Give Them Time – an analysis of school readiness in Ireland's early education system: a Steiner Waldorf Perspective

This paper examines a Steiner Waldorf Perspective to School Readiness and applies that international ideology to educational practice and curriculum policy in modern Ireland. The case for a later school start is championed with strong arguments underpinning the reasons why a later start is better in the long run for children's formal learning capacity and enthusiasm. Current primary school curriculums for the early years are also analysed and catalogued against Steiner philosophical best practice in early learning to promote a child-centred early learning curriculum within the Irish primary educational system.     

鲁道夫·斯坦纳教育思想述评

鲁道夫斯·坦纳是教育家、哲学家、科学家和艺术家,他所创建的华德福学校教育逐渐为许多国家所重视和实践.斯坦纳教育思想以人智学为哲学基础,蕴含着丰富的教育内涵,本文通过对斯坦纳教育思想内涵的阐释和评价,分析斯坦纳教育思想对我国当前基础教育改革的启示.     

华德福幼儿教育课程观简析

华德福教育,由斯坦纳创立,经过90多年的发展,其影响已波及全世界。华德福幼儿教育课程观以斯坦纳自创的理论为思想基础,幼儿教育的课程目标主要是发展健康的身体,培养想象力和创造力,唤醒个体潜能;课程内容不提倡"正规学习",以游戏方式开展活动,整个教育充满艺术气息;课程实施中,游戏与艺术教育最具特色;课程评价在日常活动中进行,让每个幼儿能发现自己的进步。华德福幼儿教育真正做到了让幼儿在玩中快乐地学习和成长。     

Lifelong learning-attitudes to practice in the rural context: a study using Bourdieu's perspective of habitus

This article compares and contrasts the views of educational policy makers and consumers within Lincolnshire, an English rural county, using Bourdieu's notion of ‘habitus’ as a vehicle for analysis. The article focuses on the relative importance of education as cultural capital in determining the motivational factors affecting participation in lifelong learning. The article considers lifelong learning in the context of ‘continuing education’. If lifelong learning is characterized into three discrete yet connected phases: the first, ‘full-time education’ from the age of 5 until leaving full-time education at age 16, 18 or 21; the second, the ‘transitional phase’ between school and work at age 16–21; the third, ‘continuing education’ beyond the age of 21; it is the policies and attitudes to this third phase described in this paper. Education for adults rather than simply the education of adults. Interviews with small groups of learners and an experienced manager of lifelong learning policies in Lincolnshire are used to illuminate clear differences between the continuing education providers' expectations of lifelong learning and those of the learners. The conclusions reaffirm the importance of community and cultural tradition in education and highlight the importance of family learning within the rural context.     

近十年我国成人教育研究热点及其演变路径——基于《成人教育学刊》2010—2020年收录文献的CiteSpace分析

基于中国人民大学复印报刊资料《成人教育学刊》近十年收录文献,使用文献研究法,发现近十年我国成人教育领域研究热点分布呈现矩阵化,分别是以成人高等教育、继续教育、老年教育和社区教育为核心的终身教育形式研究,以终身学习、学习型城市和学习型社会为核心的终身教育理念研究,以学分银行和国家资历框架为核心的终身教育体系支持制度研究,以开放大学、广播电视大学和MOOCs为核心的远程教育研究。横向分析发现研究维度聚焦于价值取向研究、跨国比较研究、治理变革研究和质量监测与评价研究。结合政策的变迁将研究热点的演变路径划分为三个阶段,分别是:2010—2012年处于终身教育体系建设持续推进时期,2013—2017年处于信息化时代成人教育供给侧改革与融合创新时期,2018—2020年处于成人教育向现代化转型的治理变革时期。最后从成人教育学科理论框架进行系统构建,基于成人教育学研究方法的实践探索及面向积极老龄化问题和终身学习体系构建问题着力研究三个方面对我国成人教育研究的走向进行深入思考。     

