Neoliberalism,lifelong learning,and the homeplace: problematizing the boundaries of ‘public’ and ‘private’ to explore women's learning experiences

This paper develops a critical feminist theoretical analysis of the significance of the homeplace in explaining the experiences of adult women learners. It argues that current discourses in lifelong learning are shaped by neoliberal influences that emphasize individualism, competition, and connections to the marketplace. Critical educators, drawing upon a Habermasian analysis, make some valid critiques of problems with developing an educational agenda shaped by neoliberal values, but their assessment is insufficient for explaining the persistence of gender inequalities within adult education. This is because critical theory does not adequately take up other ‘medias’ of power, such as patriarchy. A feminist lens is used to explore and complicate the perceptual divisions between the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres through an examination of three focal points in the homeplace; identity, relationships, and labour. Drawing upon a social science and humanities (SSHRC) research study that looks at women's learning trajectories in Canada, and a Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) grant on women and active citizenship, examples are brought in to support the discussion. From this analysis, recommendations are made for educators, administrators, and policy makers to challenge a neoliberal agenda in lifelong learning and develop a more holistic and gender inclusive approach that troubles commonly accepted parameters of ‘public’ and ‘private’ by exploring the significance of the homeplace on adult learning experiences.     

Lifelong education for subjective well-being: how do engagement and active citizenship contribute?

This article addresses the question: how can lifelong education contribute to subjective well-being by engaging learners and fostering active citizenship? The question arises due to the fact that governments in the western world have identified well-being as an important policy driver. Well-being research suggests that subjective well-being, student engagement and active citizenship are interconnected—that engagement and active citizenship contribute to subjective well-being. The paper discusses three emerging views about how lifelong education can engage learners in active citizenship. One conforms to mainstream views that lifelong education must prepare learners for success in a globalized world as global citizens. Another holds that lifelong education must be reformed to create global citizens who contribute to social well-being. A third view aligns with social critical perspectives that lifelong education must advance well-being through social justice. The paper concludes by discussing how conforming, reforming and radical views about lifelong education can enhance active citizenship, engagement and well-being.     

Adult education,lifelong learning and citizenship: some ifs and buts

This paper suggests that the dominant discourse of lifelong learning is a political rather than an educational discourse. On this view, lifelong learning enables the deconstruction of welfare to be effected through the reconstruction of citizenship. Democratic citizenship properly understood, on the other hand, depends on determined progress towards a more equitable distribution of material and cultural resources among citizens. Education on its own can do little to ensure that such structural change takes place. It is, nevertheless, the task of critical adult education, as distinct from economistic models of lifelong learning, to raise such questions as urgent issues for democratic deliberation and debate, and to expand our notions of what it means to be active citizens in a democratic society. The paper contains the text of a talk given at the annual study conference of the UK's National Institute of Adult Continuing Education in April 2002.     

Active citizenship in schools and the community

During the 1980s the government of the time mooted the need for active citizenship which was associated with education for citizenship. The re-emergence of citizenship education as an important part of the curriculum has meant that notions underpinning the idea, including the meaning of active citizenship, are once again under scrutiny.This article examines different understandings of citizenship and how they give rise to different beliefs about what the rights and responsibilities of the citizen should be. It then discusses the present government's understandings of active citizenship and their intention to create a socially inclusive society, shifting from a rights-based paradigm of citizenship to one based on mutual obligation. It concludes by examining how those intentions might translate into the school context, drawing from recent research in three secondary schools in the United Kingdom.     

Feminist Perspectives on the Learning of Citizenship and Governance

This paper offers a critical appraisal of citizenship and governance in relation to gender. It draws on poststructuralist themes which look at the relationship between power and discourse. This perspective provides an analytical tool for exploring how gender has been understood in the construction of citizenship and governance values in Europe. Whilst the focus of this discussion is gender, the implications of this analysis for disability and race are also highlighted. The paper argues for a broader, more inclusive, ethical definition of active citizenship that, in turn, will influence how people learn to be citizens and take part in governance. A selected literature identifies different ways in which citizenship is portrayed and learned through texts, schooling, family and social behaviours and traditions. The changing European and globalisation contexts provide additional commentary on the demands for new forms of citizenship and governance. Particular attention is paid to the notion of active citizenship with some recent interpretations of the dichotomy between private (family) and public (political) domains in relation to citizenship and gender. The final sections then analyse different attempts to re-define a gender sensitive concept of citizenship, concluding with the argument for an ethical education which would empower women to play a more active, citizen role in governance.     

