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.     

Bodies at Home and at School: Toward a Theory of Embodied Social Class Status

Sociology has long recognized the centrality of the body in the reciprocal construction of individuals and society, and recent research has explored the influence of a variety of social institutions on the body. Significant research has established the influence of social class, child‐rearing practices, and variable language forms in families and children. Less well understood is the influence of children's social class status on their gestures, comportment, and other bodily techniques. In this essay Sue Ellen Henry brings these two areas of study together to explore how working‐class children's bodies are shaped by the child‐rearing practices associated with their social class status, and the potential effects these bodily techniques have on their experience in schools.     

Enriching intimacy: the role of the emotional in the ‘resourcing’ of middle‐class children

This paper analyses qualitative interviews conducted with Norwegian middle‐class parents. It explores how a particular type of intimacy – an enriching intimacy – is produced as part of everyday parent–child interactions and considers the notion of the social self that spurs middle‐class parents to seek this very type of intimacy with their child. By so doing it adds to the growing field of research on middle‐class parents’ child‐rearing strategies and the role these strategies play in the ‘resourcing’ of middle‐class children. The relevance of the dimension of intimacy for studies on the parental effect on children’s school achievement is discussed.     

Thought and action in the life of F.D. Maurice,with particular reference to the London Working Men's College

Lifelong learning is realized in different ways in different countries. Socio-economic and cultural factors are important determinants of implementation. Japan is a self-styled ‘maturing’ society with an ageing population. It is wealthy, but undergoing rapid social, economic and technological change that poses a threat to its sense of community. Its economy is faltering for the first time since reconstruction after World War II. In the author's view, based on desk study and a visit to relevant agencies in Nagoya and Tokyo in June 1999, lifelong learning is seen to be a key means for addressing these three central issues - ageing, community and economic change. National bodies have deliberated on the problems and informed themselves of needs and options for development. They have articulated policies to promote and celebrate learning of all kinds at any point of life through adult, vocational and community education. Initial education is perceived to have a key role in inculcating aptitude for, and positive attitudes towards, learning over the lifespan. This paper argues that, in Japan, lifelong learning is viewed as a ‘lifeline’ i.e. a vital means of communication on these issues between the national ‘think tanks’, bureaucrats and the Japanese public. The Bureau of Lifelong Learning of the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (Monbusho) seeks to develop and implement policies to achieve these goals.     

Modelling and close observation: ways of teaching and learning between third‐generation Bangladeshi British children and their grandparents in London

Studies on child development in cross‐cultural contexts generally contrast child‐rearing practices in traditional or non‐Western with those of Western societies. Thus, they show how non‐Western communities tend to emphasise the importance of interdependence and collectivism between family and group members; Western communities focus rather on the role of the individual and achievement within a competitive milieu. Similarly, close observation by younger siblings of older children and caregivers who ‘model’ tasks to be learned are usually concepts referring to non‐Western groups, whilst those detailing ‘scaffolding’ tend to focus on the caregiver/child dyad in the West. This paper questions the value of such binary divisions when studying the learning taking place in the homes of third‐generation migrants to the UK. Using examples of children, their younger siblings and their grandmothers in London, it shows ways in which the older generation skilfully syncretises traditional and Western teaching practices and how each child responds appropriately to the tasks in hand.     

Student motivations,quality and status in adult higher education (AHE) in China

This article examines an important and yet neglected aspect of the relationship between higher education and the labour market in contemporary China. It does this through a detailed case study of student motivations, quality and status in adult higher education (AHE) in the city of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province. This is a region which has seen major economic and social changes as China makes the transition from a centrally planned to a market‐oriented economy. The case study is placed in that context. Using the theoretical perspective of human capital theory, the article examines the role of education in labour markets. It then considers the relevance of lifelong learning to the research and provides an account of the methodological approach used in the study. The findings of the research are then presented according to the key research questions. These are that the utilitarianism which exists in AHE provision and demand in China has had an impact upon the quality of provision and learning in this sector. This will definitely not help to develop a lifelong‐learning‐based society and promote citizens’ all‐round development as suggested by government regulations on lifelong learning.     

