Keele Research Repository

Current demographics within the United Kingdom present a challenging picture, with older people forming a considerable proportion of the population. In particular, older people are spending a longer period outside paid work at a point in the life course constructed as retirement. Increasingly, some older adults are returning to learning as a means of remaining socially connected, keeping active and purely for pleasure. Research which seeks to understand the relevance and importance of learning in later life remains quite disparate and, in addition, there is a lack of longitudinal or biographical research which seeks to explore this phenomenon. The research reported in this thesis aims to offer new insights into later-life learning by exploring how retired older people narrate their experiences of learning, and through consideration of the interrelationship this experience to life course capital.