The Purposes of Adult Education: A Short Introduction focuses on three key dimensions of adult education — education for the economy, education for social change, and education for diversity. It explores first adult education's theoretical roots and then the many ways in which it has been successfully practiced in Canada and elsewhere.

It concludes with an overview of adult education for the twenty-first century, with special attention to the issues of distance education and computer-mediated communication. This second edition updates and expands the first edition, especially in the areas of workplace learning and with respect to the fast-moving technologies that continue to affect the content and delivery of adult education as we move forward in the twenty-first century.

Author

Bruce Spencer

Athabasca University in Alberta

1. Education for Adults

• What is the Purpose of Adult Education?

• What are the Foundations of Adult Education?

• Andragogy

• The Field of Adult Education

• Adult Education as a Movement

• Philosophies of Adult Education

• Historical Examples of Canadian Adult Education

2. Education for Economy

• Industrial and Post-industrial Societies

• Learning at Work

• “Our Employees are our Most Valuable Resource”

• Human Capital Theory

• Worker Education and Training

• Human Resource Management

• Workplace Change and Workplace Learning

• From Factory to Knowledge Work

• Learning Organizations

• The Pedagogics of Work and Learning

• Workers Cooperatives: The Example of Mondragon

3. Education for Transformation

• Perspective Transformation
• Critical Social Theory
• Education for Social Change
• Old Social Movements (OSMs) and New Social Movements (NSMs)

4. Education for Diversity

• Diverse Audiences, Diverse Purposes

• Women in Adult Education

• Increasing Access via Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition

• Learning and Knowledge

• Granting Credit

• An Example of Diversity: Labour Education

5. Education in the Twenty First Century

• Economic and Technological Imperatives: From Now to Eternity?
• Distance Education
• Removing Barriers and Enhancing Openness?
• Barriers to Education
• Opening Up Access
• Modeling Education
• Critical Distance Education

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