Showing papers in "International Journal of Lifelong Education in 2014"
TL;DR: In this paper, Ball begins with a valid question: do we need another book about Foucault? Before beginning to read it, I was unconvinced that we did.
Abstract: Stephen J. Ball begins with a valid question: do we need another book about Foucault? Before beginning to read I was unconvinced that we did. I was less convinced still that we needed another from ...
130 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a theory development following an assimilative integration approach based on attribution theory, which combines both self-regulation and socially situated aspects, is suggested as the most fruitful.
Abstract: Soft skills have become a subject of increasing interest in lifelong learning. Soft skills development is intended to enable and enhance personal development, participation in learning and success in employment. The assessment of soft skill is therefore widely practised, but there is little in the way of research or evidence on how well this assessment is done. Critically reviewing soft skills assessment requires both theory development and establishing a research agenda. Theory development can draw on a number of established theories which help to explain how the cognitive, emotional and social dimensions interact to shape learner behaviour around getting feedback. These include control theory, goal theory and attribution theory. Theory development following an assimilative integration approach based on attribution theory, which combines both ‘self-regulation’ and ‘socially situated’ aspects, is suggested as the most fruitful. Three areas of research can be associated with this; researching the context, ...
92 citations
TL;DR: Learning in the circumstances of practice stands as the commonest and most enduring way occupational capacities have been learnt across human history, and, likely, are currently learnt as discussed by the authors. Yet, a comp...
Abstract: Learning in the circumstances of practice stands as the commonest and most enduring way occupational capacities have been learnt across human history, and, likely, are currently learnt. Yet, a comp...
74 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that TL should be re-defined as ‘changes in the learner’s identity’ and explained why this definition is better and more up to date.
Abstract: We live in a time of constant change—in liquid modernity—and this has created a rapidly growing need for Transformative Learning (TL): we must be able to constantly change and develop ourselves in order to keep pace with the changes in our environment and life situation. However, the need for change has grown so fast and in so many directions that the term of TL has itself become uncertain or even confused. In 2000, Robert Kegan posed the question ‘What “Form” Transforms’? He advocated a new approach to TL but did not propose any new definition; this situation still remains: among several proposals for new approaches to TL, there is a general agreement that the traditional definition of the term as changes in the learner’s ‘meaning perspectives’, etc. is too narrow and too cognitively oriented. In this article, it is argued that TL should be re-defined as ‘changes in the learner’s identity’. The article explains why this definition is better and more up to date. Through discussion of range of issues, the ...
71 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors look at changing policies for higher education in the UK and the emergence of a neoliberal knowledge regime, which subordinates higher education to the market and shifts the burden of paying for degree courses onto students.
Abstract: Public higher education has a long history, with its growth associated with mass higher education and the extension of a social right to education from secondary schooling to university education. Following the rise in student numbers since the 1970s, the aspiration to higher education has been universalized, although opportunities remain structured by social background. This paper looks at changing policies for higher education in the UK and the emergence of a neoliberal knowledge regime. This subordinates higher education to the market and shifts the burden of paying for degree courses onto students. It seeks to stratify institutions and extend the role of for-profit providers. From a role in the amelioration of social inequality, universities are now asked to participate actively in the widening inequalities associated with a neoliberal global market order.
62 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a qualitative study followed 19 mature-aged distance students and their families, exploring how they learned to manage their space and time throughout their first semester at university, and found that the ideal spaces and time for these students were individual and lay at the intersection of three, sometimes competing, demands: study, self and family.
Abstract: Student engagement, a student’s emotional, behavioural and cognitive connection to their study, is widely recognized as important for student achievement. Influenced by a wide range of personal, structural and sociocultural factors, engagement is both unique and subjective. One important structural factor shown in past research to be a barrier for distance students is access to quality space and time. This qualitative study followed 19 mature-aged distance students and their families, exploring how they learned to manage their space and time throughout their first semester at university. Institutions often claim that distance study and the increased use of technology overcomes barriers of space and time; however, the findings from this study suggest it merely changes the nature of those barriers. The ideal space and time for these students was individual and lay at the intersection of three, sometimes competing, demands: study, self and family. A critical influence on success is family support, as is acce...
53 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the approaches to providing these second chance routes in Germany, Norway and Sweden, according to different principles and with differing obligations for the higher education institutions receiving the applicants.
