Leisure humanistic educational principles in lifelong learning programs for adults of Spanish universities

Abstract

Adult lifelong learning has been a concern of most Spanish universities for the last thirty years. The purpose of this paper is to analyse some particular educational principles of the proposals that the Spanish Universities offer to adults. The methodology used consists of a content analysis of the documents summarized in the information displayed on the web page of each school, taking as a framework the universities of the State Association of University Programs for the elderly (AEPUM). There has been a hermeneutic interpretation of the approaches of the University Programs for Seniors, the analysis being based on the theory of leisure existent literature. This paper also offers a review of the literature of the theoretical foundations that support leisure studies as a learning model and also of the current studies on programs for Seniors. The novel aspects of this analysis highlight that the training offers of these programs have tried to contribute to the students ́ education throughout their whole lives. The analysis of the above mentioned principles from the point of view of the theory of leisure points to the need to reinforce the importance of satisfaction as the goal of the training programmes for adults and also to specify the concept of autotelismo in order to promote leisure studies as a training offer.