Taking an international perspective, the authors examine the theoretical and practical aspects of lifelong learning. A number of issues and key areas of debate are addressed in different national and international contexts and case studies are provided from countries including Hong Kong.

Taking an international perspective, the authors examine the theoretical and practical aspects of lifelong learning. A number of issues and key areas of debate are addressed in different national and international contexts and case studies are provided from countries including Hong Kong.

The worldwide appearance and expression of adult education and lifelong learning have changed significantly during the past 20 years. This book explores recent changes in their related national and international policies, how they intersect with developments in higher education and how they may contribute to debates on citizenship and democracy.

The global expansion of participation rates in higher education continue more or less unabated. However, while the concept of lifelong learning has figured prominently in national and international educational policy discourse for more than three decades, its implications for the field of higher education has remained relatively underdeveloped. This book focuses on a particular dimension of the lifelong learning: higher education for those who have not progressed directly from school to higher education. Some will embark on undergraduate programmes as mature students, part-time and/or distance students; others wish to return to higher education after having completed (or not completed) a previous academic programme, while increasing numbers participate in postgraduate and continuing studies for a complex mix of professional and personal reasons. Adopting a comparative and international longitudinal perspective which goes beyond a snapshot view by building on the cases of a core group of ten OECD countries, this timely book investigates the ways in which important new developments impacting on higher education crystallise around the lifelong learning agenda: new technology and open source resources; the changing role of the state and market in higher education; the blurring of public and private boundaries; issues of equity and access in a time of global economic turmoil; the increased emphasis on research and international league tables; the changing nature of the education; and, the complex interaction of international, national and regional expectations which governments and other stakeholders have of universities and other public and private institutions of higher education. While focusing on the situation in Canada, USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and a wide variety of European countries, the book also assesses the issues from the perspective of developing countries. Launched by the Irish Minister of Education, this timely book is a must read. Find out more here: http://www4.dcu.ie/ovpli/herc/book_launch

International contributors consider key themes in higher education including: ethics, spirituality, freedom, leadership and management and learning and teaching.

This important book builds on recent publications in lifelong learning which focus on learning and education in later life. This work breaks new ground in international understandings of what constitutes later life learning across diverse cultures in manifold countries or regions across the world. Containing 42 separate country/regional analyses of later life learning, the overall significance resides in insiders’ conceptualisations and critique of this emerging sub-field of lifelong learning and adult education. International perspectives on older adult education provides new appreciation of what is happening in countries from Europe (14), Africa (10), the Americas (7), Asia (9) and Australasia (2), as authored by adult educators and/or social gerontologists in respective geographical areas. These analyses are contextualised by a thorough introduction and critical appraisal where trends and fresh insights are revealed. The outcome of this book is a never-before available critique of what it means to be an older learner in specific nations, and the accompanying opportunities and barriers for learning and education. The sub-title of research, policy and practice conveys the territory that authors traverse in which rhetoric and reality are interrogated. Coverage in chapters includes conceptual analysis, historical patterns of provision, policy developments, theoretical perspectives, research studies, challenges faced by countries and “success stories” of later life learning. The resultant effect is a vivid portrayal of a vast array of learning that occurs in later life across the globe. Brian Findsen is Professor of Education and Postgraduate Leader for Te Whiringa School of Educational Leadership and Policy, Faculty of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Marvin Formosa is Head of the Department of Gerontology, Faculty for Social Wellbeing, University of Malta, and Director of the International Institute on Ageing (United Nations - Malta).

This book investigates the ways in which the social purposes of adult education are (re)interpreted over time, and between the global south and global north. It brings together thirty-seven authors from fourteen countries with extensive experience as academics and/or practitioners in the field. The book is inspired by the work and life of Lalage Bown, a leading proponent of post-colonial and inclusive visions of education for all. Over her long life she worked tirelessly to promote access to basic and higher education for people of all ages and backgrounds: with a deep commitment to striving for greater equality for women. Following an Introduction, the book is structured around four main themes: Adult Education and Social Justice; Decolonisation, Post-Colonialism and Indigenous Knowledge; From Literacy to Lifelong Learning; and, Fostering Excellence, Policy Development and Supporting Future Generation of Adult Educators. The book concludes with reflections on Lalage Bown’s Enduring Legacy.

As lifelong learning grows in popularity, few comprehensive pictures of the phenomenon have emerged. The Routledge International Handbook of Lifelong Learning provides a disciplined and complete overview of lifelong learning internationally. The theoretical structure puts the learner at the centre and the book emanates from there, pointing to the social context beyond the learner. Up-to-the-minute syntheses from many of the leading international experts in the field give vital snapshots of this rapidly evolving subject from wide-ranging perspectives including: learning throughout life sites of lifelong learning modes of learning policies social movements issues in lifelong learning geographical dimensions. This authoritative volume, essential reading for academics in the field of Lifelong Learning, examines the complexities of the subject within a systematic global framework and places it in its socio-historic context.

Recent changes in the world effected by the transformations of information technology, globalisation, and the move towards a knowledge economy over the last thirty years have been as radical and fundamental as the changes resulting from the invention of the wheel and the printing press. We are now living in a new age in which the demands are so complex, so multifarious and so rapidly changing that the only way in which we shall be able to survive them is by committing to a process of individual, communal, and global learning throughout the lifespan of all of us. A number of international bodies and agencies have taken cognisance of these transformations and the demands they impose upon societies and communities of the twenty-first century and have developed and articulated policies intended to enable all citizens of the world in the twenty-first century to face these challenges. It is now a declared policy of many governments and international agencies that the only vehicle for such preparation is `education, education, education', and that preparing for the knowledge economy and the learning society of the future has to be a lifelong undertaking, an investment in the future that is not restricted merely to the domain of economic advancement but also to those of social inclusion and personal growth. Realising this, policy-makers across the international arena are grappling with the need to move from systems that emphasise education and training to the radically more unworked construct of lifelong learning. In this volume the editors and authors analyse, criticise, and rework the ideas, principles, and theories underpinning policies and programs of lifelong learning, re-interpreting them in the light of examples of `best practice' found in a range of educating institutions around the world. We believe that students of educational change and community development will find it useful and helpful to have available in this volume some of the most up-to-date thinking on the chief concepts, theories, and values of increasing policy interest in lifelong learning, together with a review of some significant examples of the different forms, focuses, and nexuses of thought and practice on this topic. All this enables us to offer some policy recommendations and practical suggestions as to ways forward in the endeavour to make lifelong learning a reality for all.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date examination of lifelong learning. Across 38 chapters, including twelve that are brand new to this edition, the approach is interdisciplinary, spanning human resources development, adult learning (educational perspective), psychology, career and vocational learning, management and executive development, cultural anthropology, the humanities, and gerontology. This volume covers trends that contribute to the need for continuous learning, considers psychological characteristics that relate to the drive to learn, reviews existing theory and research on adult learning, describes training methods and learning technologies for instructional design, and explores current and future challenges to support continuous learning.