Economics, politics and adult education

Abstract

‘Political economy’ does what it implies: it explores relationships between economics and politics. In discussion and writings about adult education these links are rarely analysed. Most of the time, the ‘shaping context’ of adult education is treated in a simplistic and deterministic way. The mantra of neoliberal economics is endlessly repeated: adult education must help economies become lean, mean and internationally competitive. This of course is no analysis at all but a justification for a set of policies and practices, which benefit some people and disadvantage others. Griff Foley begins this chapter by arguing that neoliberal economics has led national economies into an unwinnable competition, the burden of which falls on working people. Peter Mayo and Carmel Borg then show how the neoliberal economic discourse has shaped European lifelong learning policy. Mayo and Borg emphasise that adult educators can contest the dominant human capital educational discourse and promote a more humanist and emancipatory conception of lifelong learning. In the final section, Shirley Walters discusses the potential of the Learning Cape Festival in South Africa to do this.