Towards a postcolonial politics of appearance: unsettling lifelong learning as a racial contract

ABSTRACT

In the context of flexible capitalism, lifelong learning has been posed as a pathway for individuals to accumulate skills and actualise potentials. What is overlooked, however, is that the process of accumulation and actualisation is embedded within the culture of recognition. People who are historically constructed as the anthropos, a legacy of the colonial history struggle to appear as equals vis-à-vis the gaze of the humantias. With this critique in view, I reviewed the field of immigrant and lifelong learning in relation to a postcolonial politics of appearance. I sought to understand how lifelong learning settles itself in immigrant consciousness, and how it shapes immigrant experiences in the West. My review points to three metaphors that speak of the challenges and possibilities for immigrants to appear: fixation of the Eurocentric gaze, re-credentialing as precarious investment, and lifelong learning as trans/formation. Together, these metaphors suggest that lifelong learning has conjured a racial contract, which ironically binds immigrants to the labour of learning and yet continuously suppresses their appearance. To unsettle this racial contract, borders need to be reimagined and crossed/vexed by recentring immigrants as knowing subjects.     

演进与质变：从终身教育到终身学刁

终身学习是在新的时代背景下对终身教育的继承和超越。从终身教育到终身学习的转变是一种质的飞跃，终身学习是对时代发展要求的应答，它实现了整个教育的重心转移，保证了终身教育制度的有效实施，更符合学习化社会的要求。     

Social foundations of lifelong learning: a Habermasian perspective

ABSTRACT

The idea of learning rooted in behavioural psychology has become dominant in the field of teaching and learning for several decades. Even though it has been widely used in formal education it is inadequate for informing lifelong learning policies and plans. In this paper, first I critique the psychological foundation of learning and in the second part, drawing on Habermasian conceptualisation of three structural components of the lifeworld (culture, society, and personality), I conceptualise the three components as the social foundations of learning: learning as cultural reproduction, learning as social integration and learning as socialisation. In the context of the UN’s declaration of ‘lifelong learning’ as one of the Sustainable Development Goals, this paper will be useful for developing policies to address challenges faced by individual countries at cultural, societal and individual levels.     

Risk management by a neoliberal state: construction of new knowledge through lifelong learning in Japan

This article examines the current developments in Japan's lifelong learning policy and practices. I argue that promoting lifelong learning is an action that manages the risks of governance for the neoliberal state. Implementing a new lifelong learning policy involves the employment of a political technique toward integrating the currently divided and polarized Japanese population – popularly called kakusa – into the newly imagined collective, namely, atarashii kōkyō or the New Public Commons. Examining the macro policy discourse on Japan's educational policy, this article demonstrates Japan's inflections of neoliberal governmentality with the new distribution of responsibility between the state and the individuals through the construction of new knowledge supporting the New Public Commons. In fact, new knowledge is the epicenter of the national educational policy discourse aiming at generating social solidarity in local communities.     

终身教育形势下新的学习观念的树立

党的十六大报告提出＂形成全民学习、终身学习的学习型社会,促进人的全面发展＂的学习理念,在终身教育形势下,我们应该转变传统观念,树立新的学习理念,每一个社会个体都要学习各种各样的知识,并且持续不断地更新自身的知识体系,否则就不能在社会中生存,只有在整个人生过程中持续不断学习,不断充实自己,才能跟上时代形势不断发展的需要。     

Lifelong learning in England and Japan: three translations

This article provides a comparative analysis of the development of lifelong learning in England and Japan, while addressing the multi‐dimensional nature of ‘lifelong learning’. The article argues that ‘lifelong learning’ is a concept which has unusual adaptability and legitimacy, and for these reasons has been subject to multiple translations over the last twenty years in both England and Japan. These translations can be identified: a) through discourse; b) in the development of policy; and c) as the shift in the political ideology. Drawing on the insights generated from the three strands, the article concludes that lifelong learning is being translated to accommodate various agendas and has been adapted in diverse contexts.     

Easing access for lifelong learners: a comparison of European models for university lifelong learning

Easing access to higher education (HE) for those engaging in lifelong learning has been a common policy objective across the European Union since the late 1990s. To reach this goal, the transition between vocational and academic routes must be simplified, but European countries are at different developmental stages. This article maps the development in Denmark, Finland, Germany and England using a case study approach deploying data triangulation from a national and institutional perspective. It explores the extent/commonality of structural factors for easing access for students engaging in lifelong learning. The cases are at widely different stages, but the following factors were considered essential in all countries for opening universities: the establishment of transition paths from secondary education and working life into HE and links between HE, businesses and adult education from a national perspective and the recognition of all forms of learning, the flexibilization of study formats and the design of a curriculum that suits all from an institutional perspective.     

终身学习理念与日本当代社会教育的新发展

终身学习是当前日本教育改革的中心课题之一，而与之联系最为密切的是日本社会教育。本文从日本终身学习产生的背景及基本理念、终身学习体系中社会教育的地位、日本振兴终身学习事业对社会教育产生的影响等三个方面，来论述日本终身学习理念与当代日本社会教育的关系。     

Habermas,lifeworld and rationality: towards a comprehensive model of lifelong learning

Major supranational organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Union, and the World Bank have used lifelong learning as a strategy to boost economic competitiveness both at individual and national levels. In the literature related to lifelong learning this is characterised as the economistic model of lifelong learning. The humanistic model of lifelong learning, which appears as an alternative of the economistic model, takes education and learning as a fundamental human right for all individuals irrespective of their age, gender and class. However, this model is criticised as a vague, rhetorical and utopian ideal with little potential for informing educational policy decisions at national level. Using some key Habermasian conceptualisations, mainly the colonisation of the lifeworld and communicative rationality, this paper argues that three major dimensions of human learning informed by Habermas – transformative, citizenship and intersubjective – can contribute towards the development of a more comprehensive model of lifelong learning.     

