A key factor motivating the organisation of tutorial classes for adult learners, based on collaboration between the Workers' Educational Association and universities in England and Wales, was a belief that they offered an educational vehicle for the promotion of liberal concepts of political citizenship. Attempts to disseminate this tutorial class model were not always successful, despite the promotional efforts of Albert Mansbridge and his fellow supporters. This article considers the educational and organizational characteristics of tutorial classes and makes a regional comparison of their meagre development in Scotland with their sustained growth elsewhere between 1907 and 1939. It identifies a complex weave of factors, related to both the nature of student demand and the funding of adult education, that inhibited the growth of tutorial classes in Scotland. These factors also provide insight into general barriers to the development of liberal adult education to promote citizenship in Scotland.

This paper considers how Hegel's philosophical idealism influenced the thinking and practical activities of four successive holders of the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow between 1866 and 1927. It argues that their activities were shaped by Hegelian concepts of citizenship, which engendered a commitment to encouraging the organisation and development of liberal adult education. It considers how their support for social movements promoting new educational opportunities, notably university extension, the WEA and social settlement houses, had a substantial and lasting impact on the evolution of adult education during the twentieth century.

SUMMARY Continuing Education Departments in the UK have recently been faced with the challenge of responding to a shift in the basis of the funding of their provision towards the mainstream method. This case study focuses on how one such Department, within the University of Glasgow, has utilized special funding initiatives to develop a flexible programme of part‐time credit‐bearing courses and awards that are designed to widen access to higher education for adults wishing to study in the evening. The response from the target group to these developments suggests that there is significant demand for such opportunities, within a framework of lifelong learning, though considerable difficulties remain to be overcome before their full potential is likely to be achieved.