A Ministry of Enthusiasm: Centenary Essays on the Workers’ Educational Association

This volume marks the centenary of the Worker’s Educational Association, the UK’s oldest, largest and most successful provider of adult education courses in the voluntary sector. With contributions from practitioners and scholars in adult education, it sets the WEA in its historical and social context, tracing its development, and asks key questions about the provision of adult education today. Has it become a middle-class movement? Is it an instrument of social change or is it an academic institution along classical lines? Is it an autonomous voluntary organization or has it become an arm of the state educational service? The contributors provide answers to these questions from a variety of perspectives.