ABSTRACT
The concern of adult education theorists so far has been with defining adult characteristics and with designing systems, strategies and structures for adult learning. A curriculum theory of adult education is one which is grounded in the practices of adult teaching and learning. This chapter establishes a view of adult education as a distinctive category by virtue of philosophical, psychological or organisational characteristics of adulthood. One of the most direct attempts to draw curriculum implications from a philosophical view of knowledge in adult education has recently been made by R. W. K. Paterson. Malcolm Knowles's theory of andragogy is one of the characteristics of adult learning rather than one of adult education as such, which would be concerned with far wider issues than those of adult teaching and learning methods. The categories of education theory have tended to be established in rather philosophical terms, so that it has been traditionally left to philosophers to establish the nature of educational theory.