近十年我国学习型社区研究综述

学习型社区是构建终身学习和学习型社会的基石。为探究学习型社区研究现状和趋势,本文通过对近十年我国成人教育和社区教育领域重要期刊和硕博论文有关学习型社区研究进行分析和归纳,旨在为今后的研究者理清研究脉络和拓宽研究视角提供借鉴。     

Nurturing lifelong learning in communities through the National University of Lesotho: prospects and challenges

This paper analyses one aspect of a pan-African action research project called ITMUA (Implementing the Third Mission of Universities in Africa). This particular paper draws on the data from that project to explore the National University of Lesotho’s contribution to lifelong learning in its communities. It provides background information on the ITMUA initiative and analyses interview and focus group responses to two case studies in terms of their contribution to lifelong learning. It uses, as its analytical framework, a modified version of Mbigi’s African perspective on the four De Lors’ ‘pillars’, by adding a fifth pillar, courtesy of Torres. The paper argues that community engagement is a two-way process between universities and their wider constituencies with opportunities for mutual lifelong learning. But there are also challenges of understanding and process which must be addressed if the full range of these lifelong learning pillars is to be accommodated within African contexts. The paper provides an introduction to the history of community engagement in Africa as a university mission, followed by a brief discussion of lifelong learning within African perspectives. After describing the particular context of Lesotho, the concept of community service and community engagement in contemporary African contexts introduces the action research project and the case studies. The final part of the paper presents and discusses the research findings.     

Education with production in Zimbabwe: an evaluation of teachers’ and pupils’ attitudes and perceptions

The terms community development and lifelong learning have been in use for several decades and refer to different areas within the field of adult education. This paper sets out to explore the relationship between these two concepts. It examines the ways in which community development work contributes to the development of an overall system of lifelong education. Recent writing on the idea of the learning society points towards a more holistic view of education, which acknowledges learning in all its forms and venues and which values the many and varied ways in which people learn. The nature of this rapidly changing society demands that individuals and communities take up this challenge, so that they can play their part in shaping the future. This paper is based on research which was carried out in the early 1990s, under the auspices of the Community Research and Development Centre, by one of the authors (RM) as part of a DPhil study. It was constructed with a view to exploring the need for a more holistic, integrated approach to meeting the educational needs of those involved in adult education, community development and community regeneration in Belfast. The research set out to investigate the relationship between the various forms of learning, through an examination of organizations engaged in providing formal, non‐formal and informal adult learning opportunities in Belfast. The results confirm that traditional providers of adult education no longer hold a monopoly over learning and that there is an emerging sector of community and voluntary organizations engaged in providing learning opportunities for adults in their communities. There is some indication that whilst the relationship between traditional and non‐traditional providers is complex, the opportunities for learning which they offer are complementary. The voluntary and community sector emphasizes issue‐based and action‐oriented learning within a democratic, participative culture. Non‐formal providers often seek to support such groups, by providing more structured learning situations. Their programmes frequently offer an alternative adult education to that of the formal providers, who are more concerned with traditional ‘liberal adult education’. Whilst formal providers may try to be more community‐based, they are severely confined by their bureaucratic, hierarchic structure. Informal providers, however, also offer opportunities for more formal adult learning opportunities, through links with formal providers. The existence of this network suggests the basis for a system of lifelong education, which incorporates the range of adult learning opportunities.     

Further Education under New Labour: translating the language of aspiration into a springboard for achievement

In this article, Ann Limb outlines the main elements of new Labour's emerging policy framework for adult, continuing and further education within the context of the debate about lifelong learning. The government has established its coherent purposes for further education and now expects successful implementation by the sector in return for significant funding. Raising standards and widening participation are the keystones of this policy and, as in other areas of government activity, ‘zero tolerance of failure’ and ‘social inclusion’ are at the heart of the agenda for further education. The article suggests that the diverse assumptions underlying the delivery of lifelong learning policies nonetheless remain largely unexplored and that it is too soon to make a sound judgment about the likely effectiveness of the new lifelong learning partnerships     

