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.