Abstract: Widening access to higher education is clearly part of the European policy agenda. Higher education ministers in the Bologna countries, as well as the European Commission, have all expressed a wish to make higher education more representative of national populations. This policy objective has been echoed at national level. One approach to widening participation is to provide ‘second chance’ routes into higher education. This is achieved by removing academic success at the secondary school as the determining factor for access to higher education. This paper compares the approaches to providing these second chance routes in Germany, Norway and Sweden. Each of these countries has organized second chance routes in a different manner, according to different principles and with differing obligations for the higher education institutions receiving the applicants. The paper closes with a review of the impact of second chance routes for widening participation and a discussion on the contribution such measures make...
48 citations
TL;DR: McGettigan as discussed by the authors made a powerful and well-informed contribution to understanding what is happening to higher education in England, and this may seem a surprising conclusion for many readers of this journal.
Abstract: In this book, Andrew McGettigan makes a powerful and well-informed contribution to understanding what is happening to higher education in England. For many readers of this journal, this may seem a ...
42 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared access to full-time undergraduate higher education by members of less advantaged social classes and ethnic minorities across the four ‘home countries’ of the UK.
Abstract: This paper compares access to full-time undergraduate higher education (HE) by members of less advantaged social classes and ethnic minorities across the four ‘home countries’ of the UK. It uses da...
38 citations
TL;DR: The authors developed a set of design guidelines for an intervention that would strengthen students' capacity for self-directed lifelong learning within a hybrid learning configuration, a one-semester elective course at a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands.
Abstract: Present-day students are expected to be lifelong learners throughout their working life. Higher education must therefore prepare students to self-direct their learning beyond formal education, in real-life working settings. This can be achieved in so-called hybrid learning configurations in which working and learning are integrated. In such a learning configuration, learning is typically trans-boundary in nature and embedded in ill-structured, authentic tasks. The goal of this study is to develop a set of design guidelines for an intervention that would strengthen students’ capacity for self-directed lifelong learning within a hybrid learning configuration, a one-semester elective course at a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands. The research approach was educational design research. An intervention was designed, implemented and evaluated during two iterations of the course. Evaluation methods included interviews with students and the course facilitator, questionnaires, and students’ logs and...
31 citations
TL;DR: In the wake of the world's fast-growing ageing populations and the increasing recognition of the benefits of later life learning towards successful ageing, opportunities for elders and senior persons to engage in learning have proliferated, resulting in an array of programmes and activities being planned and organized by governments, universities, schools, non-government organizations and even hospices in many parts of world, particularly in developed regions and economies as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In the wake of the world’s fast-growing ageing populations and the increasing recognition of the benefits of later life learning towards successful ageing, opportunities for elders and senior persons to engage in learning have proliferated, resulting in an array of programmes and activities being planned and organized by governments, universities, schools, non-government organizations and even hospices in many parts of the world, particularly in developed regions and economies where the opportunities and challenges brought forth by an ageing populace are more pronounced. Amidst the rising importance of elder learning and the increasing provision of learning opportunities for older adults, attention is drawn to the differences in the teaching and learning of this particular group of learners, who are experiencing significant social and psychological transitions in addition to personal changes in senior adulthood. Yet, does the mere fact that they are different from other learners, such as children and youn...
TL;DR: For two decades, the European Union has been at the forefront of international policy-making on lifelong learning, from the European Commission's white papers on Growth, Competitiveness, Employment, etc..
Abstract: For two decades, the European Union has been at the forefront of international policy-making on lifelong learning. From the European Commission’s white papers on Growth, Competitiveness, Employment...
TL;DR: A university education has long been seen as the gateway to upward social mobility for individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds in countries the world over, and a well-educated working pop... as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: A university education has long been seen as the gateway to upward social mobility for individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds in countries the world over, and a well-educated working pop...
TL;DR: The Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) as discussed by the authors have a similar effect on students of similar age and social status; their internal mobility and internal mobility dimensions have similar effect within Europe, and the social dimension was strongly influenced by EU debates and policy approaches, while it arguably owed its origins to this fact.
Abstract: In important respects, European ideas of the university have spread across the world. The principal ‘philosophical’ statements on which this idea of the university is based (Humboldt and Newman) assumed the people inhabiting universities — as students — would come from the youth of a social elite. The outward-facing elements of the Bologna Process, and the European Higher Education Area, aiming mainly at promoting higher education as an export business, focus on students of similar age and social status; its internal mobility dimensions have a similar effect within Europe. The social dimension of Bologna, in contrast, aimed to open higher education more across the social spectrum— though still assuming that the principal groups enrolling would be young. Bologna’s social dimension was strongly influenced by EU debates and policy approaches: while it arguably owed its origins to this fact, the social dimension’s limited success (and more recent displacement from policy, if not rhetoric) can be put down in large part to the difficulties in encapsulating complex and contested social priorities in internationally acceptable indicators, and to the EU’s valorisation of competitiveness in the Lisbon Process (particularly after the onset of recession in 2008).
