providers considered math an important qualification, but sizable numbers of students and inquirers saw math as a major barrier to their participation. (SK)

Suggests that "competence" is a component of power-knowledge practices that regulate adults through a process of self-regulation. Argues that competency-based education is a means of producing consent without using oppression or force in reproducing the social order. (SK)

Survey responses from 48% of 132 adult/continuing education tutors in the United Kingdom and follow-up interviews indicated that, despite recognition of the need for active student involvement, use of experiential methods was restricted. Many preferred the term "interactive" and thought such methods were useful occasionally but should be treated…

The nature, quality, purposes, and value of the curriculum are central issues for adult educators concerned with social transformation, equity, social justice, and democracy. There is a danger in adult education becoming professionalized and "technicized" and allied with the purposes of centralized states and multinational institutions. (SK)

Daytime adult education has emerged in Ireland in the form of voluntary, locally based groups of working class women providing education for themselves and others. A survey of 96 groups illuminated their struggles with finding suitable space, day care, and advertising. They thrive because of disenchantment with the content, scheduling, and form of…

Investigates factors in the development and implementation of two national literacy campaigns in the early 1970s, conducted by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the British Association of Settlements. Identifies the influence upon adult literacy today of issues arising in the campaigns: definition of literacy, arbitrary estimates of…

Draws on interviews with 40 women as well as radical education and feminist analysis to urge adult educators to challenge the authoritative knowledge called science in order to open it to more democratic ways of knowledge making. (SK)

A life history approach can give better understanding of adult motivation to participate in education than quantitative surveys can. Interviews with 30 adults entering higher education illustrate the technique but also raise methodological questions about this form of research. (SK)

Using a group method in a creative writing course, the facilitator ("consultant") learned about group process, writers and the writing process, and the appropriateness of the method in educational settings. (SK)

Examines relations between educational practice and learner experience/knowledge, including positivism, empiricism, identity politics, and dialog. Suggests that pedagogy that fails to examine the discursive production of experience is conservative. (SK)

A survey of enrolled students and withdrawers from a certificate program at the University of Exeter showed that this type of provision is meeting the needs of adults who have not previously benefited from higher education. (SK)

A sample of 1,000 Polish adults identified their chief life goals; most believed education played only a moderate part in achieving them. Only a tiny percentage of those wanting to improve skills actually participated in education. Collapse of the old economy and poor preparation exclude a significant portion from participating. (SK)