In this chapter, we begin to present the empirical findings that our research has generated. In a sense, the cornerstone of these findings is the analysis of the patterns of individuals’ participation in adult learning; and this is where we begin here. It is ironic given the prominence attached to lifelong learning in policy debates that relatively little has been known hitherto about what patterns of participation are actually like. Moreover, even less systematic, empirical investigation has been directed at exploring what are the factors that shape these patterns of participation over individuals’ lifetimes. And we begin to address these determinants of participation patterns in the latter parts of this chapter.

It is necessary at the outset, however, to be clear about some of the limitations of the research we have carried out. Perhaps most fundamentally, it should be noted that in describing people's patterns of participation, we encompass a wide diversity of forms of learning activity. There are the well-recognised differences between formal learning activities, such as taking courses in further or higher education, and informal practices, such as learning through leisuretime hobbies or participating in voluntary organisations. Equally, there are important distinctions between learning activities that people are required to undertake, at the behest of an employer or to qualify to undertake a pastime such as running a club, and those in which individuals take part voluntarily.

In much of what follows, these important distinctions are not a central part of our discussion. However, the general theoretical points argued in Chapter Two apply across all these different categories of adult education and training. Moreover, of course, given that we do include such a wide variety of learning activities in our analysis, it is perhaps even more striking that the extent of participation is so limited for a large proportion of people.

Learning trajectories

As we saw in Chapter Two, what is involved in an exploration of empirical patterns of participation in lifelong learning using the concept of trajectories is an attempt to describe characteristic sequences of learning episodes through the life course by aggregating individual experiences into a set of typologies (Gorard et al, 2001a). There is also a clear analytical element. Hence, the trajectory that people follow is largely determined by the resources that they derive from their social background.