This book contains 10 papers based on a data set from the 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey, which collected data from more than 20,000 individual respondents in samples representative of the adult populations in 6 countries: Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. The papers are: "Foreword" (Paul Belanger, Albert Tuijnman); (1) "The 'Silent Explosion' of Adult Learning" (Paul Belanger, Albert Tuijnman); (2) "Demand and Supply of Adult Education and Training" (Willem Houtkoop, Hensel Oosterbeek); (3) "Patterns of Participation in Adult Education and Training: Cross-national Comparisons (Pierre Doray, Stephen Arrowsmith); (4) "Barriers to Participation in Adult Education and Training: Towards a New Understanding" (Kjell Rubenson and Gongli Xu); (5) "The Non-participation of Undereducated Adults" (B. Allan Quigley, Stephen Arrowsmith); (6) "New Trajectories of Learning across the Lifespan" (Max van der Kamp, Jo Scheeren); (7) "Literacy Proficiency and Adults' Readiness to Learn" (David C. Niece, T. Scott Murray); (8) "Gender Differences in Work-Related Training" (Edwin Leuven); (9) "Beyond the Walls of the Household: Gender and Adult Education Participation" (Sofia Valdivieslo Gomez); and (10) "Adult Education Participation: A Policy Overview" (Abrar Hasan, Albert Tuijnman). Appended are a description of the data collection procedures used in the International Adult Literacy Survey and the survey instrument. (MN)