A group of 10 women developing peer education services participated in collaborative inquiry in order to remove barriers to peer counseling. The following themes emerged: (1) adding experiential knowledge to textbook knowledge; (2) crossing cultures using difference as a creative resource; and (3) using public discourse to transfer knowledge to…

Three interviews each with five people who had articulated a life mission and analysis of their journals delineated the relationship of life mission to self-directed and transformative learning. New learning experiences refocus mission. The stronger and more focused the mission, the stronger and more focused the learner's self-direction. (SK)

The term learning covenant adds a spiritual dimension to the notion of learning contracts. The learner develops and enters into a written contractual agreement with a facilitator, who creates a space that fosters learning and spiritual growth. (SK)

Loyola University's Institute for Ministry Education uses such techniques as learning covenants and critical reflection to nourish the development of lay ministers. It demonstrates how adult education principles can contribute to spiritual growth. (SK)

Reviews themes, issues, and challenges addressed by the articles in this issue. Provides an annotated list of six recommended readings on adult education and spirituality. (SK)

Describes a new vision of adult learning that is expansive, dynamic, learnercentered, and mediated by advanced technologies. Highlights include constructed learning, contextual learning, collaborative learning, negotiated learning, personalized learning, responsive learning, and technology-mediated learning. (Contains 47 references.) (Author/LRW)

Erich Fromm proposed that learning to penetrate ideological obfuscation and overcome the alienation it generates is the learning task of adulthood. He believed adult education would make people aware of ideological manipulation and prepare them for participatory democracy. His was a Marxist humanism aimed at the creation of democratic socialism.…

Explains an educational framegame called Information Basketball for adult or teen players that can be used as a review or informal group testing of previously learned materials. Includes a question set example and discusses debriefing, including sample debriefing questions. (LRW)

As we move towards distributed, self-organised learning networks for lifelong learning to which multiple providers contribute content, there is a need to develop new techniques to determine where learners can be positioned in these networks. Positioning requires us to map characteristics of the learner onto characteristics of learning materials…

This paper develops the notions of dialogue and dialogic space in relation to adult education projects with emancipatory agendas. It explores the philosophical genealogy of the notion of dialogue in order to establish a basis for the concept of dialogic space, surveying the works of seminal figures such as Plato, Buber, Bakhtin, Habermas and…

The article by Clahsen and Felser (CF) on grammatical processing in language learning is a timely and much-needed synthesis of research on this topic. It correctly identifies both morphological processing and syntactic processing as key areas that require attention. This commentary raises two issues: the relationship between the grammar and the…

In July 2004 the Adult and Community Learning Quality Support Programme (ACLQSP) reached its conclusion. The project was designed to support local education authority (LEA) providers of adult and community learning in getting to grips with the new quality assurance and improvement agenda introduced when the single Learning and Skills Sector was…

Uncertainty about identity and the future is occurring at a stage of life when people do question what they have achieved and what they still want to achieve. The notion of midlife crisis has been in existence for some time but recently its occurrence has coincided with opportunities to take early retirement or redundancy. This has meant that the…

This account of learning journeys, taken from interviews with a group of adults graduating from a part-time humanities program, traces one prominent pattern from first enrollment to graduation, prioritizing the importance of "time out". Students who had joined a course out of curiosity found themselves traveling in a land of unexpected pleasures,…

As a result of a growing immigrant population in the United States, many adult education programs are working with new populations of adult learners who need to learn English. There is a need for a strong workforce of trained and knowledgeable practitioners who can work effectively with adults learning English and facilitate transitions to…