From Adults to Non-Traditional Students to Lifelong Learners in Higher Education: Changing Contexts and Perspectives

This chapter looks into the changing contexts and definitions of clienteles of lifelong learners over the last quarter of a century. The author has been involved in three closely related studies on who lifelong learners are, how they access and participate in higher education (HE), and how and what are they learning in HE and summarises some of the developments and issues over the 25 years that these studies cover (approximately 1987 to 2012).