| Female students age 25 and older, known here as mature women students, now make up over one-fourth of the national enrollment in higher education, with that percentage projected to increase. However, adult learning theory has paid very little attention to gender-related issues, to women as learners, and even less to matters of diversity. A comparable absence occurs in research on participants in women's studies courses, which has tended to dwell instead on pedagogy.;This study employed a feminist epistemology in beginning to address such limitations in the literature. It sought to discover the academic and personal experiences of five mature women enrolled in one of two graduate-level women's studies courses at a single institution. The women's ages ranged from 25 to 52, with a notable level of diversity in every category except race. Using classroom observations and a series of interviews during one semester, the project produced case studies of each woman's experiences, followed by comparisons of the women with each other.;Results suggested that all participants had enormously complex lives, making academic and personal experiences variable. The women revealed a high degree of ongoing engagement in personal reflection, which in turn indicated the prominence of lived experiences as a credible source of knowledge. A predominant issue which across both classes included the appropriate role of personal experience in academic discourse. A second issue concerned the domination of class discussions by a few students. It illuminated student preferences for participatory equity, an expectation that while classmates should consider participation as a shared responsibility, they should also self-monitor the amount and style of their contributions.;Feminist poststructuralist theory emerged as a way to analyze study participants, as well as adult learning and women's studies theories. Its use of multiple discourses helps identify marginalization, while also suggesting alternative routes to de-centered forms of power. Implications of the study include challenges to feminist educators for complicating the presence of gender, greater institutional accessibility for mature adult students, a reconceptualization of the now-unified category of mature adult students, and the need for more qualitative studies of mature women students. |
