Malcolm Knowles Awards for Significant Lifelong Contributions to the Field of Self-Directed Learning

2018 Peter Jarvis

Peter Jarvis, internationally known as a scholar and a speaker in the field of adult and continuing education, is emeritus Professor of Continuing Education at the University of Surrey, UK. He holds a B.D. degree from the University of London, a B.A. degree in economics from the University of Sheffield, a M.Soc.Sc. degree from the University of Birmingham, and a Ph.D. from the University of Aston. 

He was the first non-North American to be inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame (Class of 1997). Thoughout his many writings on adult education, distance learning, and lifelong learning, he has been a thoughtful writer on self-directed learning. In 1990. in a paper presented at the International Self-Directed Learning Symposium, he addressed some conceptual issues related to SDL and proposed a model of selfdirected and other-directed learning. 

He addressed the ISDLS two other times. His chapters for these three sessions are listed below: 1. "Self-Directed Learning and the Theory of Adult Education" in Long and Associates (1990) Advances in Research and Practice in Self-Directed Learning. 2. "Free-will, Freedom, and Self-Directed Learning" in Long and Associates (1992) Self-Directed Learning: Application and Research. 3. "Self-Directed Learning: Self-Help or Self-Service" in Long and Associates (1998) Developing Paradigms for Self-Directed Learning. 

Professor Jarvis has authored or co-authored more than 20 books. Among them, Adult Learning in the Social Context received the Cyril O. Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education in 1988. 

In The Theory and Practice of Learning, (2nd ed.), 2003, where an entire chapter is devoted to SDL, he stated, “The whole idea of lifelong learning and the learning society entails a notion of the individual selfdirected learner “(p. 89); “What is clear..is that self-directed learning has in many respects moved centre-stage” (p. 101). 

Professor Jarvis founded and is a long-time editor of the International Journal of Lifelong Learning. His International Dictionary of Adult and Continuing Education has also been widely influential. In addition to the Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education, Jarvis has received the Medal of the University of Helsinki (1994). In 1990-91, he was a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; in 1993, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He was Noted Scholar at the University of British Columbia, and has been a Visiting Professor at the universities of Ljubljana, Pedagogical University of Tallinn, Tennessee, Alaska at Anchorage and Maryland. He served as President of the British Association of International and Comparative Education (BAICE) in the year 1999-2000. In July 2011 he was awarded an honorary doctor of letters by the University of Nottingham, home to the world’s oldest University Chair in Adult Education. He also received the Comenius Award from the International ESVA Foundation (Outstanding Adult Educator in Europe - First Holder). 

Professor Jarvis has acted as an examiner for Ph.D. theses and master's degrees in the United Kingdom, Finland, Australia, India, and Malta. He has also acted as an assessor for research project proposals in the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, and Croatia and served on the Consultative Committee preparing both the Declaration and the Agenda for the Future of the 1997 UNESCO World Conference on Adult Education in Hamburg, Adult Learning--The Key to the 21st Century.”