远程教育与终身教育和学习化社会--世界远程教育发展历史追溯和展望(5)

从精英教育到大众教育和普及教育;从成人教育到全民教育和继续教育;从终身教育、终身学习再到全民终身学习;从学习化社会到学习型组织等。这些教育思想的提出及相应教育实践的开拓,不仅适应了、信息时代和知识经济的到来,也为教育技术的应用、远程教育的持续发展奠定了思想理论基础。     

The Trouble with Higher Education: A critical examination of our universities

This study examined and compared the legal inputs, structural settings and implementation process of lifelong learning policy in Thailand and Japan focusing on street-level agents. The findings demonstrated that while both countries had legal frameworks that provided a legislative platform to promote lifelong learning among the elderly based on a bottom-up implementation of policies, three major differences existed that equated with different outcomes of lifelong learning among the elderly in both countries. First, the promotion of lifelong learning for the elderly in Thailand mirrored complex administrative structures of several host organizations and multiple legal frameworks; whilst Japan’s lifelong learning policy had been promoted based on the Social Education Act under a single ministry. Second, while Thailand based its policy implementation on government agents at the regional and local level in policy delivery, Japan developed a community-based multilayered platform that promoted the policy with active involvement from various local players. Finally, lifelong learning policy for the elderly in Thailand reflected the personal initiatives of policy promotion by government agents at the local level; whereas, lifelong learning policy for the elderly in Japan was pursued based on the interests of the elderly and the community in which they lived.     

Reforming teacher education in the context of lifelong learning: the case of the BEd degree programme in Ireland

Lifelong learning has become a prominent fixture in educational policy in recent years in many countries around the world. In terms of teacher education, it is now widely accepted that initial teacher education is insufficient for the lifelong professional needs of teachers. From September 2012, initial teacher education in Ireland will be offered as a radically different four-year BEd degree programme. This reform of initial teacher education offers immense potential for teacher educators to re-imagine their programmes in light of a range of guiding paradigms and theoretical frameworks, including lifelong learning. This paper provides a rationale for developing programmes in initial teacher education in the context of lifelong learning. A number of recommendations for lifelong primary teacher education are offered in light of current reforms that are taking place in Ireland.     

Serious but fun,self-directed yet social: blogging as a form of lifelong learning

The article explores the role of digital media in supporting lifelong learning. In particular, it focuses on bloggers who write their blogs voluntarily in their own free time. The aim is to examine how lifelong learning—viewed as self-directed, nonformal learning and active participation that evolves from a desire for self-actualization—occurs in the processes of blogging. The data for this small-scale study were collected by qualitative email interviews. In all, 11 Finnish bloggers participated. The findings show that active participation, promoted and enabled by blogging, was actualized in both online and offline environments. It was embedded within six functions of their blogs that the bloggers mentioned: (1) learning and studying, (2) guidance and tutoring, (3) bringing new perspectives to public discussions, (4) applying expertise, (5) creating in one’s own space and at one’s own pace and (6) being part of a digital media culture. The findings indicate that blogging can promote nonformal, lifelong learning in many ways. Blogs and blogging constitute a learning environment that promotes active participation by making interesting, meaningful and enjoyable activities possible, and consequently the enthusiasm to actively learn and develop.     

学习化社会与教师的终身学习

教师作为社会终身教育体系的重要人力资源,其群体素质和能力直接关系到教育的质量。除有计划的在职培训以外,教师在品格、业务、教学方法等方面的终身学习,需要依靠教师的自觉意识来维持。     

自学考试是构建终身学习体系的重要平台

自学考试作为一种中国独创的教育形式和考试制度,是所有教育形式中与终身教育及终身学习的理念最为切合的一种。自学考试的本质属性是一种开放教育形式,学习机会与学习内容都具有高度开放性。自学考试＂个人自学＂的基本特点也与终身教育与终身学习的基本主张非常吻合。自学考试能够很好地促进社会助学系统的构建,成为终身教育与终身学习社会助学体系最有力的推动力。自学考试制度完全可以成为我国构建终身学习体系的重要平台,为我国学习型社会的建设发挥应有的作用。     

An assessment of the effectiveness of a classroom activity designed to teach the value of lifelong learning

Many agree that educational systems should instill in students the value of lifelong learning (LLL), but few have suggested how to accomplish that or how to measure the effectiveness of those curricular initiatives. We developed a technique intended to strengthen students' beliefs about the value of LLL and piloted use of a recently developed scale to assess changes in commitment to LLL. Using a quasi-experimental procedure, we presented students with faculty members’ career biographies describing their personal career paths, including how they learned from their experiences and how they had to adapt and adjust to changing circumstances. To assess beliefs about LLL, students completed Bath and Smith's Propensity for Lifelong Learning (PLLL) scale. We found that students who listened to career biographies had significantly stronger beliefs regarding the value of LLL than the students who were not exposed to the career biographies. We concluded that listening to career biographies strengthened commitment to LLL and that the PLLL scale is a useful outcome measure of this commitment. We discussed limitations and future directions of our method and measurement instrument.