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 Bjorn 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 Bjorn Ure 3. Seven Types of Formal Adult Education and their Organizational Fields: Towards a Comparative Framework Gunter Hefler and Jorg 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 Bjorn Ure and Bjorg Eva Aaslid 9. Nobody's Darling: Dynamics and Inertia of Formal Adult Education in Austria Jorg Markowitsch, Gunter 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? Peter Robert, 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 A emaitaityte and Liutauras Labanauskas 15. Developing Human Capital in Post-Socialist Capitalist: Estonian Experience Ellu Saar, Triin Roosalu, Eve-Liis Roosmaa, Auni Tamm and Rein Voormann Conclusion: Lifelong Learning as a Social Field and Entrance Point to Policy-making for Education and Training Ellu Saar, John Holford and Odd Bjorn Ure Index.
