This synthesis of selected manuscripts, submitted to the Bureau of Occupational and Adult Education to aid in developing position statements that reflected the Bureau's view of chief issues surrounding the concept of lifelong learning, presents an overview of adult education in the United States. The first section is a brief listing of the public…

The way in which girls develop into women in a rural black community in north central Florida, Edge Crossing, is described. This community is analyzed in terms of how different spaces are used, the rhythm of social activities as ordered by time and space, the separation of sex roles, the rites of intensification (such as ball games and religious…

The suggestion is made that the flood of middle-aged women who have recently turned away from traditional approaches to achievement may have shifted their orientation to changing options, but have always had a great desire to achieve. The effect of the changing values of the women's movement is discussed, and a grid of achievement motivation…

This student's manual, designed to enhance the skills of inservice and preservice caregivers and professionals who work with the aging and aged developmentally disabled person, is to be used by participants in a program of 10 training sessions entitled "The Aging and Aged Developmentally Disabled." This workbook provides student…

Only a longitudinal study, in which retrospective reports can be verified against data collected earlier, can determine what topics tend to be reported accurately and whether certain types of individuals are more likely to be accurate reporters. A representative group of adults who became parents 50 years ago are now part of the oldest and longest…

This paper describes a program designed to help preretirees and retirees prepare for retirement. The program explores the needs, stereotypes, dilemmas, challenges, and satisfactions of retirement. An exercise to explore personal values is described in which previous program participants rank ordered 10 top-priority concerns of income, health,…

The reading interests of a group of older adults were examined. Subjects were 16 adults between the ages of 50 and 85 who read five stories from "Readers' Digest" short story collections and who responded to a questionnaire about their preferences for the stories, their reading habits and interests, and the appealing elements of the stories. The…

Recent efforts have been made to develop more age-appropriate intelligence measures for the elderly to determine the nature of age differences and changes in adult cognitive development. Spatial and reasoning performances of young, young-old and old-old individuals were compared on traditional versus familiar and presumably more meaningful…

Many of the great successes in the history of American education have been in the adult learning area. Some examples include the Americanization of immigrants, the public library movement, cooperative (agricultural) extension, continuing professional education, and distance education. Despite these achievements, adult education has enjoyed little…

Research and theoretical literature about adult development and adult learning are synthesized within a conceptual framework that has three basic domains: life phase, developmental stage, and learning style. The life phase includes theories that identify age-linked periods of stability and transition throughout adulthood. The development stage…

With increasing emphasis on treating the whole person, on the maintenance of an individual's former life style, and on patients' rights, long-term care personnel need to become aware that many nursing home residents experience needs related to their sexuality. A model two-day workshop is presented wlth a focus on the following topics: (1) a broad…

Combining community participation in decision making with methods of social investigation, participatory research focuses on involvement of the subjects of the research in the research process. Adult educators are exploring this research method which, unlike quantitative research, serves the needs of individuals and not those of policy makers who…

The paper examines the methodological issues involved in the relationship of adult education to adult development. The practice of adult education during the past 25 years has been built upon a series of assumptions derived from theoretical fragments regarding lifelong development. Considering the theoretical base of adult development, however,…

This document is one of a series by the Youth Development Center at the University of Minnesota dedicated to the discussion of youth. Thirteen participants from various social science fields were asked to present a perspective on youth from the viewpoints of their profession or discipline. This dialogue, an edited and restructured version of the…