Chapter Twelve

The Organization of Adult and Continuing Education

Self-directed learning can occur at any time and in any place but the majority of teaching and learning transactions occur within an organizational context. In this sense, education may be regarded as institutionalized learning, a point to which further reference is made below. Organizations are, however, a common feature in contemporary society. Indeed, it has been described as an organization society. Hence, the study of organizations is quite fundamental to the comprehension of modern society. As a concept, however, organization has nearly as many definitions as it has had writers about it but, for the purposes of this chapter, Hall’s (1972:9) definition is accepted here:

This is a complex definition, as Hall himself admits, and yet there are features about it that are significant and which relate closely to the analysis of adult and continuing education organizations. The final section of this chapter, for instance, makes reference to the idea of ‘a normative order’ since this may be seen as an organizational subculture and as a hidden curriculum.

Organizations are clearly of different types and, as Hall’s definition suggests, exist for different purposes. Based upon the idea of who actually benefits from the existence of the organization, Blau and Scott (1963:43) suggest that there are four types of organization: mutual benefit organization, where the prime beneficiary is the membership, i.e. a political party, a religious sect; business concerns, where the owners are the prime beneficiaries; service organizations, where the client group is the prime beneficiary, i.e. social service organizations; commonweal organizations, where the public at large is the prime beneficiary, i.e. the fire service. It is an interesting exercise to try to classify organizations of adult and continuing education within this useful typology. It could be claimed, for instance, that they are commonweal organizations offering a service to the whole community within which they are situated as in the case of distance education organizations offering a service to the public at large. At its most idealistic it might be claimed that the universities, especially the Open University, does offer a service to the public at large, although there are sufficient restrictions on entry as to make this claim dubious. Community education organizations, extra-mural departments and adult education institutes might be seen in this respect but even here it is doubtful whether they could legitimately be classified as commonweal organizations. Most educational organizations have specific client groups, so that it is maintained here that most adult and continuing education organizations are service organizations. According to Blau and Scott, one of the features of this type of organization is that it is a professional organization in as much as the employees are professionals who seek to offer a service to a specific group of people, based upon the professional’s own diagnosis of the real needs of the client. Without anticipating some of the discussion that occurs in the final chapter of this book, it is recognised that this is not necessarily an adequate description of many adult and continuing education organizations, especially in liberal adult education, where the clients are mature, know their own learning needs and choose the class to which they come. However, this will be seen to be a quite contentious debate and one which Blau and Scott (1963:53) anticipated in relation to the universities where they wrote:

Clearly, Blau and Scott may not reflect an educationalist’s perspective and they were also unaware of more recent debates in education about negotiated curricula. But the significant element about the above quotation is that it raises questions about the wisdom of trying to classify educational organizations within the second category, about expecting them to be organized on a self-financing or a financial profit basis, since this is to misconstrue the nature of education.

Hence, it is maintained here that adult and continuing education organizations are service organizations that are analysable from the perspectives of the organizational theorist. That it has not actually been undertaken, however, must make this chapter rather tentative, but its aim is to sketch some of the elements that such an analysis should include, although it does not endeavour to be exhaustive. The chapter itself has four main sections: the organization of the service; the bureaucratic organization; the centre-periphery model of organization; dilemmas of institutionalised education.

The Organization of the Service

Adult and continuing education has never been a single co-ordinated service and as its history reveals it had a multitude of different beginnings, so that it has evolved into a very complex system. This, Knowles (1980a:39) maintains gives it the flexibility to respond to whatever social needs may arise. By contrast, Griffith (1980:74) considers that this variety of providers and lack of centralised plan of provision is a fundamental weakness in the system. These views are also reflected in the publication by the Ministry of Education in Ontario (n.d.:42), which argues that:

This Canadian statement at least suggests that in that country adult and continuing education is being institutionalised into a formal third educational system. This is in contrast to what is appearing in the United Kingdom where, in addition to the variety of local authority provided adult education, college and university provided continuing education, industry’s own provision, etc., there is also a great deal of provision by private suppliers of education.

