ABSTRACT
In the last two decades, researchers have focused increasingly on the middle years of adulthood as an emerging topic in the adult literature. The reasons for this include: the aging of the Canadian baby-boom population, who now have reached the middle years of life (Statistics Canada, 2007); healthier lifestyles of these midlife adults (Brim, Ryff, and Kessler, 2004); the recognition of midlife as a unique and distinct stage of adulthood (Lachman, 2001); and, the interdisciplinary developments linking midlife to both the adult development and the adult education literatures (Hoare, 2006). Collectively, these new directions offer innovative dimensions in our thinking about the middle years of our lives. Midlife adults experience life changes that bring both opportunities and challenges. In this chapter, we
will explore this issue in more depth from the context of learning and development. The definition of the term midlife is briefly explored, followed by investigating three unique ways in which learning occurs in the middle years: (a) transfer learning; (b) transition learning; and, (c) transformative learning. The chapter concludes with implications and future directions.
