Originally published in 1991 this book is a comparative study of systems of preparing adult educators in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Cyprus. The book argues for more formal preparation and training of adult educators with more Europe-wide specialist training and evaluation in teaching and management skills.

This book discusses the perspectives and practices of teacher education programs in order to shed new light on the national priorities, policies, curriculum inputs, delivery mechanisms, challenges and future trends in 20 selected countries. It examines and compares the complexity of teacher education in international contexts, providing insights into educational change and reform in emerging democracies. Further, it includes cases from various countries that reflect how the profession is moving forward. In order to deepen readers’ understanding of teacher training and the challenges posed by globalization, the book concludes with a discussion of theoretical perspectives applied to teacher education, and with recommendations for new directions. Given its scope, the book is an essential read for teacher educators, students, and researchers working in the field of education.

Now in its fourth edition, Adult Education and Lifelong Learning is well established, and is regarded as the most widely used text about adult education. Fully revised and updated with substantial additional material, this new edition takes account of many changes which have occurred in the field of adult education. With new features for students and researchers, updates incorporate: material on the ethical and political implications of lifelong learning detailed information on changes relating to globalisation increased emphasis on societal changes information on the way technologies are affecting the way people learn changing approaches to knowledge, knowledge acquisition and knowledge assessment. Students of education and education studies will find this an invaluable course companion, whilst practitioners and researchers in adult and lifelong learning will find this new fully-up-to-date edition even broader in scope than the last.

The nature of adult education at individual, group and community levels is the concern of this book. Definitions and patterns of adult learning are critically assessed in both this country and abroad, and the processes involved considered in detail. Both case studies and thematic articles have been included and are selected to illustrate the breadth of the field along a number of areas: formal, non-formal and informal education; face-to-face and distance education; from basic levels of education to higher education; from highly deterministic to more ‘open’ or self-directed forms of education. It is felt that the study and practice of the education of adults can be best advanced by the adoption of such a broad view.

Against a background of profound wordwide social and economic change, the purpose of schooling and the place of learning in our everyday lives, educational institutions are opening up to those traditionally deprived of the opportunity. These books, originally published between 1979 and 1992 with many including global case studies reflect upon major issues confronting adult educators worldwide and discuss the role of adult education in social and community action; examine the relationship between class and adult education; look at the concept of culture and the transmission of cultural values in relations to adult education; evaluate the role of adult education in reducing unemployment.

Peter Jarvis is a towering figure in adult and lifelong education and a leading and original theorist of learning. This book explores the breadth and significance of his work. Sixteen chapters by leading international scholars explain and engage critically with his theorisation of learning, and with his extensive writings on the sociology, politics, ethics and history of adult education, and on professional education, lifelong learning and the learning society. The authors discuss his ideas, their influence and origins. They cover his contribution to learning theory, the recurring ethical themes in his writing, and the implications of his work for areas such as the education of migrants. They explore his global engagement as a scholar not only in different areas of lifelong education, but across the world: much-travelled, Peter Jarvis has supported the growth of adult education as a humane profession – as well as a field of study – in Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Australasia, as well as Europe. They also address the intense humanism of his work, which has been continually informed by theological and ethical concerns: though he taught for three decades at the University of Surrey, where he was Head of the Department of Educational Studies and is now Emeritus Professor, he has been a Minister of the Methodist Church for over half a century. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Lifelong Education.