Definitions of Adult Education
What is adult education? Below is a list of Big Names who have attempted to define the field:
Before you read them, keep this in mind:
"The value of a definition lies in its precision or ability to illuminate. These qualities often depend on how well we already know the concept the definition makes explicit. Definitions are rules for the correct use of terms; they are quasi-legalistic. At the same time, the workability of these definitions will depend on the extent to which the phenomena they describe are clearly bounded, standardized, or codified. That being the case, if the time is ever reached when it becomes easy to define adult education precisely, this may well be a case for worry rather than for rejoicing."
From: Courtney, S. (1989). Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, p. 23
"Education is life--not a mere preparation for an unknown kind of future living…The whole of life is learning; therefore, education can have no ending. This new venture is called adult education--not because it is confined to adults but because adulthood, maturity defines its limits."
Originally from Lindeman, E. (1926). The Meaning of Adult Education. New York: New Republic, 6.
"...we define adult education as activities intentionally designed for the purpose of bringing about learning among those whose age, social roles, or self-perception define them as adults."
Merriam, S. & Brockett, R. (1997) The Profession and Practice of Adult Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, p.7.
Verner
"Adult Education is the action of an external educational agent in purposefully ordering behavior into planned systematic experiences that can result in learning for those for whom such an activity is supplemental to their primary role in society, and which involves some continuity in an exchange relationship between the agent and the learner so that the educational process is under constant supervision and direction."
From: Verner, C. (1962). Adult Education Theory and Method: A Conceptual Scheme for the Identification and Classification of Processes. Washington, D.C.: Adult Education Association of the USA.
Bryson (1936)
Cited in The Profession & Practice of Adult Education (1997)p.7: "...all the activities with an educational purpose that are carried on by people, engaged in the ordinary business of life."
Originally from: Bryson, L.L (1936).Adult Education. Ney York: American Book Company
"One problem contributing to the confusion is that the term 'adult education' is used with at least three different meanings. In its broadest sense, the term describes a process--the process of adults learning…In its more technical meaning, 'adult education' describes a set of organized activities carried on by a wide variety of institutions for the accomplishment of specific educational objectives…A third meaning combines all of these processes and activities into the idea of a movement or field of social practice. In this sense, 'adult education brings together into a discrete social system all the individuals, institutions, and associations concerned with the education of adults and perceives them as working toward common goals of improving the methods and materials of adult learning, extending the opportunities for adults to learn, and advancing the general level of our culture."
From: Knowles, M. (1980). The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy. Chicago: Association Press, 25.
Courtney
"Adult Education is an intervention into the ordinary business of life--an intervention whose immediate goal is change, in knowledge or in competence. An adult educator is one, essentially, who is skilled at making such interventions."
From: Courtney, S. (1989). Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
"Adult education is the process by which men and women (alone, in groups, or in institutional settings) seek to improve themselves or their society by increasing their skill, knowledge, or sensitiveness; or it is any process by which individuals, groups, or institutions try to help men and women improve in these ways. The fundamental system of practice of the field, if it has one, must be discerned by probing beneath many different surface realities to identify a basic unity of process."
From: Houle, C. (1996). The Design of Education ( 2nd Ed.)
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 41.
What to do with all of this stuff:
In chapter three of the 1989 Handbook, Sean Courtney gives us a kind of framework for organizing and better understanding the multiple definitions of adult education. Remember, Knowles listed three meanings for this field, but Courtney has identified "five basic, if overlapping, perspectives" (p. 17). They are as follows:
Adult education means many different things to many different people, so it's good to keep this set of broad perspectives in mind when thinking about the various definitions.