TL;DR: The authors found that 53% of adults read a self-help book in direct response to a transition that was taking place in their lives and that transition encourages adults to engage in learning activities and make such activities more likely to be systematic and sustained.
Abstract: Through presenting empirical research exploring the connections between popular culture and informal learning, we argue that, as predicted by concepts such as self-directed learning and transformational learning, the experience of transition has a meaningful impact on adult learning. Specifically, transitions encourage adults to engage in learning activities, and they make such activities more likely to be systematic and sustained. We gathered evidence for these claims through qualitative interviews conducted with 134 readers of self-help books relating to health, relationships and careers. Since our recruitment messaging and interview protocol did not mention ‘change’ or ‘transition’, our results provide an excellent foundation for exploring the ways that adult learners themselves connect transitions in their lives with their learning experiences. We found that 53% of research participants had read a self-help book in direct response to a transition that was taking place in their lives. Health-related tr...
TL;DR: Associate (community college) degrees have expanded rapidly in the past decade in Hong Kong, but their value has been questioned due to the limited number of government-funded articulation opportun... as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Associate (community college) degrees have expanded rapidly in the past decade in Hong Kong, but their value has been questioned due to the limited number of government-funded articulation opportun...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focused on findings from an Economic and Social Research Council study in England about the uses of information and communication technologies (ICTs) among 15 highly mobile migrant workers within their transnational families.
Abstract: This article focuses on findings from an Economic and Social Research Council study in England about the uses of information and communication technologies (ICTs) among 15 highly mobile migrant workers within their transnational families Using an extended case study approach including ethnographic methods and a thematic analysis, patterns appeared about learning within transnational families using ICTs The findings were that their mobile learning was: (1) infused with caring; (2) multi-directional and involved multiple members; (3) translated tacit knowledge; and (4) enabled linguistic gifting Implications for lifelong education centre on practice and policies that build on how transnational families communicate using ICTs The study conclusions focus on the complexities of mobile learning within these families, showing that they are difficult to capture, but nonetheless important
TL;DR: In this paper, the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) has been used to harmonize social policy across Europe for widening access to higher education in the European Union (EU).
Abstract: The central questions addressed in this paper are the following: (1) In the context of the (European Union) EU’s goal of severing the link between social class background and higher education participation, what progress has been made in widening access over the past two decades? (2) Has the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) helped EU countries to harmonize their policy and practice in relation to widening access to higher education? (3) What patterns of social stratification are evident in the institutional architecture of higher education across Europe, and how is this reflected in approaches to widening access? The paper begins with a brief review of the OMC, the mechanism used to harmonize social policy across Europe. In relation to higher education, the soft governance approach of the OMC is envisaged as the means of achieving the social inclusion goals of the Bologna Process. Data from Eurostat and the Eurostudent survey are used to analyse levels of higher education participation and differences re...
TL;DR: In this paper, the focus is on Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT), an approach which sees literacy as that which exceeds what is traditionally conceived as reading and, instead, brings to the fore the relation between theory, praxis and education.