Meta‐analyses from a collaborative project in mobile lifelong learning

This paper focuses on the use of mobile technologies in relation to the aims of the European Union's Lifelong Learning programme. First, we explain the background to the notion of mobile lifelong learning. We then present a methodological framework to analyse and identify good practices in mobile lifelong learning, based on the outcomes of the MOTILL project (‘Mobile Technologies in Lifelong Learning: Best Practices’). In particular, we give an account of the methodology adopted to carry out meta‐analyses of published literature and accounts of mobile learning experiences. Furthermore, we present the results of an implementation of our Evaluation Grid and the implications arising from it in terms of management, pedagogy, policies and ethical issues. Finally, we discuss lessons learnt and future work.     

The Context of Child Care for Toddlers: The “Experience Expectable Environment”

An experience expectable environment in child care classrooms is one in which teachers consistently provide positive and nurturing interactions within daily routines and activities to enhance children’s learning. Growing numbers of children are being enrolled in child care at earlier ages and staying for longer periods of time each day which is heightening the need to attend to the context of child care for very young children. Several large scale studies in social policy, biology, and human development have confirmed the links between children’s early experiences and later outcomes, and recent brain research and research in child care classrooms has highlighted the importance of these consistent, responsive, and respectful patterns of interaction, especially for very young children’s development. Yet, examination of the quality of child care has indicated interactions in these classrooms that may not support optimal development and/or that could be considered harmful. Given toddlers’ need for consistent and nurturing care, coupled with the current substandard quality of care for very young children, discussing the context of child care in terms of an experience expectable environment provides a perspective to understand the context of toddler child care. This perspective underscores the connections of routines and interactions to children’s development of neural pathways, thus setting the foundation for optimizing learning and development.     

Boys as only‐children and girls as only‐children—parental gendered expectations of the only‐child in the nuclear Chinese family in present‐day China

Studies on the effect of only‐child status on girls’ education indicate that the only‐child policy has had an unintended consequence of engendering a child‐centered culture with a strong belief and shared interest among the urban community in educating the only‐child regardless of the child’s sex. As the distribution of education by sex is frequently argued to be a key determinant for gender inequality, this finding seems to carry an unquestioned message that gender equality has been largely achieved for the only‐child generation. So far, however, few studies have examined parental gender‐specific expectations for their only children as an important factor in preparing boys and girls for their different school and social experiences. Based on data collected through semi‐structured interviews with 20 families in north China, this paper explores parental gender‐specific expectations of their only‐children. Parents’ SES is also considered in order to see how class may interact with gender in parents’ expectations for boys and girls as only‐children. The study reveals patterns of differences in parental expectations based on gender, and to a lesser degree, class. The author argues that it would be over‐optimistic to believe that only‐child status and the equally high academic aspirations parents hold for boys and girls have done away with all the deep‐rooted factors against gender equality in Chinese society. Drawing on Bourdieu’s social theory, the author discusses the implications of the findings and provides suggestions for policy efforts and further research.     

日本幼儿社会性培养方法及其对我国的启示

由于受到计划生育和少子化的影响,当今幼儿的社会交往能力减弱,尤其是中国的独生子女更令人担忧,因此在幼儿园集体生活中培养幼儿的社会性具有重大意义。本文分析了日本幼儿教师培养幼儿社会性的两种途径,即通过同伴玩耍和通过幼儿纠纷培养幼儿的社会性。上述做法值得我们借鉴。     

Changing grassroots communities and lifelong learning in Japan

Japanese community is falling apart. This is caused by the combination of two problems: on the one hand, people are feeling their existence to be less and less stable and their reality is being shaken; on the other hand, the sense of values in the society is becoming more and more diversified and fluid. In the background of the two problems are three issues facing society: the rapidly declining birth rate and aging and dwindling population; the prolonged economic depression and destabilised employment; and the destruction of communal ties among inhabitants due to change in grassroots communities and the increasing isolation of individuals comprising the so-called no-bondage society. What is attracting more and more attention by policymakers addressing the two crises is lifelong learning. Challenges facing lifelong learning in Japan do not simply mean the acquisition of competency as often discussed in Western countries. More importantly, they are about how we can link learning activities to the formation of a new community. What is required of us is to seek how we can build up a community that creates a constant equilibrium by being dynamic, ensures the lifestyle of community residents by changing itself and recognises their human dignity. ‘Learning’ no longer means distributing rights to education through a uniform system like school education. Now, it means the style of residents' existence to create a new community. There, ‘learning’ has become the government's critical task in the field of residents' autonomy.     