The application of Buddhist principles to lifelong learning

The teachings and practices of Buddhism are becoming popular today in Western countries. Its non-theistic nature and scientific method, focusing on the individual's independence in learning practice, appeal to many. Buddhism contains some effective and unique learning techniques that could be applied to lifelong learning. Within a notion of lifelong learning defined in terms of the conscious learning taking place throughout the life span, Buddhist meditation, contemplation and mindfulness practice are ideally suited to conscious life experience awareness. The philosophical framework for lifelong learning discourse, particularly that which is outlined by Richard Bagnall as drawing on the three progressive sentiments, matches the Buddhist ideals for the individual and society. Just as Bagnall calls for a re-evaluation of the direction for lifelong learning discourse away from economic determinism, back towards the framework of the three sentiments, the emphasis of this paper argues that lifelong learning discourse and strategies might also usefully be informed by ancient Buddhist ideas and methods. To do so might require a broader perspective on what constitutes lifelong learning and what its motivations and goals should be.     

终身教育语境之成人教育发展思考

＂终身教育语境＂,指站在终身教育的概念、观念下或是理论视野,立场和国家教育现代化意志等基点上研究成人教育话题。涉及到终身教育语境释义,终身教育与成人教育,终身教育语境下的成人教育认知,终身教育语境下成人教育发展的思考等。文中还就一些核心概念作了辨析,关键理论和知识作了引述,对未来发展提出了必要的对策和建议。认识到终身教育终身学习是一种世界观。成人教育是它实实在在的载体。     

Asian lifelong learning in the context of a global knowledge economy: A task re-visited

This article revisits and reinterprets my previous paper. It is a snapshot of the lifelong learning system building in selected Asian countries, reflected in the mirror of the Asian Financial Crisis in the 1997s and the aftermath of that event. I reconsidered the arguments (1) the economic recession had delivered a global dimension of lifelong learning to the re-shaping of the local education system beyond local attributes; (2) and that the divergent tradition of adult education in this context was to meet the global market standards. Additionally, (3) I tried to further the discussion about the relationship between global forces and the lifelong learning system in the context of a knowledge economy, but with a number of different approaches. I argued that the lifelong learning system under the global forces of capitalism, as per the Asian experience in the 2000s, can be apart of a knowledge economy itself, not a tool of it, and in this sense, a knowledge economy sets the conditions of a lifelong learning system as an embryo of its attributes.     

School,Home and Community: an examination of their impact on children's resource‐based learning

Abstract

The Centre for Information and Research at the University of Central England in Birmingham is carrying out research investigating the relationship between different learning cultures and resource‐based learning in children. The research examines the ways in which children's access to learning resources and support in using them affects their learning. The aim is to produce recommendations for local agencies on how they can work together more effectively to create better learning opportunities for children across a community. The article outlines the aims and methodology of the research and identifies the factors said to affect learning, based on a review of existing literature. This research is timely as there is a national government focus on lifelong learning and widening participation; the focus has been mainly on adult education and there is a need for an examination of the ways in which children are equipped with the skills to become lifelong learners. It takes place in a context in which learning in schools has moved towards project work, requiring children to find their own information through using research and information searching skills. The research also reflects current government concerns about narrowing the existing gap between families and individuals who have access to a broad range of learning support tools and those without this support. The article highlights the value of an interagency approach to identify gaps and to ensure community‐wide support for children's learning within specific localities.     

Memento mori: is there room for death in lifelong learning?

This article presents a groundwork for the benefit of making death more explicit in the knowledge domain and practice of lifelong learning. The existential notion of human mortality is discussed in relation to the prevailing cultural context, theoretical frameworks of human development, and the exercise of lifelong learning. Death is explored as a latent force that can advance learning agendas in adults. Death, as a constant theme in the human condition, can be an existential burden but a significant motivator as well. As a matter of comprehensibility, it is argued that the reality of death, or human finitude, must be incorporated into discourses of lifelong learning towards establishing a deeper sense of meaning to all educative and learning endeavors.     

