ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an overview of the origins and development of andragogy, since the German teacher Kapp (1833) first mentioned the term. This overview explores the close relationships with adult education and addresses some of the major debates that dominated the development of andragogy, in specific its assumptions, the scientific foundations and its critical ambitions. The main focus of andragogy has been: helping adults learn and develop, creating favorable conditions for learning and development in a work environment as well as in their private lives. Several of these topics still play an important role in the current advances in HRD. However, the conceptual elaboration, the empirical evidence and thus the scientific development of andragogy have been rather complicated since it has been a field of study at a number of universities in Europe, the United States and Asia.
