Adults who enter or re-enter Korea NationalOpen University (KNOU) with a prior major break in theirformal involvement in learning tend to seek a focusedcourse of academic study, advanced knowledge, and thesubsequent awarding of a degree, certificate, or credentialthat reflects their specialized knowledge and expertise. Thisresearch draws upon life-history analysis to investigateKNOU students’ pre-institutional experiences of exclusionand alienation in education and society in relation to theircurrent motivations to attend the open and distance highereducation. The participants’ life stories illuminate howKorean social and cultural barriers prevented them fromeducational progress, as well as what motivated them toattend KNOU as adults. Each participant’s life historydescribes the actual phenomenon of exclusion and alien-ation in education at the individual level; this study alsoimplies how sociocultural discrimination in Korean societyimpacted each participant’s life. Given the participants’critical viewpoints of the incompatible roles that KNOUplays in Korean society, this study argues that the positivesocial function of open and distance higher education,which is widely taken for granted, needs to be reconsideredas this national approach to higher education for adults mayreinforce the current social relation highly affected byeducational credentials.

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• Reconsidering Open and Distance Higher Education:A Life-History Analysis of Adult Learners in KoreaNational Open University