‘The art of democracy’: Young people's democratic learning in gallery contexts

In this article the authors report on research which aimed to explore the opportunities for democratic action and learning in a number of artist‐led gallery education projects in the south‐west of England. The research takes an approach to citizenship learning and democracy that is less focused on citizenship as a specific subject in the formal school curriculum and the achievement of specific citizenship outcomes that can follow from it. Rather, it is more focused upon understanding how democratic practices that are embedded in the day‐to‐day lives of young people contribute to their democratic learning and participation as citizens. Drawing upon conceptual categories and concepts that illuminate the process, the authors demonstrate the nature and character of young people's democratic learning. An implication arising from this is the need for practice‐orientated research in other contexts (e.g. work, leisure and home) to fully understand the nature of democratic learning.     

European Citizenship and Study Abroad: student teachers’ experiences and identities

Member states of the Council of Europe have acknowledged the importance of education for citizenship and have passed a number of resolutions concerning European citizenship and the need to promote democratic values, social justice and human rights. Yet there remains a degree of ambivalence over citizenship education and its relationship to the development of various identities, including personal and national identities. This paper examines the experiences of student teachers from a variety of European countries and the impact of a period of study abroad in another European country on their development of intercultural awareness, national identities and perceptions of how we might best educate young people for participation in democratic life. It considers the implications for teacher education.     

Defining curriculum policy through slogans

This article explores the upper secondary (or post‐16) school market. The study on which it is based, funded by the Swedish Research Council, was entitled ‘Upper‐secondary education as a market’. Empirical data include official statistics, policy documents, school publications, company reports and school visits. Printed and other news media were also scrutinised to identify how the marketisation of education is represented in public discourse. A number of themes emerged from the study which included mapping the expansion of the school market, chains of ownership and influence, marketing strategies, choice and the school market and issues raised in the media. These imply that there is a new market discourse which represents a clear break with previous social democratic education policies primarily aimed at enhancing citizenship and wider democratic values within an inclusive public school. However, critiques have also emerged including a call for strengthened regulations of and control over independent schools and concern about an education market equated more with shares and profits rather than pedagogy and student citizenship.     

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.     

The Cape Town statement on characteristic elements of a lifelong learning higher education institution

We see a key purpose of lifelong learning as democratic citizenship.…Democratic citizenship highlights the importance of women and men as agents of history in all aspects of their lives. (As quoted by Professor Kadar Asmal, National Minister of Education of South Africa at the opening of the Cape Town Conference, 10 October 2000.) This statement grew out of a need recognized by adult and higher educators, scholars and specialists in the area of adult and lifelong learning to build on previous work focusing on transforming institutions of higher education into institutions of lifelong learning. It continues the work begun at the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education in Hamburg, Germany, 1997, continued at the University of Mumbai, India in 1998, and the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education in Paris in 1998. It was developed at the Conference on Lifelong Learning, Higher Education and Active Citizenship from the 10–12 October 2000 in Cape Town which was co-hosted by University of Western Cape, UNESCO Institute of Education and the Adult Education Research Group of the Danish National University of Education.     

欧盟科学教育改革探析

欧盟于世纪之交开始实行新一轮科学教育改革。在这次科学教育改革中,欧盟始终以终身学习的大教育观为出发点,以"提高公民科学素养"和"促进所有学生科学兴趣"为主要目标,重视基础学校的科学教育质量,并力图实行几大科学教育的重要任务,为全体公民提供平等、开放、民主与包容的科学教育环境。欧盟在科学教育方面的新举措值得我们关注与借鉴。     

Citizenship education ‘goes global’: extra-curricular learning in an overseas campus of a British civic university

Active citizenship is increasingly being framed in the context of lifelong and life-wide learning. However, research on young people’s participation in and experience of different forms of civic practice, particularly in informal settings in different sociocultural contexts, is scarce. Consequently, little is known about how these experiences shape their learning about active citizenship, their understanding of the self and their relationship to society. This paper reports findings from a small-scale qualitative research on students’ experiences of participation in extra-curricular activities (ECAs) in a UK Transnational Higher Education institution in China, in relation to the development of active citizenship and lifelong learning capacity. The findings suggest ECAs can provide opportunities for students to accumulate knowledge and develop skills, attitudes and values that underpin the promotion of active citizenship, while developing habits and skills essential for lifelong learning.     

The learning worker,organizations and democracy

A current turn of interest in notions of the ‘learning economy’ and the ‘learning society’ is fuelling discussions on promoting education, training and learning in contemporary organizations and workplaces. Although the education of workers has been variously theorized and practised throughout the 20th century, the current debates are marked by a prevailing economic perspective that places emphasis on constructing ‘learning organizations’ and on ‘human resource’ learning in service of organizational strategies for innovation and competitive advantage in economic activities. Critics point out that economic and managerial models scarcely attend to the human subjectivity of the learner‐worker and the worker's diverse learning interests. Broader socio‐cultural ends of worker learning such as lifelong human development and participatory citizenship in democratic society are very often overlooked. This article offers a critical discussion of current conceptions of learning organizations and learning workers. It argues that the prevailing focus on techno‐economic imperatives and of obscured managerial elite interests in organizations currently circumscribe and delimit learning in production organizations. It proposes that a more comprehensive approach to learning in organizations attends explicitly to the needs and interests of workers as learning persons. Taking a longer view, it proposes that organizational and worker learning may generate not only improved work practices but may regenerate links between lifelong learning, societal democratic citizenship and civilized organizations.     

