To browse Academia. A typology of participating patterns is developed to deepen understanding of participation in formal adult education, the position of education within the life course, and the relationship between current work place and educational programme. MARKET In spite of the very different traditions and structures of adult and continuing education in the European countries, it seems to be a common tendency that the relation between adult education with some direct relation to work and labour market is becoming very important.
Continuing education with a direct aim of work qualification, carreer and labour market effects is in many countries the fastest growing area of adult education. Companies, public employers and labour market organizations play an increasing role in defining and organizing adult education in several countries. And in liberal and general adult education, the reference to labour market and work seems to play an increasing role. This is also true in countries, where these sectors have been strong and have had their own life separated from work life, referring much more to cultural and private spheres.
New groups of learners are becoming active in adult and continuing education. Along with new aims and new institutions it means a vast expansion in the possible arid desirable study area of adult education research.
Furthermore these developments do reshape the whole material and conceptual framework of adult and continuing education. So not oly do they add new fields of study and interest, to the well-known ones; they also present a challenging need to rethink the purposes, the societal functions and the basic concepts of adult and continuing education. In ESREA there is an identified interest in forming a network within this field-partly in order to connect and learn from the each other in relation to the development in the practical adult and continuing education, partly in order to start a "cultivating process" for a new and expanding area of research.
This study is part of a regional study in industrial South Wales on the determinants of participation and non-participation in post-compulsory education and training, with special reference to processes of change in the patterns of these determinants over time and to variations between geographical areas.
