Participation research is concerned primarily with three overarching questions: What is the extent of participation? Who is participating? Why are certain people or groups participating either more or less, or not at all?

A quick review of international policy documents reveals the importance of adult learning in supporting the wellbeing of nations and individuals.

This article focuses on the wider benefits of adult learning, covering a mix of personal and social (external) effects. The emphasis is on the effects of adult learning on health and civic engagement.

The expansion of post-compulsory education and training has been one of the most striking recent changes in the education systems of more developed societies.

Education increasingly appears to be the natural form of learning in modern life within a contemporary Western mindset.

Generally absent until now from the International Encyclopedia Education, the theme adult learning and health is taking momentum in many countries as well as in international multilateral networks (UNESCO, 1997; US Dept. of Health, 2000; ICAE, 2001; WHO, 2005b).

Adult education and training have been focal points of labor market studies in developed economies since the 1960s.

The late President of Tanzania said in 1976 that, ‘‘Adult education is a highly political activity. Politicians are sometimes more aware of this fact than educators, and therefore they do not always welcome real adult education’’ (Nyerere, 1976).

It is important to understand that the idea of civil society has been defined and deployed in different ways at different times, depending on what kind of social and political struggles were being fought, and won or lost.

The expansion of higher education across Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries at the end of the twentieth century represented one of the most significant aspects of change in higher education in recent times.

Older learning has become a major focus in international and national government’s educational and social policies.

Prior learning assessment (PLA) is a topic that has emerged as a central aspect of the policy and practice of lifelong learning around the world.

Popular adult education is one of those slippery concepts within the field of education that is used to denote different educational aims, ideas, approaches, activities, and programs around the world.

Since lifelong learning systems embodying various policies are emerging in a variety of unique contexts, they represent very different perspectives from country to country.

Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world visit museums, galleries, zoos, aquariums, nature and science centers, and historic sites. This article discusses museums as sites of adult learning.

The learning city is an ideal, rather than a description of any actual place or places. It is an aspiration for the way the city might be better managed and manage itself in a complex world characterized by terms such as global and knowledge economy.

For many hundreds of thousands of people around the world, learning through their trade union has been an important, and occasionally, pivotal experience in their development and understanding as workers and citizens.

Adult learning is a wide-ranging phenomenon and accordingly its financing. It engages individuals, organizations, communities, and nations.

The leaders of professions and the public have always assumed that professionals would maintain their competence by continuing to learn throughout their careers through reading, discussions with colleagues, and educational programs.

Any discussion on community education must take into account that perspectives vary from context to place.

In the field of adult education, it is possible to identify two separate areas of research, theory, and practice that are often related: citizenship education and immigrant education. Generally speaking, citizenship education aims at preparing individuals to become citizens in a particular political community.

The last few years have seen growing interest in the field of adult literacy education, also known as adult basic education and adult literacy and numeracy, with increased attention at national and international levels.

Two recent European Community policy documents on adult education raise the need for a changing role of adult basic and vocational based learning (VBL) in the context of the evolving knowledge society and knowledge economy (EC, 2006, 2007).

In collections of university libraries worldwide, one can locate relatively small sections of volumes pertinent to the history of adult education.