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.     

欧洲学校外语教育发展述评

重视学校外语教育是欧洲实现其多元化、多语言发展战略目标的重要举措之一。最新的欧洲学校外语教育的统计数据进一步揭示了外语教育强制性、学习年龄低龄化和语言多样化的特点。21世纪的欧洲外语教育政策强调外语学习的社会和政治功能,促进民主公民权的教育和社会融合,致力于个人多语能力的终身发展。     

Pedagogies for active citizenship: Learning through affective and cognitive domains for deeper democratic engagement

This paper reports on a two-year study that explored teachers' pedagogical approaches when implementing an active citizenship curriculum initiative in New Zealand. Our aim was to identify pedagogies which afforded potential for critical and transformative citizenship learning. We define critical and transformative social action through a fusion of critical pedagogy and Dewey's notion of democratic education. Data included teachers' classroom-based research as well as classroom observations and interviews with students. Our study suggested that citizenship learning through both affective and cognitive domains can provide for deeper opportunities for students to experience critical and transformative democratic engagement.     

终身教育视野下大学老年教育的责任

大学开展老年教育,既是积极应对社会老龄化的重要举措,又是大学职能充分发挥的良好机遇,也是构建终身教育体系和建设学习型社会的重要内容。大学的老年教育责任包括共享大学教育资源、设置老年教育专业、开发老年教育课程、依托大学的继续教育机构和联合社会力量合作举办老年大学。当前,大学承担老年教育责任已具备相应的条件,但尚不成熟,主要受以下几方面的影响：对大学主体缺乏统一客观认识;老年学历教育有所欠缺;老年教育资源共享整合度低等。大学应以更加开放包容的姿态融入终身教育体系,优化大学老年教育资源结构,将老年学历教育视为己任,不断产出高水平的老年教育科研成果。     

Social cohesion and integration: learning active citizenship

This article starts from a conceptual clarification of the notions social integration and social cohesion as a prerequisite for the reorientation of citizenship education. Turning away from uncritically reproduced assumptions represented in mainstream ‘deficiency discourse’, the article first focuses on sociological conditions for the rise of active citizenship and its role in the revitalization of the public sphere. Next a number of educational objectives are deduced from competencies needed and learning processes taking place in practices of active citizenship. Finally, the article argues for the adoption of a lifelong learning perspective, relating formal citizenship education to informal and non‐formal experiences of active citizenship.     

A framework to explore lifelong learning: the case of the civic education of civics teachers

This study investigates learning about civics and citizenship throughout individuals' lives (lifelong) and across various pedagogical settings (lifewide). A basic hypothesis is that civics teachers, among all social actors, are particularly well positioned for engaging in this type of introspective exercise because they are both familiar with civics and politics and also with teaching and learning processes. The lifelong civic learning of civics teachers was examined in the different settings in which they acquire their knowledge, values, skills and ideological frameworks, and to understand the relative weight of each one in their overall learning process. This study also coincides with the implementation of a new provincial civics course for grade 10 students in Ontario, Canada during the 2000–1 school year. This case study consists of interviews with 15 social studies teachers who have taught the new civics course in Ontario. One of the clearest findings of the study is the powerful influence of the experience of teaching and of early family socialization on the acquisition of civic knowledge, skills and values, and on the development of political beliefs. Civic engagement and political participation were also considered an important source of civic learning, particularly in relation to the acquisition of civic and political skills. This is a finding that deserves further exploration, because our understanding of social movement learning remains limited. The findings suggest the promotion of lifelong citizenship learning entails the creation and nurturing of inclusive democratic spaces that have particularly high civic educational potential.     

Education as Citizenship: Appropriating a new social space

This article presents a reflection on teaching and curriculum which promotes citizenship education and raises the issue of the purpose of higher education. I embrace a concept of education as action and reflection upon a world in order to change it - or as bell hooks calls it, education as a practice of freedom. I argue for the need to conceptualise students first as citizens, then as employable graduates. My experience involved a shift in focus from what is taught and an emphasis on examinations and essays, to how and what students learn and the process of learning. The article argues, however, that teaching and learning which attempts to balance tensions between values of the market-place and values of education as a practice of citizenship requires more than better teaching and assessment: it requires broader institutional support to be truly effective.