论“学习型社会”视野下成人教育观念的转变

构建"学习型社会"已成为世界各国社会改革和教育改革的努力方向。建设"学习型社会"应转变传统落后的成人教育观念;"学习型社会"体现出诉求终身教育和终身学习、重整个人发展的全面价值、迎接知识经济的挑战,强调所有人、全社会的参与等特点,因此成人教育观念应转变为倡导自主性学习、摒弃"单面人"的发展向度、重视创新精神、实践能力和呼唤"全纳教育"时代等方面。     

学习社会理念初探

学习社会理念作为一种未来社会的构想而被提出,不同的人对此持有不同的看法,本文主要分析了学习社会一词的演变及其产生的背景,进而阐述了终身教育、终身学习和学习社会三者之间的关系及倡导学习社会的价值指向,最后本文就学习社会的提出给“学习”带来的影响作了简要的论述。     

The evolution of the European Union’s lifelong learning policies: an institutional learning perspective

The EU’s lifelong learning policy has emerged as an overarching educational reform policy intended to address a wide range of issues, including education, employment and competitiveness. The question has been raised as to whether the resulting policy is merely a catch‐all concept that can be applied to any needs or whether it is underpinned by a comprehensive concept and strategy. This article advances the notion of institutional learning as the selective adoption by organisations of characteristics or policies from other organisations, as opposed to the wholesale homogenisation suggested by institutional isomorphism. Based on our periodisation of international lifelong learning policy, this article argues that a complete historical analysis of the discourse on lifelong learning, coupled with an analysis of the European Commission’s institutional learning from others will give a more appropriate picture of what contributed to the current conceptualisation of lifelong learning.     

Families’ social backgrounds matter: Socio‐economic factors,home learning and young children's language,literacy and social outcomes

Parental support with children's learning is considered to be one pathway through which socio‐economic factors influence child competencies. Utilising a national longitudinal sample from the Millennium Cohort Study, this study examined the relationship between home learning and parents’ socio‐economic status and their impact on young children's language/literacy and socio‐emotional competence. The findings consistently showed that, irrespective of socio‐economic status, parents engaged with various learning activities (except reading) roughly equally. The socio‐economic factors examined in this study, i.e., family income and maternal educational qualifications, were found to have a stronger effect on children's language/literacy than on social‐emotional competence. Socio‐economic disadvantage, lack of maternal educational qualifications in particular, remained powerful in influencing competencies in children aged three and at the start of primary school. For children in the first decade of this century in England, these findings have equity implications, especially as the socio‐economic gap in our society widens.     

幼儿早期自主阅读能力培养方法探析

在终生教育、终身学习的现代学习型社会,人的阅读能力做为人类学习不可缺少的基本技能之一,越来越被教育界关注,幼儿早期自主阅读能力的培养,关系到一个人一生良好学习习惯的形成,而良好的学习习惯又直接关系到幼儿将来整个人生观、世界现的形成,关系到幼儿将来对国家、对社会的贡献,所以越来越受到幼教界的重视,笔者通过多年的观察研究和工作实践,在分析幼儿早期自主阅读能力培养的重要性和目前一般幼儿园教育在该方面存在的问题的基础上,提出了建设良好阅读环境、为幼儿精选图书;“图谱法”教学;关注细节、回翻法的使用和亲子共读等6项笔者认为科学合理的、培养幼儿早期自主阅读能力应采取的策略．     

