Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

As adults, we are all continually involved in learning, with increasing numbers of us engaged in more formalized forms of learning; that is, in education or training. All those involved in the broad field of adult education and training will come into contact with many specialist ideas or concepts. It is often assumed of students that they already have a general understanding of these concepts, their meanings, applicability and inter-relationships. This is not always the case.
This book examines in detail over forty of these key concepts, ranging from community education and experiential learning to competence and access. It presents a clear, analytical discussion in jargon-free language. It is, therefore, indispensable to all students and practitioners of adult education and training.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction
• 1 The Core Concepts
• 2 International Concepts
• 3 Institutional Concepts
• 4 Work-related Concepts
• 5 Learning Concepts
• 6 Curricular Concepts
• 7 Structural Concepts
• 8 Conceptual Understandings

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Both these books offer a conceptual analysis of the field of adult education, but their similarity ends there. Tight (Univ. of Warwick) delineates a set of concepts that fully describe the field of adult and continuing education and training. Briton (Univ. of Alberta) provides a normative definition of adult education, seeing it as a cultural practice with ethical consequences. Briton's work is a challenge to the common practice of adult education that Tight's book summarizes. Tight writes for adult education workers with limited professional training who would like to understand better the field's "many associated concepts." His six core concepts, defined in the first chapter, are "adult," "education," "training," "learning," "teaching," and "development." His 30-some qualifying concepts (e.g., "lifelong," "formal," "distance," "experiential") are grouped in succeeding chapters on international, institutional, work-related, learning, curricular, and structural concepts. Each chapter discusses significant ideas and programs that show the concepts in practice. Although Tight recommends that readers use the book as a reference, the organizing feature of the work encourages readers to explore and create different combinations of concepts. For Briton, allowing present practice to define the field is anathema. He finds most current practice in violation of adult education's proper goals of democracy and freedom. He decries the instrumental approach to practice that emphasizes the techniques of learning at the expense of purpose. He argues that instrumentalism is the result of the field's ideological foundations in positivist epistemology, which views scientific truth as the only truth; it rests on principles of universality, objective reality, and value-free knowledge. But, says Briton, scientific truth is not the only truth, and it is not value-free. He identifies a number of paradigms that are alternatives to positivism and models a process of reflection, based on the dialectic, to illustrate how adult educators can make a different choice. His reflections lead him to find a viable "postmodern pedagogy of engagement" in Vaclav Havel's The Power of the Powerless (1985). Briton is not, however, ready to apply this paradigm to adult education practice. Citing Eduard Lindeman's advice that "human problems cannot be ^D R. W. Rohfeld SUNY Empire State College