Learning at the Back Door: Reflections on Non-Traditional Learning in the Lifespan

Phillips, Joseph

McGraw Hill

There is a widespread consensus that adult education and continuing vocational training are central elements in a strategy aimed at achieving economic growth. However, the stakes are not only economic. Adult education has also become a structural determinant of employment opportunities, earnings and quality of life. Adults who lack the motivation, opportunity or information needed to participate in a lifelong learning society will become increasingly disadvantaged. Educational systems must prepare people for a life of active learning. This volume argues that the principles of lifelong learning must be at the heart of a new approach to skills development. Lifelong learning is advocated not as a theoretical and utopian idea, but as the inevitable reality in affluent, technologically advanced, politically and culturally pluralistic societies. Each chapter addresses one of several questions important for the future of lifelong education. In particular they concern theory and research on the five themes: lifespan development and education&#x3b; intelligence&#x3b; transfer and capacity to learn&#x3b; informal learning in the work place&#x3b; learning to learn&#x3b; and the implications for policy.

In post-industrial societies some workers will have stable, good jobs in knowledge and learning-intensive workplaces, while many others will be underemployed or locked into a series of precarious, low-skill jobs in the periphery of the economy. In such a society, inclusions and exclusions in economics and social life are bound to correspond closely to inclusions and exclusions in adult education and training. With the transition toward the post-industrial society increasingly complete, the challenge to reduce the exclusive tendencies in adult education and training, and to make learning a common, continuous and even universal experience is becoming more urgent than ever. The design of successful intervention strategies will depend crucially on the knowledge base of adult education, especially improved insights into the factors that are associated with participation and non-participation. By improving that knowledge base that this volume, which reports on a six-country comparative investigation of the patterns of adult education participation, seeks to make a contribution to policy and research.

Published as part of the successful "Advances in Learning and Instruction Series", this book provides a comprehensive and coherent perspective on the processes and outcomes of a meaningful and worthwhile educational experience in adult and higher education. Assuming a collaborative constructionist perspective for examining educational experience, the authors discuss the core concepts of responsibility and control. These concepts are at the heart of conceptual models of critical thinking and self-directed learning in the study and practice of adult and higher education. In turn, these concepts provide a framework for a stimulating discussion about the design and implementation of teaching methods and learning activities.

London, Manuel