Book excerpt: First Published in 1993. At a time when more mature women are encouraged to enter higher education, this book investigates the effects that being a student has on women's family and social relationships. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, Mature Women Students draws on in-depth interviews with women of different ethnic backgrounds and social classes -all mothers and in long-term relationships with a man. The result is a comprehensive picture of the shifting patterns of the women's lives at various stages of social science degree-level study. This picture reveals, amongst other things, that the public and private spheres of education and family are not separate entities; they interact and impinge, with particular implications for the position of women within each sphere. This accessible and challenging book illuminates an important and growing issue in women's lives and in society.