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This book draws on policy analysis and research in the UK, Europe and worldwide, to examine issues of gender in relation to lifelong learning. It shows how patterns of access to, participation in, and outcomes of, lifelong learning manifest gender divisions and power relations. The discussion covers school, adult, community, further and higher education and covers issues such as gendered subject 'choices', reasons for non-participation, pedagogies of lifelong learning, the experiences of disabled students, and the widening of participation. A range of critical feminist perspectives are used to identify, clarify and critique gender inequalities in lifelong learning. In the introductory chapter, 'Gendering lifelong learning', Carole Leathwood and Becky Francis provide an overview of the book, describing the chapters in each of the three parts (policy analysis, empirical analysis focusing on accessing lifelong learning, and empirical analysis focusing on experiences of lifelong learning). Part one, 'The policy context', contains the following chapters: Unprotected participation in lifelong learning and the politics of hope: a feminist reality check of discourses around flexibility, seamlessness and learner earners / Jill Blackmore (pp.9-26); Locating the learner within EU policy: trajectories, complexities, identities / Jacky Brine (pp.27-39); Gendered constructions of lifelong learning and the learner in the UK policy context / Carole Leathwood (pp.40-53). Part two, 'Accessing lifelong learning', contains the following chapters: Troubling trajectories: gendered 'choices' and pathways from school to work / Becky Francis (pp.57-69); Masculinities, femininities and resistance to participation in post-compulsory education / Louise Archer (pp.70-82); Fair access?: exploring gender, access and participation beyond entry to higher education / Penny Jane Burke (pp.83-93). Part three, 'Experiences of lifelong learning', contains: Community education: participation, risk and desire / Lyn Tett (pp.97-107); From childcare practitioner to FE tutor: biography, identity and lifelong learning / Helen Colley (pp.108-120); Disability, gender and identity: the experiences of disabled students in higher education / Sheila Riddell (pp.121-136); The in/visible journey: black women's lifelong lessons in higher education / Heidi Safia Mirza (pp.137-152); Older women as lifelong learners / Barbara Kamler (pp.153-163); War and diaspora as lifelong learning contexts for immigrant women / Shahrzad Mojab (pp.164-175); Conclusion / Becky Francis and Carole Leathwood (pp.176-183).