ADULT EDUCATIONThe growing volume of adult training is deliv-
ered in many forms and sectors of society and has
important consequences. In the advanced indus-
trial societies of Europe and Asia, training and
development systems, usually involving employ-
ers, unions, and governments, provide training in
a substantial majority of firms and to most workers
(Lynch 1994). Yearly participation rates by both
firms and individuals are highest in the European
and Japanese systems and may be an important
factor in their high rates of productivity growth.
Even in the more diffuse U.S. system with lower
participation, over 60 percent of adults between
twenty-eight and fifty years of age had participated
in some variety of part-time adult education or
training by the early 1990s (Hight 1998). Workplace
training alone became a $60-billion a year industry
with 53,000 providers (Martin 1998). Some firms
supply most of their own training through another
new institutional form of adult education, the
‘‘corporate university.’’ With curricula ranging from
basic employee orientation to the most advanced
technical and business subjects, several of these
universities are now fully accredited to grant
baccalaureate and graduate degrees. As the U.S.
military’s reliance on technologically complex strate-
gies, tactics, logistics and equipment grew, it be-
came the largest single provider of training in the
United States. Even with post-Cold War downsiz-
ing, the military’s adult training activities remain
significant contributors to labor-force development,
especially in computer, electronics, and mechani-
cal specialties (Barley 1998). Higher education
institutions are also major training providers. Col-
lectively, college and university adult continuing
and professional education now rivals or surpasses
the volume of military training (Gose 1999). Har-
vard serves over 60,000 adults each year in con-
tinuing education classes. New York University’s
School of Continuing and Professional Studies
offers more than one hundred certificate pro-
grams and has revenues of over $90-million a year.
The involvement of universities in the expansion
of training presents something of a paradox. In
many instances, the new training complex is en-
dowing its adult students with professional and
industry certifications that are beginning to rival
standard degrees as the credentials of both indi-
vidual and employer choice. This training may also
be working significant changes in the social struc-
ture. Considerable evidence suggests that a large
measure of the growing income inequality charac-
teristic of advanced industrial societies is a func-
tion of technological change and associated wage
premiums paid for workers with the kind of tech-
nical credentials and competencies that much of
the new training is designed to deliver (Bassie 1999).Contemporary developing societies of Africa,
Asia, and Latin America contain all of the forms of
adult education found in the West, as well as forms
of popular adult education now only minimally
present there. While virtually all of the less devel-
oped societies have succeeded in establishing sys-
tems of primary, secondary, and higher education
for youth, participation rates vary widely among
and within them. Some Latin American countries,
for example, have higher college attendance rates
than their European counterparts while many poor
children never enter or complete primary school
(Arnove et al. 1996). In such contexts, adult educa-
tion is often bifurcated (Torres 1990). The poor
are served by literacy programs, popular educa-
tion efforts developed by local nongovernmental
organizations, and the health and technical educa-
tion programs of international agencies. Middle
and upper classes participate in corporate train-
ing, government-sponsored adult higher educa-
tion, and professional continuing education pro-
grams that are little different from and, in the case
of training delivered distance education technolo-
gies and global firms, exactly the same as those
found in the most advanced societies. However,
under the impact of globalization, the distinctions
among higher education, human resource train-
ing, and popular education are softening. There is
a growing recognition among education profes-
sionals and policy makers that widespread and
inclusive lifelong learning is a critical common
good (Walters 1997).Lifelong learning and adult education that is
on a par with schooling are increasingly articulat-
ed goals of social policy. The United Nations con-
cluded its fifth Conference on Adult Education in
1997 with a call for worldwide lifelong learning to
promote social and economic development, em-
power women, support cultural diversity, and in-
corporate new information technologies. Adult
education and training is now a central focus of
the United Nations Education Scientific and Cul-
tural Organization’s (UNESCO) development poli-
cy, planning, and programs. The European Union