Voluntaryism and adult education as civil society and the ‘third way’ for personal empowerment and social change

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Abstract
Using a case study illustration of a voluntary organization, working within a modern hospital‐and community‐based services context (such as palliative care), the paper explores the ways in which a predominantly female membership empowers the volunteers to undertake a variety of roles and responsibilities backed by the support of a strong emphasis on adult learning and personal development as the basis of ‘professional voluntary action’ and a ‘quality‐focused organization’ as a deliberate human resource strategic approach to change management in a complex work environment. The paper goes on to explore the wider sociocultural significance of voluntaryism as an expression of adult education under conditions where the state is gradually withdrawing from a front‐line commitment to needs meeting services and greater reliance is placed on the workings of the free market economy on the ‘user pay’ principle of economic rationalism. The scenario is elaborated through the use of the 18th‐century concept of the civil society and the recent emergent one of the, as yet, undefined idea of the ‘third way’ as an alternative to the either/or thinking of the state versus free market individualism.

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