Hence, two models of provision are evident here: central planned provision and free market provision. In the former, a central agency plans the provision and then makes it available and, despite what the Ministry of Education in Ontario claims, that usually results in a model of control; the latter is the classical model of the free market with its claims to consumer sovereignty. Since both models are appearing it is necessary to examine them carefully in order to detect their strengths and weaknesses. However, it must be recognised that they are ideal types and that, as such, they may not be found in their ‘pure’ form in any social system.

Free Market Model: This model appears to have two variants; that of neo-classical economics based on supply and demand and the one that appears to be emerging in the United Kingdom which reflects the position held by Knowles, that the adult and continuing education system has to be flexible enough to respond to need. For the sake of clarity these two models are called the free market demand model and the free market need model.

The free market demand model has at its basis the classical, liberal ideology of free, rational man able to act in the pursuit of his own interests and desires. Any needs in society are residual, so that while the needy should be helped it is only a temporary phenomenon. Hence, this model assumes that education can be offered on the market and its supply will be regulated by the amount of demand and that the price of the commodity will also be fixed in response to what the purchasers of the commodity are prepared to pay. Hence, if potential students are prepared to pay a specific fee for the course then it will run but if another course cannot command sufficient enrolments at the marketable fee then it will not be organised. Hence, this model assumes a considerable degree of flexibility and also it assumes consumer sovereignty, both of which may appear superficially attractive in the first instance. But there are a number of points in this model that demand further discussion and that cast doubts upon the apparent strength of the position. In the first instance, no prospectus of adult or continuing education ever offers the total number of possible courses that could be organized for the total population that might respond to that offer. Once there is any restriction placed upon the choice of courses, then the potential students do not make a sovereign choice in a free market. Secondly, the actual range of choices offered to the market is not determined by potential students but by the providers. Indeed, there is no way in logic that potential consumers can determine the production of a commodity before it is produced unless it is made to order and requests in prospectuses for suggestions for courses does not constitute such a situation. Hence, there is not actuality a response to market demand but a response to the selection of courses that the providers decide to offer. Indeed, it could be argued that the tastes of the potential students are being manipulated, albeit far less intensely than the manner in which mass media advertising is used to sell commercially produced commodities, by the choice that is offered and the advice that is provided about the best choices that meet potential students’ interests. Finally, if the fee mechanism and the number of enrolments determines the actual curriculum of any adult and continuing education institution, then it favours the most popular courses and those able to pay for their education. Ideologically, this may not be very acceptable to most educators of adults but, clearly, it is favoured by the educational entrepreneurs who offer education as a commodity on the ‘free’ market and by governments having a liberal ideological perspective which try to convert service organizations into business concerns.

The free market needs model is one that has many similarities to the above in as much as it endeavours to respond to something of a market mechanism but it makes fewer claims for consumer sovereignty. In this instance, it would claim that the courses offered to the general public for selection have been chosen by the educators either because they perceive a need in that locality or because they consider the choice educationally desirable. Hence, the rationale for their inclusion in the prospectus is that they endeavour to respond to individual, organizational, community or societal needs or that they are enriching to the potential students. In other words, the reason for their inclusion in the prospectus is that they are considered to be educationally worthwhile. Having made the offer the adult and continuing education service will try to help any potential students who desire it to decide upon the best ways of meeting their needs through an educational advisory service (ACACE 1979c). Because this approach is more welfare orientated, it is much more likely to be flexible in terms of level of fee and number of enrolments, provided that the organization is able to balance its finances at the end of each year. Even so, the model is open to the same criticisms, to a lesser degree, as the free market demand model, even though it is much more humanitarian. Indeed, it approximates to that which operates in some liberal adult education provision in the United Kingdom, although the financial stringency of the present Conservative government appears to be pushing it in the direction of the demand model but this pressure appears contrary to the desires of adult educators themselves.

