ABSTRACT
There are a number of reasons to explain why adult educators seem to underestimate the value of theory. Most of them are to do with the ramifications of being ‘practical people’ who judge credibility in terms of action. All of those who have contributed are deeply involved in the practice of adult education and are committed to changing rather than destroying it. The part-time teachers who staff so many of the local authority classes are rarely unionized and their students, spread about the city in other people’s buildings, lack the tradition of association and allegiance which could be united to defend their interests. And the ideology which has presented local authority provision as a non-political and recreational activity is not well placed to think and act politically when the circumstances demand it. For all those who have had least in the past, adult education for a change.
