Adult Education FAQS

Daniel Schugurensky, Department of Adult Education, Community Development and Counselling Psychology
The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT)

Questions and Answers on Adult Education

Edited by Daniel Schugurensky

This site includes questions and answers on Adult Education that were written by students in the course 'Outline of Adult Education' at OISE/UT. The questions are first raised in class by the students themselves. Then they organize in teams in order to research and answer them. New entries are added regularly. This website is intended to provide information about the field to new students and to those who have a general interest in Adult Education. Anyone is welcome to submit a question and/or answer.

What is Adult Education? What is an adult? What is education?

Prepared by Tamar Kagan and Alfred Meidow, OISE/UT

A. What is Education?

The term education is difficult to define. The definition found in the Random House Dictionary includes the following components: the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgement and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life; acquiring skills for a profession; obtaining a degree or qualification; the results shown from instruction; and the science of teaching (pedagogy). This dictionary definition captures the broad nature of the term, and its different meanings.

Education can occur with or without a 'teacher', in both formal and non-formal environments, and can happen consciously or unconsciously.

Formal Education:

Refers to an age-graded, hierarchically organized, formally constituted system

Promotes specific curricula for different levels of development (i.e., age). Each level must be completed before the student can move ahead

Requires compulsory attendance up to a certain age

Has clearly stated objectives

Non-Formal Education

Includes all organized educational activities outside of the formal educational system

Includes anyone who desires to engage in these activities (i.e., individuals do not need to have special qualifications or a specific degree)

Has clearly stated objectives

Informal Education

Involves learning that takes place in daily life

Does not have clearly stated objectives

Implies that the individual is conscious of the learning that is taking place (e.g., attending a lecture, having a conversation, visiting the museum)

Incidental education

Involves learning that takes place in daily life

Does not have clearly stated objectives

Implies that the individual is not conscious of the learning that is taking place (e.g., learning to walk or ride a bike)

B. What is an Adult?

The term adult is also difficult define because it varies from one society to another, and has changed over time. The boundaries that determine who is considered an adult can depend on actions (i.e., legal age to fight in a war, drive a car, drink, vote), activities (i.e., age that one can begin to work), and/or responsibilities (i.e., marriage age, age to begin supporting family).

C. What is Adult Education?

Adult education also does not have a clear definition. In Chapter One of "The Foundations of Adult Education in Canada", the author quotes Malcolm Knowles. Knowles states that the term Adult Education refers to at least three different phenomena. "...To a set of activities...to the intellectual process by means of which adults seek, or are assisted, to learn things...[and] to the social system which is made up of individuals and organizations concerned with the education of adults." (P.15)

Different definitions have been proposed over the years. The broadest and most frequently cited definition was developed by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Social, Cultural Organization) and formally approved in 1976. It states:

...the entire body of organized educational processes, whatever the content, level and method, whether formal or otherwise, whether they prolong or replace initial education in schools, colleges and universities as well as in apprenticeship, whereby persons regarded as adult by the society to which they belong develop their abilities, enrich their knowledge, improve their technical or professional qualifications or turn them in a new direction and bring about changes in their attitudes or behaviour in the twofold perspective of full personal development and participation in balanced and independent social, economic and cultural development...
UNESCO, Recommendation on the Development of Adult Education, published in Canada (Ottawa: Canadian Commission for UNESCO, 1980 [1976]) p.3.
Terms related to Adult Education (seen by some as synonymous)

Andragogy

Refers to the education of adults (as opposed to pedagogy, which many use to refer to the education of children)

The term was first used in Europe, but was popularized by Malcolm Knowles in the 1970's

Continuing Education

Refers to the act of furthering ones education beyond a level that has already been achieved (e.g., continuing to study after finishing a university degree)

Continuing Education is one form of Adult Education, but not the only form Extension

Focuses primarily on individuals who live in rural and small town communities.

It is usually vocational in nature

Community Education

Emphasizes the community over the individual with regards to educational programs

The purpose of community education is to "work for change and improvement in community life" (P.20)

Other Important Terms

Lifelong Education

Refers to education over one's entire life span

Open Learning

Refers to the "open accessibility to and utilization of resources for the assistance of learning. Rather than be limited to particular curricula, places or times for study, the learner has access to a wide range of resources which may be utilized when and as the learner sees fit" (P.22)

Recurrent Education

Deals with the educational relationship between the "world of work" and the "world of education"

The term refers to the movement back and forth between the two 'worlds' over one's adult life

Community Development

Seen by some as a sub-division of Adult Education.

Involves members of a particular community working to define and implement goals and objectives that strive for change within that community

Source:

Selman, Gordon, Mark Selman, Michael Cooke, & Paul Dampier (Eds.) (1998). Terms and Functions. In The Foundations of Adult Education in Canada. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing Inc., Chapter 1.

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