Central Planning Provision Model: This model, while it espouses a form of co-ordination, frequently results in a method of control. Yet this model reflects the reformist ideology that people need help to see their real needs or to achieve their aspirations, so that it offers an institutional welfare policy. The educational planners, in this instance, seek to ensure a balanced and co-ordinated provision through a given location. The Ministry of Education in Ontario (n.d.42-45) suggests that local learning councils should be established and that all providers of education for adults in that locality should be members. The councils would seek to meet the needs of learners in the community, act as a liaison forum for educational institutions and initiate new provision. While this might appear to be an attractive method to plan provision and to ensure efficient use of resources, central planning tends to become totalitarian, slow to change to demands or needs and the provision is that which the providers deem possible or desirable. Hence, central planning tends to be inefficient and inflexible.

Thus it may be seen that the varying models of provision examined above all have their strengths and weaknesses. If there is total planning of adult and continuing education, as the third model suggests, then it would not overcome the problems of the market, nor of need or demand. It would, however, result in a very cumbersome and not very efficient system. By contrast, the free market demand model may be ideologically unacceptable to many educators of adults whose own ideological orientation may be more humanistic. Hence, a compromise ‘mixed economy’ model may be a practical solution to the problem of organizing the service.

Bureaucratic Organization

Adult and continuing education provision is made by many different organizations, as indicated by the above discussion. Indeed, even local education authority provision of general education for adults varies from one authority to another. Mee (1980:31-32) suggests that three main linkages occur: adult education as a separate organization, even though it has to use other premises than its own e.g. local schools when they are not in use; adult education as a department within a community school or college of further education, etc.; adult education combined with another service, such as the youth service, and organized as a joint provision. Additionally, continuing education is provided by colleges, polytechnics and universities; sometimes in combination with adult education but often separately, sometimes in an academic department and sometimes as part of the registry of the organization. Large industrial and commercial companies also have their own departments of continuing education, even though they may not go under that name. Within this diversity it is very clear that adult and continuing education is frequently provided in and by large organizations that may be conceptualized as bureaucracies. Yet there has been little academic research in adult and continuing education that reflects this perspective, so that it is necessary to provide a broad overview of the bureaucratic organization in order that some of the problems of the discipline may be elaborated.

Bureaucracy has been the subject of numerous investigations and Hall (1963) studied the work of nine major writers about bureaucracy and none had the same list of characteristics about it. Since Hall’s work there have been many other pieces of work about bureaucratic organizations but there are still no agreement about the characteristics of the phenomenon. While it would be both tedious and unnecessary to rehearse all of these analyses here, it should be borne in mind that listing characteristics of any phenomenon without a conceptual framework is an invalid procedure. The reason why this is so is because any other characteristic may be added to or subtracted from the list without reason, since there is no theoretical foundation to the list. However, one approach that has been used widely in empirical research, both of industrial and commercial organizations and of ecclesiastical ones (Ransom et al 1977) in recent years is that developed by Pugh et al (1963) at Aston University. The characteristics that they suggest have been found to be relevant in their research and are, therefore, employed here. They maintain that there are six primary dimensions that comprise the basis of organizational structure:

While the last of the six dimensions was originally called ‘traditionalism’, these six have gained some support from scholars, such as Hall (1972) and since it has formed the basis of some empirical research it may be useful in the analysis of organizations providing adult and continuing education. Unfortunately no such sociological analysis has yet been undertaken and even recent analyses of adult education centres (Small and Tight 1983) are largely descriptive and have little theoretical analytical base. While they do not set out to provide one, it is unfortunate that even their organization chart is not really precise, so that such an analysis is still awaited. Even so, the Aston group’s model is one that would allow a comparative organizational analysis of providers of adult and continuing education. It might be hypothesized, were such an analysis conducted, that compared with the small adult education institutes, such as that described by Small and Tight, that the larger colleges and universities have: greater specialization; more standardization and formalization; similar authority structures that are centralized in terms of administration and policy matters but decentralized in academic matters; have more administrative strata; less flexibility. Pugh et al (1969:98), for instance, found that:

Hence, comparative structural analyses could be conducted in adult and continuing education and it would probably be discovered that certain aspects of structure are a function of size. Even so, the structure of the organization may not necessarily be the most appropriate to achieve the purpose of the organization itself. Whilst efficiency studies have been conducted within the study of organizations none have actually been conducted in adult and continuing education, so that this will not be pursued here. However, it is very evident that management studies need to be conducted; indeed, that management training needs to be undertaken in this field and further reference will be made to this in the final chapter.

