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Knowles Malcolm S: Modern Practice of Adult Education (Chicago Follett 1980)
Knowles outlines the mission of a facility for the (secular) education of adults -

"[Its] mission can best be described in relation to satisfying three distinct sets of needs and goals:

  1. the needs and goals of individuals
  2. the needs and goals of institutions
  3. the needs and goals of society
[Quote p.27]

He also devotes space (pp. 27-36) to each of the three categories above. For the needs and goals of the individual, he follows Maslow. Under 'Needs and Goals of Institutions', he expands on how the educational facility must view the institution (in our case the Church) as a client also and further analyses this category into its own components: indoctrination, efficiency, propaganda. For the neesd and goals of society (we would say secular society) he is vaguer and more diffuse. In a later chapter, 'Defining Purposes and Objectives', Knowles provides a suggestive diagram (p.125) showing the process of translating educational needs into objectives.


Knowles does not list 'credentialling' or any equivalent term among the needs and goals of the individual. In this he is perhaps reflecting the spirit of the Seventies -- the time at which he was writing -- when to gain skills and knowledge were seen as good in themselves independently of any certification that may accompany them. In these early years of the twentyfirst century however proof of educational performance looms much larger in everybody's consciousness.

In all the above Knowles is careful to consider the dimensions of maturation and to distinguish 'andragogy' (his own word) from 'pedagogy' -- the distinction being a major preoccupation of his book.