Diversity and excellence: prompts from the history of the tertiary education sector

Author/s: Francesca Beddie

Edition: Volume 50, Number 3, November 2010

Summary: In 2010, fifty years after the establishment of the association now called Adult Learning Australia (ALA), the association still faces the dilemma about how to sell its message that adult learning matters. The dilemma is one of philosophy: in the nineteenth century, it was liberalism versus utilitarianism; in the mid-twentieth, the instrumental versus cultural; today, the dichotomy is couched in terms such as ‘social inclusion’ versus ‘productivity’.

Keywords: adult learning, relevance, liberalism, utilitarianism, social inclusion, productivity

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 50_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.