Commencing any study of an organization from the structural perspective will, it will be recalled, influence the manner in which the individual actors within the organization are perceived. However, it would be possible to relate some of these studies to the role of the educator of adults, but since this constitutes the topic for the final chapter further discussion is deferred until then. By contrast, it is possible to study organizational behaviour from an interactionist perspective, in which the social order is seen as negotiated between the role players. Studies exist in initial education of this nature, e.g. (Geer 1971), Becker (1971) and also studies by hospitals and mental institutions (Strauss et al 1973), Goffman (1961), but none exist in adult and continuing education. Nevertheless, it would be quite possible to use existing research in studying this area of education and some examples are discussed below. Geer and Becker, in differing ways, both discuss how the classroom is a negotiated order: Geer specifying how the teacher and the pupils create informal rules and that once they are made how all the role players should conform to these expectations. In precisely the same way the emphasis that adult educators place upon the first class of a course may be interpreted as negotiating the order of the class and both tutor and students working out how they will perform their respective roles. From a wider organizational perspective, Strauss et al analyse the ways in which the main groups of actors in the hospital negotiate their roles with each. They (1973:315) specify that:

A similar approach might be employed with all the personnel who interact regularly with each other in an adult education institute, a community college or a polytechnic or university involved in adult and continuing education. Such an approach, examining the patterns of negotiation would then throw considerable light upon the way that organizations providing adult and continuing education actually function. A similar approach to Goffman’s study of the mental hospital might also be employed, in which he examined the world of the inmate, that of the staff, interaction ritual, the process of hospitalization and socialization, etc. It would be possible to examine the world of the adult student, the world of full-time educators of adults, the world of part-time staff, etc. and then to look carefully at the interaction ritual.

Thus it may be seen that there is a richness and diversity in the study of organizations that has not yet been utilised by scholars in adult and continuing education. However, as the sociology of adult and continuing education emerges, so some of these researches will probably be employed. At present, one major study or organizational theory has been employed in adult education and that must now be examined.

Centre-Periphery Model of Organization

The one model of organization theory which has been applied to adult and continuing education is the centre-periphery model devised by Schon (1973), which relates to the diffusion of innovations. The model was first used in adult education in U.K. by Elston (1975) and subsequently employed by Mee (1980). Reference is made below to the research on diffusion of innovation because the context in which this model arises is important to understanding it. However, the model may best be described as that of a central organization with outreach agencies working away from the centre in order to spread the innovation with which the centre is concerned. It is basically an entrepreneurial or a missionary model. Schon (1973:77) specifies that there are three basic premises to the model: that the innovation to be diffused actually exists; diffusion is regarded as an innovation that moves from the centre outwards; directed diffusion is a centrally managed process of dissemination, training, provision of resources and incentives. Schon himself regarded the prototype of the diffusion the agricultural extension agent, who is clearly a part of the adult and continuing education movement in America. Indeed, one of the early adaptations of the research into the diffusion of innovation by Rogers (1962) was by the agricultural extension agencies e.g. Fisher J.D., Wesselman R.A. et al (1968) Indeed, it was within the sphere of agriculture one of the earliest of all diffusion studies was undertaken when Ryan and Gross (1943) examined the process of adopting a new type of seed corn in two communities in Iowa. However, it is a model that has considerable similarities to that which occurs in some extra-mural departments and some forms of continuing education outreach, in which the department itself is at the centre and its tutors and other staff work away from the centre in the periphery. Where the staff actually conduct courses in the region, Schon regards this as a “Johnny Appleseed ” model, whereas when the staff seek to attract students from the pheriphery to the centre it is a “magnet ” model. However, some of the agents at the periphery may actually create secondary centres in the vicinity where they are teaching, so that a proliferation of centres model emerges. This model, as Mee (1980: 27) has suggested, typifies the structure of many local education authority adult education institutes and, indeed, that of some extra-mural departments. In these instances, the department itself remains as the main centre and the outstations are secondary centres. Schon suggests that the primary centre actually assumes specialized functions, such as training, while the secondary centres undertake the work of teaching, etc. However, the majority of adult education institutes and extra-mural departments are probably not quite large enough for the centre to adopt a totally different programme to that of its outstations and nor are the outstations quite so independent; for instance, the member of academic staff responsible for the administration of a secondary centre may have academic responsibility for his discipline throughout the whole institute. Such a division of labour may help to ensure the unity of the institute, whereas independent secondary centres may create a situation of instability, but the dual responsibility may cause role strain among academic staff.

