本文以Wilhelm Flitner的成人教育學說為主題，呈現他企圖透過教育，改善社會問題的努力。Flitner當時所處的德國社會，由於貧富階層的差異大，所以形成了不同階層人民在文化上的差距。所以Flitner的成教學說以縮短社會對立階層，尤其是有教養者與缺少教養者、專家與一般大眾的文化差異為目的。在經過歷史回顧與理論分析，瞭解這問題產生的原因後，他進一步提出由民眾高等學校的具體措施，解決這個問題。臺灣近年來也由於全球化帶來的經濟發展，出現了社會貧富差距日益擴大的問題，本文藉由對Flitner成人教育學說的探討，提供臺灣的成人教育在面對貧富差異所帶來的文化差距問題時，作為反思的參考依據。

This paper focuses on Wilhem Flitner’s theory of adult education, trying to show Flitner’s attempt at improving social problems through education. In the German society where Flitnerlived, the large gap between the poor and the rich resulted in cultural gap among people of different social classes. In the face of this, Flitner’s theory aims to decrease class conflict, in particular the cultural differences between the well- educated and the poorly educated as well as between experts and the general public. By means of historical review and theoretical analysis, Flitnerrealized the reasons for the social problem and then proposed that the problem be addressed through the establishment of Folk high school. In recent years, due to the economic development in a globalized society, Taiwan has also seen an increasingly widened gap between the poor and the rich. On this account, this paper also elaborates the implications of Flitner’s theory for the field of adult education in Taiwan, especially when facing the problem of cultural gap arising from wealth inequality.