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Originally published in 1985 this book is a critique and comparison of the nature, structure and provision of university adult education in England and the USA. The focus is both contemporary (twentieth century) and historical and is interdisciplinary, involving both social scientific and historical modes of enquiry and analysis. A central concern of the book is the liberal tradition as it has operated in its different ways and the erosion of this tradition and its consequences for the contemporary structure of university adult education form a large part of the book's discussion.

Twenty-one years on from Incorporation, the time is surely right to put away childish things ('That's where hairdressers go to get qualifications, isn't it?') and take a mature, honest stock-take of the Further Education sector. In this detailed, scholarly and yet remarkably accessible collection, Ann Hodgson brings together leading FE researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, from whose work emerges a fascinating narrative of the development of the sector and the place it finds itself in today. As Lorna Unwin argues in her Foreword, this book is simultaneously a celebration of FE and a clear-eyed appraisal of its strengths and weaknesses, and the challenges it continues to face. It is about politics, student experience, curriculum, assessment, teachers and managers, space and place, governors and governance, leaders and leadership, power and future vision. Or, what goes on in colleges.