ABSTRACT
[…] Adult education has often been marketed as a ‘second chance’ system, offering the opportunity of a second beginning for those who have been held back in social status through inadequate education and training. Indeed, it is in accordance with the ideals of democracy that adult education can provide students with a means of enhancing their social status, participation and liberation. Nonetheless its emancipatory effect is largely dependent upon the structural conditions imposed by society. It has been queried by Courtney (1992, p. 146), for instance, whether present forms of education are primarily designed for those who need it most, and whether their needs will really be met by an expansion of current forms of education, since in the long run these needs derive from basic social problems anchored in the economy and polity. […] He argues that a comprehensive theory of participation in adult education does need to take into account a wider range of explanatory factors than are found in the received life cycle, motivational orientation or decision models. The theory needs to incorporate other sociological factors as well, and to recognize that for adults, learning is a ‘discretionary’ activity, competing with their other activities both customary and non-customary. The objective of the theory must be to explicate adult education in its wider societal context.