The diffusion of innovations perspective adopted by Schon is quite significant in continuing education especially. Hence, its significance to the agricultural extension movement in America. Underlying this approach is the way that new knowledge is disseminated to practitioners in the field and Rogers (1962) suggested that there is a patterned process of adoption in which five different types of respondent appear:

The percentages represent the proportion of the professional group which fall into each category. The significant group are the early adopters, who are the trend setters or the opinion leaders. They tend to be slightly younger, have higher status, more favourable financial position, more specialized work, more contacts with research centres, more sources of information and have a more cosmopolitan orientation than most other practitioners. Knowing the opinion leaders is an important strategy for extension agents since if they are to diffuse an innovation it is wise to know whom others will copy. Such a strategy may become more significant in the United Kingdom as continuing education becomes more institutionalised, but it may not be the whole strategy.

Schon, himself, was a little critical of this form of organization since large organizations frequently viewed adaptations by secondary centres as failures of primary centre control. Hence, he (1973:102) points out that the proliferation of centres system:

Thus he suggests that the new form that is emerging is the learning system or network, which is more flexible in the face of rapid social change. While there is a movement in the direction of the creation of learning networks (ACACE:1983b) it must be recognised that there are significant conceptual differences between the organization of education and the creation of learning networks, which entails recognition that education and learning are not essentially the same phenomenon.

Learning may be regarded as a part of the process of human living in which individuals acquire new knowledge, skills or attitudes by a variety of different means but education is a much later phenomenon in which specific forms of learning are incorporated. Education, then, is the institutionalization of human learning, so that learning networks may themselves institutionalize in the same way as other successful movements have done in the past. They may not institutionalize into the same educational form as the present education system, but if they do not, then it raises the interesting possibility of education and another institutionalized learning system co-existing, hence making the future system even more complex than the one which McCullough (1980) found so complex to describe. However, in a time of declining resources the question must be raised about the extent to which a new system will be allowed to perpetuate itself if it competes for students in a free market. Nevertheless, the theory of social change discussed earlier in this text is one of social evolution, so that the creation of learning networks would merely indicate the direction in which the next phase of this social phenomenon will take.

Dilemmas of Institutionalised Education of Adults

Once learning is institutionalised certain dilemmas are created and in this section some of these are explored but prior to undertaking this task it is necessary to understand the process of institutionalization. Institutions, claims Berger (1966:104) ‘provide procedures through which human conduct is patterned, compelled to go, in grooves deemed desirable by society. And this trick is performed by making these grooves appear to the individual as the only possible ones’. Education, then, is institutionalised learning and, as was pointed out above, the recognition that learning still exists outside of the educational institution has resulted in the idea that institutionalized learning networks should be created. However, implicit throughout this study has been the paradox of institutionalization and in this brief section some of the dilemmas of this paradox are discussed.

