ABSTRACT
In neither the USA nor England is the liberal tradition in University Adult Education (UAE) to be defined exclusively within the confines of liberalism construed as a general ideological stance. Nevertheless there are certain important and fundamental characteristics of the liberal tradition in UAE which derive directly from the generalised liberal ideology. The liberal tradition maintains centrally that the whole educational project is concerned with opening out and indeed challenging the individual’s conception of his or her own environment. The liberal tradition stands in opposition to the dominance of such trends, and indeed by implication to the values within both the wider educational system and the wider society, which have inspired such developments. The liberal tradition is thus embattled, but not defeated, espousing a series of the values and practices which are, in the 1980s, by no means wholly congruent with prevailing orthodoxies.
