Women in Adult Education: An Analysis of Perspectives in Major Journals.

To clarify dominant perspectives on women in adult education publications, ethnographic content analysis was used to examine 112 journal articles in 4 major adult education journals. Articles analyzed were from two North American journals ("Adult Education"/"Adult Education Quarterly" and "Adult Leadership"/"Lifelong Learning") and two British journals ("Adult Education" (U.K.) and "Studies in the Education of Adults"). Five major perspectives on women were identified: (1) women as adult learners; (2) women's need for personal development; (3) women's role change and adjustment; (4) marginalization of women; and (5) women as collaborative learners. A sixth potentially emergent perspective was also found: women as feminists. Strengths and limitations of each perspective were described, along with implications for future scholarship on women and gender in adult education. Implications for scholarship that could form the foundation for new educational strategies were identified: (1) adult education research must start with women's experiences and perspectives as the focal point; (2) women's learning within formal education might be explored more extensively from the perspective of the learner; (3) adult education scholarship might strive for a more pluralistic understanding of women and men as learners; and (4) researchers might move toward a broader understanding of gender as a socially and culturally defined system that shapes and is shaped by adult education. (123 references) (YLB)