Older adults' engagement with information communication technology (ICT) can enhance their wellbeing and quality of life. However, older adults continue to lag behind their younger cohorts' ICT use, and many remain unconnected. While policy and strategy has tended to focus on the need to equip older adults with technology skills and improve their…

This specially themed ""Getting of Wisdom," Learning in Later Life" Edition of the "Australian Journal of Adult Learning" ("AJAL") is not so much concerned with the issue of ageing itself, but more about quality of life regardless of age. It is about taking, but also giving back as best as possible at any…

This paper is concerned with the general issues of ageing, learning, and education for the elderly. It also examines the more specific issues of why, how and what elders want to learn. The world's population is ageing rapidly. For example, it is estimated that by 2020 20% of the population in the USA will be 65 years old and over. It is predicted…

Many older adults are interested in learning long past the age dictated by social norms. Some want to learn simply for the joy of learning, others because of the social contacts made by joining a community of learners, and still others want to learn so that they have a purpose in life. The University of the Third Age (U3A) is one of several models…

Eighteen homebound frail elderly took part in an eight-week teleconference that provided practical information (nutrition, health, social services) as well as stimulated thinking. Quality of life improvements and further interest in education resulted. Teleconferencing proved a cost-effective method of reaching homebound persons. (SK)

This paper provides an update on the 1998 findings from an Australian longitudinal study begun in 1991 and titled the Life-Patterns Project. Based on 1,430 returns of the questionnaire and interviews of a sub-sample of 100, it examines implications of patterns beginning to emerge as participants enter their mid-twenties and reassess their…

This book contains a comparative survey of efforts to organize female workers in trade unions in both developing and industrialized nations and 19 case studies of efforts to organize female workers in selected occupations. The following papers are included: "A Comparative Survey" (Swasti Mitter); "The Union of Women Domestic…