Magnetic crystals are ideal systems to study the universal properties of phase transitions, particularly systems with quenched randomness and frustration. Pure systems with different symmetries provide the foundation for studies in corresponding systems with quenched randomness. Because phenomena near phase transitions have universal properties, results from bulk magnetic crystals provide a basis for understanding phase transitions in films and nanoparticles, as well as many non-magnetic materials.This motivates the subject of this book, which discusses phase transitions studies in magnetic crystals from the perspective of an experimentalist who has done extensive work in the field. The advantage is that many experimental techniques are described in sufficient detail for a good understanding of the results and their comparison to theory.

In post-industrial societies some workers will have stable, good jobs in knowledge and learning-intensive workplaces, while many others will be underemployed or locked into a series of precarious, low-skill jobs in the periphery of the economy. In such a society, inclusions and exclusions in economics and social life are bound to correspond closely to inclusions and exclusions in adult education and training.

With the transition toward the post-industrial society increasingly complete, the challenge to reduce the exclusive tendencies in adult education and training, and to make learning a common, continuous and even universal experience is becoming more urgent than ever. The design of successful intervention strategies will depend crucially on the knowlege base of adult education, especially improved insights into the factors that are associated with participation and non-participation. By improving that knowledge base that this volume, which reports on a six-country comparative investigation of the patterns of adult education participation, seeks to make a contribution to policy and research.

This volume provides the first international comparative study on the world of adult learning activities. It offers the first systematic attempt to provide reliable empirical information on some critical issues regarding the transformation of adult and continuing education in post-industrial societies such as:
- What is the extent of the learning demand among the adult population in industrialized countries?
- How many adults are involved every year in organized learning activities for vocational reasons, for reasons of academic or general education, and for socio-cultural aims?
- Who participates in what kind of activities? Who does not participate, and why?
- How is the transformation of the learning demand to be explained? What are the main factors at work in this remarkable rise in the learning aspirations of adult women and men?
- Why is it important to monitor the expanding field of organized adult learning? And how is its dispersed reality of multifold provision to be monitored?

The book is based on survey data collected for this purpose in six industrialized countries: Canada, The Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States, as well as in the peripheric European region of the Canary Islands (Spain). Although marked by significant differences between the countries surveyed, the data indicate a surprising increase in the participation of the adult population in educational projects while at the same time revealing some conflicting trends.