Abstract: Masny has done considerable work in recent years in using Deleuzian theory to problematize how literacy studies as a field is conceptualised, and to push for ways of reconsidering how literacy research can be done. This edited book continues and expands this line of endeavour. The focus here is on Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT), an approach which sees literacy as that which exceeds what is traditionally conceived as ‘reading’ and, instead, brings to the fore the relation between theory, praxis and education. To illuminate how MLT works—and the difference MLT can make to rethinking ‘literacy’—Masny has collected together a range of innovative approaches in which ‘the concept of reading has been flipped on its head by deterritorializing reading in accordance with an ahierachical system that flows regardless’ (p. 5). That sentence both sets the parameters for the book’s contents and, also, gives an inkling of its promise and challenge. The promise is that this book can open a new ‘toolbox’ which shows how MLT theory works. However, while Masny is absolutely right in her contention that MLT theory, if refracted via Deleuze and Guattari, will undoubtedly be both radical and innovative for pedagogic and other forms of literacy practice, it is also the case that the challenge is a significant one. It requires the reader to absorb a new conceptual lexicon—including rhizome, assemblage, deterritorialization, intensities, affects—alongside the task of thinking how does this work in practice? Or (as Deleuze would say) it prompts us to ask what does this theory or these concepts do? The chapters certainly provide the ‘tools’ the reader needs to answer these questions— albeit doing so in a suitably Deleuzian rhizomatic manner. In this way, the chapters work as robust guides, offering practical exemplars of how the Deleuzo-guattarian conceptual toolbox can be opened and used in the details of practice. However, this book deliberately works against any simple equation between ‘here’s a concept’ and ‘this is how you apply it’. Instead, it aims to instantiate the Deleuzian notion of concept creation (or theory) as a form of ontological and epistemological becoming for the reader: to fully grasp it, one has to experience it. The book, therefore, requires a form of readerly immersion, a willing suspension of any initial doubt, which I experienced as both unusual and liberating the more I read. The book is structured like a rhizome. A rhizome is an acentred, nonhierarchical, open system, ruptured by lines of flight which go off in all and any direction. Deleuze and Guattari use the rhizome to oppose the root and branch ‘arboreal’ logic of the tree. It is the linear logic of the INT. J. OF LIFELONG EDUCATION, 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of expansion and differentiation on widening access to higher education in Scotland is discussed. But they conclude that while these developments have helped promote inclusion, they have also resulted in some outcomes which can best be understood as diversion.
Abstract: This paper addresses the issue of the impact of expansion and differentiation on widening access to higher education. In particular, it considers the impact of the growing importance of full-time short-cycle higher education in Scotland’s colleges of further and higher education, the progression pathways which have now been established from these programmes to bachelor degrees in the Scottish universities and the policy initiatives to strengthen these pathways. It concludes that while these developments have helped promote inclusion, they have also resulted in some outcomes which can best be understood as diversion.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe and discuss the development of lifelong learning policy in two EU member states, Denmark and Portugal, and show how different societal and historical contexts shape the development and implementation of LLL policies, even though these policies have significant common elements.
Abstract: This article describes and discusses the development of lifelong learning policy in two EU member states, Denmark and Portugal. The purpose is to show how different societal and historical contexts shape the development and implementation of lifelong learning policies, even though these policies have significant common elements. As a basis for the discussion an inventory of policy elements is presented. Denmark and Portugal have been chosen as examples of smaller EU member states with different historical, social and cultural characteristics. Developments and policies in the two countries, including the links with EU education policy, are described. The discussion includes comparison drawing on the inventory of policy elements. A main conclusion is that the different historical trajectories of the two countries remain very important for present-day education and for the advancement of lifelong learning policy. Early development of public primary education and popular adult education has provided a strong ...
TL;DR: This paper provided a critical sociological analysis of trends and perspectives pervasive during the emergence of North American adult education (191919-1970) and discussed transitions during the first 50 years of what is considered modern practice, drawing on Webster E. Cotton's (1986, On Behalf of Adult Education: A Historical Examination of the Supporting Literature).
Abstract: This article provides a critical sociological analysis of trends and perspectives pervasive during the emergence of North American adult education (1919–1970). In discussing transitions during the first 50 years of what is considered modern practice, it draws on Webster E. Cotton's (1986, On Behalf of Adult Education: A Historical Examination of the Supporting Literature. Boston, MA: Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults) periodization model—modified a few years later—to organize people, politics, and ideas as categories shaping North American adult education. In exploring this complexity, the article reflects on the perennial difficulty of answering the question ‘What is adult education?’ Following brief considerations of periods one (1919–1929) and two (1930–1946) in the field’s emergence, the article focuses on period three (1947–1970) in more detail, providing critical perspectives on field expansion during the perceived corporate age of adult education. It considers how adult education...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the impact of self-efficacy beliefs on student parents' perceived capacity to manage multiple roles and their satisfaction with family, school and life, and found that selfefficacy belief was associated with academic selfefficacies and school satisfaction.
Abstract: Student parents (i.e. students who have their own dependent children) are a specific subpopulation of adult learners. This study investigated the impact of self-efficacy beliefs on student parents’ perceived capacity to manage multiple roles and their satisfaction with family, school and life. Survey data collected from 398 student parents enroled at four Canadian universities were analysed. Latent variable analysis was conducted using maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors using Mplus. Self-efficacy beliefs were found to influence student parents’ perceptions of satisfaction at school, in the family and with life in general. Perceptions of one’s capacity to manage multiple roles (i.e. school–family balance) were found to mediate the relationship between academic self-efficacy and school satisfaction as well as parental self-efficacy and family satisfaction. Furthermore, preliminary evidence is provided of unique subgroups within the student parent population based on children’s ages, p...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue for a Marxist theory of praxis which insists upon the unity of thought and action, contending that research and organizing in this context are mutually constitutive and that knowledge production in these movements is dialectically related to the material conditions experienced in struggles for social and economic justice.
