Lifelong Learning in Europe. National Patterns and Challenges

Based on a five-year research project across thirteen countries, this comprehensive book analyses how national characteristics frame a central feature of European Union social and economic policies – lifelong learning.

Combining qualitative and quantitative methods in a wide-ranging international comparative study, the book explores how far the EUs lifelong learning agenda has been successful and what factors have limited its ability to reshape national adult and lifelong learning systems. The chapters also look at adults’ participation in formal education, what they see as the obstacles to taking part, and the nature of their demand for learning opportunities.

Using country typologies, the authors challenge assumptions – whether held by policy makers or researchers – that there is just one economic trajectory for market economies and their lifelong learning systems. This book will therefore be valuable to scholars, researchers and policy makers who are investigating, or trying to change, education and labour markets.

Contents:

Foreword
Marc Goffart

Preface

Introduction
Ellu Saar, Odd Bjørn Ure and John Holford

PART I: CONCEPTUAL CONSIDERATIONS
1. Lifelong Learning: National Policies from the European Perspective
John Holford and Agata Mleczko

2. Lifelong Learning Systems: Overview and Extension of Different Typologies
Ellu Saar and Odd Bjørn Ure

3. Seven Types of Formal Adult Education and their Organizational Fields: Towards a Comparative Framework
Günter Hefler and Jörg Markowitsch

PART II: COUNTRY STUDIES
4. Has Lifelong Learning Policy and Practice in Scotland Promoted Social Inclusion?
Elisabet Weedon and Sheila Riddell

5. ‘Renaissance’ Without Enlightenment: New Labour’s ‘Learning Age’ 1997–2010
John Holford and Thushari Welikala

6. Rising to the Challenge of Realizing Lifelong Learning for One and All: The Role of Community Adult Education in Widening Participation for Traditionally Marginalized Groups in Irish Society and Beyond
Catherine Maunsell and Paul Downes

7. Flemish Formal Adult Education: (G)rowing Against the Stream?
Ellen Boeren and Ides Nicaise

8. In Search of Building Blocks for Lifelong Learning: Motivation and Institutional Support in Norwegian Education and Training
Odd Bjørn Ure and Bjørg Eva Aaslid

9. Nobody’s Darling: Dynamics and Inertia of Formal Adult Education in Austria
Jörg Markowitsch, Günter Hefler, Stephanie Rammel and Paul Ringler

10. Implementation of Lifelong Learning in Slovenia: Institutional Factors and Equality of Access of Adults to Formal and Non-formal Education
Angela Ivancic and Marko Radovan

11. Why are the Participation Rates in Lifelong Learning so Low in Hungary?
Péter Róbert, Saida Ayupova and Szilvia Altorjai

12. The Lifelong Learning Hybrid: The Case of Bulgaria
Pepka Boyadjieva, Valentina Milenkova, Galin Gornev, Kristina Petkova and Diana Nenkova

13. Formal Adult Education in the Context of the Transforming Labour Market in Russia
Anisya Khokhlova, Vladimir Kozlovskiy and Maria Veits

14. Adult Education in Lithuania: Towards Increasing Employability and Social Cohesion, or Neither?
Meilute Taljunaite, Leta Dromantiene, Irena Žemaitaityte and Liutauras Labanauskas

15. Developing Human Capital in Post-Socialist Capitalist: Estonian Experience
Ellu Saar, Triin Roosalu, Eve-Liis Roosmaa, Auni Tamm and Rein Vöörmann

Conclusion: Lifelong Learning as a Social Field and Entrance Point to Policy-making for Education and Training
Ellu Saar, John Holford and Odd Bjørn Ure

Index