Arising from work by the Gender and Lifelong Learning Group of the Gender and Education Association, this book presents reconceptualisations of lifelong learning. It argues that the current field of lifelong learning is based on certain hidden values and assumptions and examines the mechanisms by which exclusionary discourses and practices are reproduced and maintained. The book opens up ways of conceptualising learning that takes into account multiple and shifting formations of learners from different social contexts. The authors broaden what counts as learning and who counts as a learner, offering different understandings of lifelong learning that are able to include currently marginalised values and principles. Organised in four sections the book looks at: reclaiming - it draws on feminist and post-structural conceptual frameworks to create a critical analysis of the current 'field' of lifelong learning retelling - it tells the tales of different multi-positions in lifelong learning revisioning - it moves from narrative to analysis and the authors present their revisioning of learning which provide the tools to reconceptualise the field of lifelong learning reconstructing - it furthers the discussion to outline new approaches to and practices in lifelong learning.

The connections and interactions of lifelong learning and social justice are complex and contested. Both are seen as a means to unconditional good, with little account taken of the inequalities and equalities located in constructions of power. This book develops critical ways to engage with international debates about lifelong learning and social justice through a range of competing and contested definitions, setting out some of the complexities and challenges of linking the two concepts. In particular, it engages in debates about the equalities and inequalities of learner identities, displacement and place. Its chapters consider those marginalised in complex and multiple ways, including gender, social class, ethnicity, age and migration. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Lifelong Education.

This book opens up ways to engage critically with what counts as innovatory practice in lifelong learning today, locating its discussion of innovations in lifelong learning within an international and comparative framework. Innovations in Lifelong Learning engages first hand with issues and concerns from around the globe, offering an international perspective on current trends through its range of contributions from across the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the US. The broad focus allows for diverse information on the nature of these changes to come together under an assortment of empirical, theoretical and methodological approaches. The book takes three key elements of lifelong learning: learning communities participation and non-participation work-based learning and learning through work. It links these with themes on diversity, social justice and economic and global development so as to negotiate and re-negotiate the constant importance of innovation with employers, learners and educational institutions. All those working in the broad arena of lifelong learning will benefit from this comprehensive examination of current debates in the field, including policy-makers, researchers, teachers, lecturers, educational managers and employers engaged with work-based learning.

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This book presents leading-edge perspectives and methodologies to address emerging issues of concern for professional learning in contemporary society. The conditions for professional practice and learning are changing dramatically in the wake of globalization, new modes of knowledge production, new regulatory regimes, and increased economic-political pressures. In the wake of this, a number of challenges for learning emerge: more practitioners become involved in interprofessional collaboration developments in new technologies and virtual workworlds emergence of transnational knowledge cultures and interrelated circuits of knowledge. The space and time relations in which professional practice and learning are embedded are becoming more complex, as are the epistemic underpinnings of professional work. Together these shifts bring about intersections of professional knowledge and responsibilities that call for new conceptions of professional knowing. Exploring what the authors call sociomaterial perspectives on professional learning they argue that theories that trace not just the social but also the material aspects of practice – such as tools, technologies, texts but also bodies and actions - are useful for coming to terms with the challenges described above. Reconceptualising Professional Learning develops these issues through specific contemporary cases focused on one of the book’s three main themes: (1) professionals’ knowing in practice, (2) professionals’ work arrangements and technologies, or (3) professional responsibility. Each chapter draws upon innovative theory to highlight the sociomaterial webs through which professional learning may be reconceptualised. Authors are based in Australia, Canada, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the USA as well as the UK and their cases are based in a range of professional settings including medicine, teaching, nursing, engineering, social services, the creative industries, and more. By presenting detailed accounts of these themes from a sociomaterial perspective, the book opens new questions and methodological approaches. These can help make more visible what is often invisible in today’s messy dynamics of professional learning, and point to new ways of configuring educational support and policy for professionals.

India has one of the largest populations in the world with around 1.4 billion people. It also has a rich culture dating back over 10,000 years. Recently, scholars around the globe are showing increased interest in India and Indian students are actively involved in premier institutions in every region. Adult Education in India is a ready reckoner for students, scholars, practitioners, and all others interested in the history of the development of adult education since India's ancient period to the present day. This volume addresses the activities of different adult educators like Raja Rammohan Roy, Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar and many more, contextualizing how they acted and influenced the cause of global adult education. In more recent decades, as India’s economy has grown, and as the forces of industrialization, urbanization and globalization have become stronger in reshaping institutions; new ways of thinking about adult education have emerged. The idea of lifelong learning is now aligned to the requirements of the global knowledge economy. The focus on bare literacy is no longer considered sufficient, but only the first step towards preparing citizens to participate in the global market, to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable them to become enterprising and entrepreneurs. The logic of the market has become dominant.

A collection of 46 articles from the diverse and still emerging field of adult education.

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 updated second edition unpacks the discussions surrounding the finest qualitative methods used in contemporary educational research. Bringing together scholars from around the world, this Handbook offers sophisticated insights into the theories and disciplinary approaches to qualitative study and the processes of data collection, analysis and representation, offering fresh ideas to inspire and re-invigorate researchers in educational research.

This book highlights the issues of access, learning careers and identities in a diverse range of educational settings with diverse groups of adult students across Europe. Much of the work in this book illuminates these issues through the voices of adult students and adult educators and illustrates the rich variety of practice and context of adult education in Europe. It draws on the work of scholars from across Europe within the framework of the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA). The chapters include examples and discussions of access, learning careers and identity in the context of higher and further education, the workplace, and prisons. The reader will see how structure and agency interplays and interacts in developing, or not, the learning careers and identities of adult students and adult educators. The book will appeal to researchers and educators in adult education, other professionals in associated fields and policy makers.