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This volume provides an examination of what is meant by the learning society and how it can contribute to the development of knowledge and skills for employment and other areas of adult life.
Is lifelong learning the big idea which will deliver economic prosperity and social justice? Or will it prove to be another transient phenomenon? Picture lifelong learning, the editor suggests, as making its way through three overlapping stages - romance, evidence and implementation. Lifelong learning is tentatively entering the second stage, where research evidence is beginning to challenge the vacuous rhetoric of the stage of romance. The findings from the Economic and Social Research Council's programme of research into the Learning Society are presented in two volumes, of which this is the second. The editor, Frank Coffield, begins by surveying as a whole the findings of the 14 projects, and summarises them in a number of recurrent themes and policy recommendations. The chapters which follow present the aims, methods, findings and policy implications of six projects. Volume 1 contains similar chapters on the other projects. Taken together, the conclusions suggest very different ways of thinking about a Learning Society and very different policies from those in operation at present. The two volumes demonstrate from empirical evidence the continuing weaknesses of current policies and make proposals, based on hard evidence, for more effective structural changes. This second volume presents findings from a national survey of the skills of British workers, and it discusses both the meaning of the Learning Society for adults with learning difficulties, and the use of social capital to explain patterns of lifelong learning. Other chapters present for the first time five different 'trajectories' of lifelong learning, explore the determinants of participation and non-participation in learning, and examine innovation in Higher Education. Finally, two differing visions of a Learning Society are contrasted. The first extrapolates existing policies and practices into the next 5-10 years and finds them seriously wanting. The second option calls for more democracy rather than technocracy and develops a kaleidoscopic array of possible futures which find their source in the empirical work of the 14 projects. These volumes are essential reading for politicians, policy makers, practitioners, employers, and all teachers with responsibility for lifelong learning.
Universities and societies around the world are involved in significant transition. Universities are now invited to expand their central aims and purposes in order to embrace a role in relation to the development of the societies in which they are located. This change of focus has major implications for curricula, modes of teaching and the student body. International contributors to this wideranging text discuss different aspects of the phenomenon of globalisation in relation to higher education, but also in relation to moves by nation states to devolve government to regional and subregional bodies and the implications this has for educational systems.
Adult guidance services, the 'brokers' between individuals and the labour and learning markets, take on a new significance in the context of The Learning Society and the end of the 'job for life'. This unique book analyses contrasting approaches to the delivery of guidance services in the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and France, focusing on the effects of marketisation and the impact of European Union policies.The book compares services delivered through quasi-markets with other regimes, addressing key questions such as - what effect do the new performance indicators have on who gets what? what is happening to quality, equity and professionalism? what adult guidance service arrangements are the most effective to meet the needs of a learning society?This book will be welcomed by academics and public policy analysts, and all those interested in education, training and the labour market in the European Union, especially guidance policy makers and practitioners.
LSA 2007 What ever happened to the leisure society? aims to turn the leisure studies multi-disciplinary gaze to the shifts in leisure practices, industries, cultures and economies over the past 30 years or so. The call for this timely reflection aims not only to consider work-leisure shifts but also seeks to evaluate developments in the theorising of leisure. The conference is aimed at academics, including researchers, research students, and lecturers in leisure studies, politics, economics, history, sociology, cultural studies, cultural policy, social policy and media studies. Practitioners in the leisure services (public, private and voluntary) will be attracted to the conference by distinctive policy and practice-based contributions. Practitioners from the cultural industries, including market researchers, industry analysts and cultural commentators, will also find the conference of interest.
Governments worldwide assume that national competitiveness can be improved by developing workforce skills. This book critically examines this 'high skills' vision at both policy and practice levels. It challenges an oversimplified policy rhetoric that underestimates the complexity of the processes involved in developing a skilled workforce. The book focuses on key issues relating to the high skills agenda: skills and political economy; different investment strategies for producing skills; qualification systems and learning. A multidisciplinary team of authors from a range of disciplines, including economics, management and education, provides the cross-cutting international and comparative analysis. Editorial comment links their explorations to wider questions of skill formation processes and overarching questions are addressed through in-depth analysis of the roles of higher education, apprenticeship and formal school learning in skill formation.
This publication contains a number of essays which explore issues relating to population ageing and the needs of older workers from a lifelong learning perspective. Although the focus is on European experiences, it also includes contributions from Australia, Japan and the United States. The central argument of this book is that ageing must be seen as a lifelong learning and development process in which one continuously takes on new life challenges; and in the context of work, lifelong learning is understood as a broad, holistic concept which encompasses individual education and training, as well as participative workplace learning actively supported by employers.
Lifelong learning is high on most governments' policy agendas, but how much progress has been made in developing lifelong learning over the past 30 years? This book draws upon a range of academics and policy analysts to address international policy research in the field of lifelong learning.
