This comprehensive collection discusses topical issues essential to both scholarship and policy making in the realm of Lifelong Learning (LLL) policies and how far they succeed in supporting young people across their life courses, rather than one-sidedly fostering human capital for the economy. Examining specific regional and local contexts across Europe, all various in context, this book uses original research to evaluate differences in scope, approach, orientation, and objectives. It enquires into the embedding of LLL policies into the regional economy, the labour market, education and training systems and the individual life projects of young people, with focus on those in situations of near social exclusion.

This open access book explores different landscapes of Lifelong Learning policies (LLP), producing case-based examinations of their institutional, discursive, and relational dimensions. Across Europe, young people develop their life courses amidst diverse living conditions and are confronted with a variety of institutional and structural arrangements that impact on their opportunities in education and labour. Considering the relevance of LLP in shaping those opportunities, the chapters draw from multi-level, mixed-methods research and offer original insights on the interplay of discourses and governance patterns in the processes of policy-making and deliverance. The book yields noteworthy insights into the widely differing realities across the European landscape, and also into the diverging ways young people deal with and actively participate in LLP.

This open access book challenges international policy ‘groupthink’ about lifelong learning. Adult learning – too long a servant of business competitiveness – should be reimagined as central to democratic society. Young adults, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds, engage more in education and training, and learn more day-to-day at work, if provision is democratically organised and based on enduring and inclusive institutional networks, and when jobs encourage and reward the acquisition of skills. Using innovative qualitative and quantitative methods, the contributors develop a critical perspective on dominant policies, investigating – across the European Union and Australia – how ‘vulnerable’ young adults experience programmes designed to improve their ‘employability’, and how ‘skills for jobs’ policies squeeze out wider – and wiser – ideas of what education and training should do. Chapters show why some provision works for those with poor educational backgrounds, why labour market and educational institutions matter so much, how adult education can empower and expand people’s agency, and the challenges of using artificial intelligence in lifelong learning policy-making. Several investigate the pivotal role of workplace learning in organisational life, and in learning during ‘emerging adulthood’. Important comparative studies of workplace learning in the metals, retail and adult education sectors show the role of management, trade unions and social movements in young adults’ learning.

This book examines lifelong learning through the lens of policy studies. It scrutinises the implications of lifelong learning policies in a variety of states and localities to explore the interplay between commonalities and differences within and across Europe and Latin America. The chapters explore adult education and learning, vocational education and training, higher education and employment policies in Europe and Latin America with a focus on how decision-makers have designed and implemented them. These contributions analyse to what extent diverse providers offer opportunities to learners with a variable range of ages. Their main research questions focus on the interactions between providers, educational authorities and employers of graduates at local, regional and national geographical scales. This book invites the readers to broaden up the concept of lifelong learning beyond the scope of compensatory, upskilling measures. The chapters spell out subtle but powerful connections between lifelong learning, digitalisation, employability, social inclusion, strategic policy-making and local development. This volume will be a key resource for practitioners, scholars and researchers of lifelong and adult education, educational policy, education studies, sociology, political science and psychology. It was originally published as a special issue of International Journal of Lifelong Education.

This open access book sheds light on a range of complex interdependencies between adult education, young adults in vulnerable situations and active citizenship. Adult education has been increasingly recognized as a means to engage and re-engage young adults and facilitate their life chances and social inclusion thus contributing to an active citizenship within their societal contexts. This collection of chapters dealing with issues of social inclusion of young people represents the first book to explicitly approach the complex interdependencies between adult education, young adults in vulnerable situations and active citizenship from the European perspective. Social exclusion, disengagement and disaffection of young adults have been among the most significant concerns faced by EU member states over the last decade. It has been increasingly recognised by a range of stakeholders that there is a growing number of young people suffering from the various effects of the unstable social, economic and political situations affecting Europe and its neighbouring countries. Young adults who experience different degrees of vulnerability are especially at risk of being excluded and marginalised. Engaging young adults through adult education has been strongly related to addressing the specific needs and requirements that would facilitate their participation in social, economic and civic/political life in their country contexts. Fostering the active citizenship of young people, both directly and indirectly, is an area where many AE programmes overlap, and this has become a core approach to integration. This book considers social, economic and political dimensions of active citizenship, encompassing the development of social competences and social capital, civic and political participation and the skills related to the economy and labour market. The cross-national consideration of the notions of vulnerability, inclusion and active citizenship underpins the complexity of translating these concepts into the national contexts of adult education programmes.

Lifelong learning and education is a key concept for the development of adult education as an area of practice and theoretical consideration. In recent decades, meanwhile, the idea of lifelong education and learning has been central to the guidance of various international organisations of many countries.

This book critically reflects on the context in which lifelong learning policies and practices are organized in Europe with contributions of researchers and policy makers in the field. Through a critical lens the book reinterprets the core content of the messages that are conveyed by the European Commission in the “Memorandum for Lifelong Learning”, the most important policy document in the area, which after a decade from its publication still remains the vehicle for all current developments in lifelong learning in Europe. With references to research findings, proposed actions, and applications to immediate practice that have an added value for Europeans –but which either do not appear to correspond directly to what is stipulated by the European Commission, or are completely ignored as part of the lifelong learning process– the book offers an analytic and systematic outlook of the main challenges in creating the ‘European Area of Lifelong Learning’. In times as decisive as the ones we are going through today (both in social and economic terms), a critical perspective of the practices and policies adopted by the EU Member States is essential. The book follows the same structure as the Memorandum in order to debate and critically approach in separate sections the core issues that Europe faces today in relation to the idea of making a ‘European area of Lifelong Learning’. ​

The ongoing economic crisis raises fundamental questions about the political and social goals of the European Union, particularly the feasibility of harmonising social and education policy across member states. The forward momentum of the European project is clearly faltering, raising the possibility that the high water mark of European integration has been achieved, with implications for many aspects of education and social policy, including lifelong learning. This timely book makes a major and original contribution to the development of knowledge and understanding of lifelong learning in an expanded Europe. Its wide range of contributors look at the contribution of lifelong learning to economic growth and social cohesion across Europe, focusing its challenge to social exclusion. It draws on comparative data from the EU Sixth Framework Project Lifelong Learning Policy and Practice in Europe (LLL2010), which ran from 2005 - 2011 and involved twelve European countries and Russia. Very little research has been conducted to date on the nature of lifelong learning in post-Soviet countries, and this book provides important insights into their evolving education and lifelong learning systems. The book will be of interest to researchers and academics in the UK and Europe, especially those from social policy, adult and comparative education, equality studies and practice of lifelong learning.

Recoge: 1. Foreword. - 2. Challenges for Education and Training. - 3. Education and Training Policy. - 4. Where the Information Society meets Education. - 5. Excellent Education, Enriched by ICT. - 6. Inspiring Interest in Learning Science. - 7. Refreshing our Skills and Learning for Life.

This comprehensive collection discusses topical issues essential to both scholarship and policy making in the realm of Lifelong Learning (LLL) policies and how far they succeed in supporting young people across their life courses, rather than one-sidedly fostering human capital for the economy. Examining specific regional and local contexts across Europe, all various in context, this book uses original research to evaluate differences in scope, approach, orientation, and objectives. It enquires into the embedding of LLL policies into the regional economy, the labour market, education and training systems and the individual life projects of young people, with focus on those in situations of near social exclusion.