Abstract: This article draws from ongoing research into the practices and processes of activist researchers. It discusses social relations of knowledge production located outside of academia with/in social movement milieus. Focusing on the politics of research in people’s organizations and social movement organizations in the Philippines, it builds on interviews with activist researchers. It argues for a Marxist theory of praxis which insists upon the unity of thought and action, contending that research and organizing in this context are mutually constitutive and that knowledge production in these movements is dialectically related to the material conditions experienced in struggles for social and economic justice.
TL;DR: The influence of the European Union's educational policies on the implementation of devices for the recognition and validation of informal and non-formal learning within public policies on education and training for adults in European Union Member States is analyzed in this paper.
Abstract: This article analyses the influence of the European Union’s educational policies on the implementation of devices for the recognition and the validation of informal and non-formal learning within public policies on education and training for adults in European Union Member States. Portugal and France are taken as examples. The European Union’s statements have influenced the development of devices for recognizing adult competences, regardless of the social, cultural and economic specificities of each country. However, sociocultural and sociopolitical characteristics influence the conditions under which recognition devices and the methods of their experimentation and generalization emerge, and are the vector of conflicts of interests between macro- and micro-sociological levels. There is at the same time a ‘culture of convergence’ impelled by the European Commission, and a process of adaptation in matters of cultural and territorialised practices, which aim to avoid marginalization. Data are drawn from offi...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss how mobile lifelong learning (mLLL) may be defined, and the challenges of forging a suitable definition in an ever-shifting technological and socioeconomic landscape.
Abstract: Mobile technologies are becoming ubiquitous in education, yet the wider implications of this phenomenon are not well understood. The paper discusses how mobile lifelong learning (mLLL) may be defined, and the challenges of forging a suitable definition in an ever-shifting technological and socio-economic landscape. mLLL appears as a ubiquitous concept that puts together mobile learning, essentially an ensemble of didactic practices based on the use of mobile technologies, and lifelong learning, a general vision of education in the knowledge society. Starting from the results of an EU-funded project, MOTILL, the paper situates mLLL within the more complex framework of the network society. This illuminates the difficulties in formulating a comprehensive definition, but also the relevance of this concept in the future of learning. We conclude that the future of mLLL can be understood only as a 360 degree vision that is able to take into account a range of pedagogical, managerial, political and ethical issues.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the relationship between adults' free time and further education and found that despite the fact that all those who participated in non-formal education activities have limited free time, they prefer to dedicate some of it to learning opportunities.
Abstract: This article deals with the relationship between adults’ free time and further education. More specifically, the paper addresses the question of whether there are similarities and analogies between the leisure time that adults dedicate to non-formal educational activities and free time per se. A structured questionnaire was used to examine the above issue. A total of 787 adults, who were involved in some kind of non-formal education in a region of Greece, replied to the questionnaire. The results of the research revealed that, despite the fact that all those who participated in non-formal education activities have limited free time, they prefer to dedicate some of it to learning opportunities. Furthermore, it seems that a connection between the particular learning programme and the participant’s professional field is an essential factor in the choice of the programme. Conversely, personal needs and preferences, as well as individual flair, have less to do with this choice.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine one of the most intractable pedagogical problems of the Marxian revolutionary tradition: who will educate the educator and how ought the learning process to proceed.
Abstract: This essay examines one of the most intractable pedagogical problems of the Marxian revolutionary tradition: who will educate the educator and how ought the learning process to proceed. The solutions of Marx, Lenin and Habermas are critically examined towards the clarification of the emancipatory learning process. This learning process has three components: enlightenment, empowerment and emancipatory collective action. Lessons are drawn for our own time.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors situate and analyse the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the Bologna Profecture, and the European University Forum (EUF) in order to understand the impact of regional agreements on educational and training.
Abstract: Over the past two decades regional agreements have become more significant in educational and training. This paper situates and analyses the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the Bologna Proce...
TL;DR: In this paper, the essential understanding and underlying perspectives of career implicit in EU career guidance policy in the twenty-first century, as well as the possible implications of the implicit perspectives on career in the context of career guidance are explored.
Abstract: This paper explores the essential understanding and underlying perspectives of career implicit in EU career guidance policy in the twenty-first century, as well as the possible implications of thes ...