Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide (review)

For many years, popular belief reflected the notion that learning ended with the completion of formal education and adulthood was regarded as a period of the gradual decline and diminishment of abilities. Yet historically, many adults have continued to engage in various forms of learning. In contemporary society, developing and providing education and training for adults is now a billion-dollar industry in the United States, and the idea of lifelong learning has rapidly become a reality across the world. In American higher education, the overall percentage of undergraduates classified as adult learners now hovers around 50%, with the largest increases occurring in community colleges, so-called career colleges, and online programs.

Learning in Adulthood helps those of us in higher education appreciate the implications of these trends. In this third edition, Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner “strive to put together a comprehensive overview and synthesis of what we know about adult learning: the context in which it takes place, who the participants are, what they learn and why, the nature of the learning process itself, new approaches to adult learning, the developmental theory in adult learning, and other issues relevant to understanding adult learning” (p. x).

The authors indicate that this book is intended for educators who work with adults in a variety of settings and contexts and is organized to be easily used in courses, workshops, and seminars. It consists of four parts. Part 1 provides an overview of the contexts of adult learning in contemporary society. Chapter 1 discusses demographic, international, and technological changes occurring in society and their implications for adult learning. Chapter 2 explores the various environments in which adult learning occurs, especially the emergence of online learning and the contested notions of organizational learning, the learning organization, and lifelong learning. In Chapter 3, the authors review what is known about why adults participate in learning and why they don’t or why they leave before completing their goals. Especially relevant to higher education is their discussion here of issues related to access and opportunity.

Part 2 focuses on the research and scholarship on how adults learn. These chapters basically lay out several key ideas that represent long-standing core ideas of adult learning, including andragogy (Chapter 4), self-directed learning (Chapter 5), and the role of experience in adult learning (Chapter 7). In this context, the authors explore early theoretical approaches to understanding how we learn from and through experience, provide overviews to key models of experiential learning, and explore the implications of these perspectives for the roles and purposes that educators of adults address in their work.

In addition, the authors summarize research related to reflective learning, situated cognition, cognitive apprenticeships, and anchored instruction. A discussion of transformational learning theory is provided in Chapter 6, oddly preceding the discussion of experiential and reflective learning. Transformative learning theory describes forms of learning that represent dramatic shifts of consciousness or meaning perspective within the learner. The authors suggest several theoretical views that have evolved around transformative learning, including psychocritical, developmental, psychoanalytic, social-emancipatory, and sociocultural. They argue that several key concepts cut across these different perspectives and explore a number of troubling issues within the theory.

In Part 3, Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner present what they refer to as “newer approaches” to understanding adult learning, including embodied, spiritual, and narrative ways of knowing (Chapter 8); learning and knowing from nonwestern perspectives (Chapter 9); and critical, postmodern, and feminist perspectives to adult learning (Chapter 10). This scholarship highlights problematic aspects of more mainstream views and suggests aspects of adult learning not portrayed in this literature.

Recognizing its seemingly disparate nature, they nonetheless suggest that this body of research and theory reflects several themes, including race, class, gender, and power; and they describe seven “learning tasks” incumbent in critical learning theory, such as challenging ideology, contesting hegemony, unmasking power, and reclaiming reason.

The discussion in Part 4 moves away...