Lifelong Learning and Adult Education: Russia Meets the West

This article examines the impact of social change and economic transformation on adult education and lifelong learning in post-Soviet Russia. The article begins with a brief economic and historical background to lifelong learning and adult education in terms of its significance as a feature of the Russian cultural heritage. An analysis of Ministerial education policy and curriculum changes reveals that these policies reflect neo-liberal and neo-conservative paradigms in the post-Soviet economy and education. Current issues and trends in adult education are also discussed, with particular attention to the Adult Education Centres, which operate as a vast umbrella framework for a variety of adult education and lifelong learning initiatives. The Centres are designed to promote social justice by means of compensatory education and social rehabilitation for individuals dislocated by economic restructuring. The article comments on their role in helping to develop popular consciousness of democratic rights and active citizenship in a participatory and pluralistic democracy.     

学习型社会视野下社区成人教育的功能及其实现

社区成人教育是建设学习型社会的必要途径和载体,在当前构建学习型社会的背景下,它在促进成人终身发展、全面发展,提高成人生活质量,促进终身教育体系的构建等方面发挥着重要的功能。本文从学习型社会的定义和特征入手,分析学习型社会视野下社区成人教育的功能,提出社区成人教育功能的实现策略。     

New Challenges and Opportunities for Lifelong Learning in South Africa

The imperatives for lifelong learning in South Africa are driven by its reinsertion into the global economy and by the social and political necessities of equity and redress after the years of colonialism, segregation and apartheid. It is therefore not surprising to find the discourse of lifelong learning infused into new policy documents. Utilizing Belanger's framework, which argues that lifelong learning is not a norm to prescribe but an empirical reality to analyze and reconstruct, the contexts for lifelong learning in South Africa are surveyed by focusing in on the state of initial education, adult education, and the learning environments. The framework, which acknowledges the daily lived realities of women and men, is a helpful way of retaining an holistic and integrated vision of lifelong learning and its humanistic, democratic goals. For lifelong learning in South Africa to deepen for more than a small group of well-educated, mainly urban, formally employed people, the author concludes that initial education, adult education and the learning environments of all the people will have to be improved. If this does not happen, then at least two polarized 'lifelong educations' will result.     

略论学习型社会的创建

学习型社会是以学习型组织建设以及终身教育为基础,保障社会成员受教育权力并满足其终身学习需求的一种新的发展理念.科技的发展、全球化的推进和全面建设小康社会都要求建立学习型社会.我们要在"三个代表"重要思想的指导下,全面创建学习型社会.     

面向社区成人终身学习的数字化资源设计研究

社区成人学习资源是我国教育资源建设体系的重要组成部分,是全面建设学习型社会、构建终身学习体系的重要目标。目前社区成人的数字化学习资源建设取得了不少的成绩,但同时也暴露出许多建设中存在的弊端。面向社区成人终身学习的数字化资源设计以成人学习者为中心,以满足学习需求为目的,从学习需求、内容设计、模块设计、工具选择、使用评估五个方面对数字化学习资源进行设计,力图缓解社区成人学习过程中的各种矛盾,促进社区成人终身学习的发展。     

Sustainable assessment for lifelong learning

This paper explores the alignment of assessment practices in universities and lifelong learning as a key process and outcome for expansive student development. It outlines Boud’s approach to assessment, operationalises this to analyse practices in two contrasting national contexts: the sociology departments of the Midlands University in the UK and Nam Du University in Vietnam, and reframes this framework as a guide to improving practices and better-supporting lifelong learning. The paper thus contributes to recent debates about sustainable assessment and how to change assessment to better support students for lifelong learning in different countries. The findings suggest that although more elements were found at Midlands University than Nam Du University, assessment in both cases was an imperfect realisation of this framework. Nonetheless, the paper argues that the framework can offer guidance for changes to align assessment practices with lifelong learning, but to do this it should be adapted to the education context and also expanded to include explicit social commitments to others for expansive lifelong learning.