The Persistent Gap between Education and Care: a ‘History of the Present’ Research on Belgian Child Care Provision and Policy 1

The first Belgian crèches for children from birth to three years of age date from the nineteenth century. From 1919, formal legislation on child care was developed. In the early twentieth century, the origins of Belgian childcare and in its initial legislation some core aspects of present‐day child care policy and practice can be found. This article will focus on two of these historical aspects of Belgian child care. Both features have far‐reaching consequences for the organization of present child care provision, for professional qualifications and for policy matters. The first is an aspect that is very common in Western Europe, and a source of current pedagogical debate: the persistent gap between care for the infant and the education of the preschool child. The second is a typical Belgian feature of childcare: subsidized liberty as a specific form of public–private partnership. This article wishes to contribute to the debates on viewing childcare policy and practice by historicizing these issues. A close look at Belgian child care history reveals how the gap between education and care and subsidized liberty occurred and in what context. Consequently the early twentieth century will be highlighted. However, it will also focus on oppositional discourse in the 1970s. In this period, another antagonistic debate took place, namely regarding compensation programmes for ‘blue collar’ parents. The article will briefly point to some remarkable similarities between the discussion in the 1910s and the 1970s. The outcomes of these discussions, as well as the concepts underpinning them, explain the persistence of the division between education and care. The debate between Henri Velge and Elise Plasky, around which this article is composed, has been studied previously by Belgian historians. The scarce research on Belgian child care history focuses on child care as a women's employment issue, somewhat neglecting the educational aspects. This vein, i.e. that historical research itself is embedded in the discursive regime separating education from care, is the very subject of this article. Therefore, research was conducted from a hermeneutical perspective, looking at coherences between discourses and their social, economic and cultural contexts. This research aims also to acknowledge the critiques of De Certeau regarding the focus on discontinuities in the construction of history.     

Busting the myth of low-skilled workers – destabilizing EU LLL policies through the life stories of Danes in low-skilled jobs

In the EU, ambitious objectives have been set for education and training since the adoption of the Lisbon Agenda in 2000. The policies aim among other things to empower the individual through participation in lifelong learning which is seen as both a right and a duty: ‘People need to want and to be able to take their lives into their own hands – to become in short, active citizens’ (CEC, 2000, p. 7). However, not all citizens are taking part in lifelong learning and consequently the EU and its member states have set up policies with a ‘particular focus on active and preventative measures for the unemployed and inactive persons’ (CEC, 2006, p.1). ‘Inactive’ persons comprise different groups which are marginalised in terms of participation in lifelong learning, among others ‘low-skilled’ who have a lower participation rate in education and training activities (Cedefop, 2013). In this article, the aim is to destabilize the political discourse on ‘low-skilled’ through individual narratives of being in low-skilled jobs. Whereas the problem of being low-skilled from a political perspective is represented as psycho-social problems of the individual, the narratives point to the complexity of people in low-skilled jobs and the role of structure to ‘low-skilledness’. The narratives open up issues of power and the historical arbitrary distinctions between skilled and unskilled in the Danish labour market. It opens up for how the educational structures produce ‘low-skilled’ people, especially in the transition from basic vocational education and training into an apprenticeship. The article points to the narrow focus of policies on the ‘supply’ side of lifelong learning and less on the ‘demand’ side of a ‘needy’ global labour market in which precarious jobs are no longer limited to low-skilled. The article draws on Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ (1999, 2009) and narrative inquiry.     

Informal learning in a formal context: problematizing the concept of social capital in a contemporary Swedish context

Definitions of social capital, advanced by Coleman and Fukuyama, and definitions of lifelong learning and intergenerational learning are discussed and compared, and a synthetic model is presented. This model relies heavily on the practical implementation of strategies for augmenting social capital, such as those applied within the granddad project, an intergenerational learning initiative conducted in schools in the Stockholm County area. It is concluded that intergenerational learning in this theoretical framework provides a foundation for lifelong learning practice in a social capital perspective, even though the definition of social capital used is broad and bears strong resemblance to the Japanese concept of kokoru, advanced by Okamoto (1992).