This book deals with various aspects of learners' engagement with open and distance education using biographical material. The book begins with two chapters that cover the diversities that open and distance teachers can expect in learners' backgrounds. The first thoughts of enrollment through the issues involved in students' experiences of open and distance education, are presented sequentially through learners' stories. Aspects of students' study lives and the interrelationships with their broader contexts are revealed through the following six chapters, including issues of: money--coping with costs of study; sex--learning in gendered worlds; power; age--learning in retirement; work--the interplay between education, training and work; and leisure. The final chapter of the book emphasizes the diversity of learners' motivations and learning styles and restates the need for teachers of open and distance education to take these factors into account in their teaching styles. (KC)