Through comparative methods the thesis will concentrate on the common\ud
features in the nature and development of community colleges in the\ud
United States of America, Canada and England. The insights gained will\ud
then be used to examine the influences behind the origins and developments\ud
of Australian community colleges.\ud
In the case of the U.S.A. and Canada the study inevitably makes considerable\ud
reference to developments within the broader tertiary educational\ud
contexts in which their community colleges operate. English community\ud
colleges, when compared with North American community colleges, present\ud
difficulties as they operate within the secondary sector. The difficulties\ud
are not insuperable as all"community colleges" regard themselves in\ud
varying degrees as having some kind of special relationship however\ud
nebulous or well-defined with a "community", particularly its adult component,and\ud
at a general level experience similar problems in attempting\ud
to cope with this relationship. Further, the thesis assumes that, unlike\ud
the U.S.A. and Canada where the basic institutional patterns at the postsecondary\ud
level have been established in most cases for at least a decade,\ud
England is in the process of evolving new institutional patterns partly in\ud
response to the increased demands for access to further and higher education,\ud
 particularly from the 16-19 age group. There is material in this\ud
transitional process for comparison, albeit speculative, between North\ud
American community colleges and some institutions such as the tertiary\ud
colleges which show signs of adopting parallel functions at similar levels\ud
within the broader tertiary educational sectors of England