This book opens with a survey of the historical evolution of adult education in the UK and leads on to the study of the structure of adult learning. It discusses distance teaching opportunities such as the Open University and the National Extension College, and face-to-face teaching provision in adult education centres. It also looks at specific programmes such as the Adult Literacy Initiative in the mid-1970s, and at target groups like the adult unemployed, women and ethnic groups. Comprehensive and yet broad-ranging, this volume contains much new material that offers interesting insights into both present and future opportunities for adult education.

Although the 1970s and 1980s witnessed a widespread reaction against investment in education there has been an extraordinary growth of interest in recurrent education. This book, sponsored by the Association for Recurrent Education, reports these considerable developments in both theory and practice in the United Kingdom and abroad. It presents a comprehensive picture of the range of initiatives and policies which are helping to make recurrent education one of the strongest sectors in contemporary education.

First Published in 1993. At a time when more mature women are encouraged to enter higher education, this book investigates the effects that being a student has on women's family and social relationships. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, Mature Women Students draws on in-depth interviews with women of different ethnic backgrounds and social classes -all mothers and in long-term relationships with a man. The result is a comprehensive picture of the shifting patterns of the women's lives at various stages of social science degree-level study. This picture reveals, amongst other things, that the public and private spheres of education and family are not separate entities; they interact and impinge, with particular implications for the position of women within each sphere. This accessible and challenging book illuminates an important and growing issue in women's lives and in society.