Learning is the acquisition of knowledge, skill or attitude and it does not matter how it is acquired, it is still learning, so that an individual can spend a lifetime reflecting upon the nature of the universe and of the human beings that live on this planet and can think some of the profoundest thoughts and achieve some of the greatest insights into human behaviour. He can read some of the best books and understand a wide range of disciplines. In short, he can be a very learned person. Yet if he has no General Certificate of Education passes at Ordinary Level he may appear on an application form for a job as a person without education. Hence, one of the dilemmas of institutionalised education is simply that the education process does not define a learned person even though philosophers may seek to define an educated man.

Hence a second dilemma arises, that of freedom versus control. The self-directed learner may endeavour to master a wide variety of disciplines, may work as his own pace and may link his studies as he wishes. Hence, some of the lifelong learners described by Gross (1977) were free to study disciplines in the way that they considered right for them. However a curriculum is negotiated within the education system, the learning of the student is controlled to some extent by the teacher, the examination and the time limits imposed by the academic year. Hence, any institutionalized learning follows the patterns and parameters dictated by others and is, consequently, subject to control. That education is subject to considerable control has been a feature of the analysis contained in this study.

Another problem of institutionalization is that there arises a normative order within the organization which seeks to provide the education. All who wish to teach and learn, or both, within that organization are expected to conform to that order. This normative order can be viewed as an educational sub-culture which imposes a hidden curriculum on those who seek to participate in the organization. Sociological studies of schools in initial education have pointed to the fact that they have a middle class, or a lower middle class, sub-culture into which the children from those social classes fit more easily than do the children of working class origin. Adult and continuing education organizations likewise have their own middle class, or lower middle class, subculture in which adults from that background fit easily enough. However, adult and continuing education organizations seek to attract students from working class backgrounds as well. Yet the very existence of the organization creates a barrier to people from working classes coming, since their sub-culture is foreign to that of the middle classes. Hence, many working class people reject the educational organization and its subculture but this does not mean that they reject learning, only institutionalized learning.

One writer aware of the problems of institutionalization is Illich, who in a number of books has sought to demonstrate some of its weaknesses in medicine, in the professions, etc. Illich and Verne (1976:14) claim that: ‘Medicine has made life the subject of medical care; education makes existence the subject of a study course’. Hence, while educational aims may be to produce independent adults, able to learn for themselves, in fact it creates adults dependent on an educational system for their learning. Thus the nature of adult education itself is called into question according to Illich and Verne by this process and the independent versus the dependent adult becomes one of the dilemmas of institutionalization.

The final dilemma that is to be discussed here is what of O’Dea (1966:91) calls the ‘dilemma of mixed motivation’. Teachers of adults frequently enter the occupation in order to be of service to adults, often the motivation is very high and based on the fact that they regard themselves as lucky to have received an education and they want to be involved in helping others have the same type of opportunities. Yet the educational organization is a bureaucracy and a career is open to the educators to rise up the bureaucratic hierarchy. In order to gain seniority the teacher may have to put some ideals behind him and to function as an administrator and organizer within the constraints that the educational organization imposes. To provide education for adults may be a time-consuming unsocial hours’ occupation, working in the evenings to ensure that provision is made at the time when adults are able to attend it. But to be an administrator of an organization may ensure that the working hours are more social and the remunerative rewards higher. Hence, the educator of adults is faced with a dilemma in respect of his vocation. This dilemma is perhaps exacerbated within the administrative framework because it is easy for administrators to be more concerned with perpetuating the organizational structures than with the goals of the organization. Merton (1968:253) regards this phenomena as displaced goals.

Hence, the institutionalization of learning may be seen to be a social process, that like the institutionalization of other movements, creates problems and dilemmas. These are in the nature of the institutional organization itself and are not easily resolvable.

Conclusion

Adult and continuing education is a highly organized activity and yet few studies have yet appeared which employ the insights of organizational analysis. This chapter has examined some of these perspectives and sought to apply them to adult and continuing education, but in the process it has raised issues that require further research and consideration. One area of organized education that has been quite fully researched is the participation of adults in education and this constitutes the subject for the next chapter.