ABSTRACT
In the expansion of adult education knowledge it is the social context of adult learning that is being offered for application to practice, rather than the applications of sociology to adult learning. The major point of what might otherwise be thought of as adult education theory is really a theory of adult learning in a social context, largely constructed as 'adult education knowledge' by the exigencies and ideologies of professional practice. At the moment, what is being considered is the professional organisation of adult education knowledge and its relation to the conceptualisation of adult education as social policy. Whatever the actual structure of adult education knowledge there is no doubt that the systematisation of training courses for adult educators makes greater demands upon a body of applicable theory, although the forms such theory takes may be culturally determined to some extent.
