Lifelong learning and the low‐skilled

This article is a combined result of a three years research project on low‐skilled learners’ experiences as participants of various kinds of adult training and education in Denmark, and the findings of a three years research consortium on workplace learning, summing up and generalizing our various findings as to how low‐skilled adults function in relation to participation in training and education activities, how they feel about it, what is important to them, and consequently what works in practice in relation to this very important but often neglected group of adult learners.     

The Responsive State and Teachers

Important developments in the Danish political situation are described. Emphasis is upon the relations between changes in politicians’ understanding and how the emergence of what has been called the ‘Responsive State’ might influence schooling and teachers’ work. Three changes of educational policy in Denmark are particularly relevant: (1) since 1991 a new system of govemment for schools; (2) an agreement, signed in 1992, redefining the contractual status of teachers; (3) a new school act of 1993, operational since August 1994, designed to reform the broad aims of the schooling System and the design and content of the curriculum. Broader political trends to these particular policy shifts are reviewed and discussed. They can be seen as a heavy attack on teaching as a profession; they seek to increase the influence and power of parents and politicians at the level of the local community and reduce further the influence teachers have on their own work. It is important to consider these policies against a consideration of how teachers themselves perceive and define their conditions of work. Three investigations are presented. Teachers are concerned about: (a) democratic educational values, (b) their students and their own qualifications, and (c) relations with parents to whom they feel accountable.     

The Education‐Tolerance Relationship: is it biased by social desirability?

A hypothesis in the literature suggests that the well‐documented education‐tolerance relationship is upwardly biased because of social desirability in responses. The main argument is that highly educated individuals have a better understanding of which opinions are less socially acceptable and will tend to hide their true reactions when certain items are brought up in survey interviews. They present themselves as more tolerant than they in fact are, making the relationship appear artificially large. This article reviews the possibility of such a bias in the effect of educational background on intergroup attitudes. A model is developed that takes into account potential distortions, when no direct measures for social desirability are available. We make use of the LISREL framework for specifying competing hypotheses about education and social‐desirability mechanisms. Alternative measurement models are compared in analyses based on data from a recent Norwegian survey on attitudes toward new immigrants. When hypothesized additional links are allowed for, the estimated effect of education on intergroup attitudes does not go down. Thus, the main results question the assumption usually made.     

An overview of the history of learning theory

This article is an account of the history of learning theory as the author has come to know and interpret it by dealing with this subject for almost half a century during which he has also himself gradually developed the broad understanding of human learning which is presented in his wellknown books on “How We Learn” and a lot of other books and writings.     

The Development of a Comprehensive and Coherent Theory of Learning

This article is an account of how the author developed a comprehensive understanding of human learning over a period of almost 50 years. The learning theory includes the structure of learning, different types of learning, barriers of learning as well as how individual dispositions, age, the learning environment and general social and societal conditions influence learning possibilities. All this started when the author, aged 27, broke off his career as a travel agent and joined a course for matriculation at the university. He found this course extremely ineffective and got the idea that a firm knowledge about how human learning takes place might be a starting point for the development of more engaging and effective learning, teaching, schooling and education. Over the years, he gathered inspiration from a broad range of learning theorists such as Piaget, Rogers, Ausuble, Leithäuser, Schön, Kolb, Furth, Mezirow, Kegan and his own Danish instructor, Thomas Nissen. But the theory was built up as his own structure by critically adding new elements from the examination of other theories and carefully analysing experience from teaching, supervising and observing learning courses at all levels from primary school to adult education and university studies.     

Radio access: The Danish approach

During the past two years “Danmarks Radio” has carried out the experiment of giving ordinary people access to the medium of radio. The venture has been named the “Tape Workshop.” In the following, the practical organizer of these experiments gives an explanation of the principles which have evolved in connection with making the production facilities available.