Who are the main theorists of adult education, and what are their theories about?
Several authors have influenced the field of adult education through their writings. Among them are Jane Addams, Dame Nita Barrow, Moses Coady, Paulo Freire, Ettore Gelpi, Antonio Gramsci, N.F.S. Grundtvig, Myles Horton, Roby Kidd, Malcolm Knowles, David Kolb, Ruth Kotinsky, Eduard Lindeman, Jack Mezirow, Julius Nyerere and Jane Thompson. Some of them did not write specifically about adult education (e.g., Gramsci), but their ideas nevertheless made an impact on adult education theory. For a description of the contributions made by some of these authors and others, here is a link to the National-Louis University Adult Education webpage entitiled “Adult Educators You Should Know”: http://nlu.nl.edu/ace/fr_People.html. For some more links to webpages on adult education theory, see Kimeiko Hotta Dover’s webpage on Adult Learning Theorists: http://adulted.about.com/cs/adultlearningthe/. Kimeiko is a former graduate from Adult Education at OISE and her website on adult education (http://adu
