Adult education and the European Union : theoretical and methodological perspectives [Book Review]

Abstract

This book contains papers, some of which more accessible than others, in terms of conceptual clarity, that shed light on the development of the concept of Lifelong learning from its initial UNESCO formulation and elaboration as Lifelong Education, more expansive in scope than that at present, to the more OECD and EU driven economistic discourse on lifelong learning, focusing on „employability‟ which does not necessaily mean „employment‟ and which places the onus on individuals, rather than the provision of structures, for one‟s ongoing learning. This was cynically regarded as a means of „responsibilisation‟ to adopt the sociological term critiquing this focus on individual as opposed to social responsibility. In this regard, Rasmussen‟s reference to Jürgen Habermas‟ “diagnosis that the EU needs to change its decision-making processes into the „cizenship mode‟‟(p. 28) is very apt.The genealogy of the concept is explained in a few chapters, a case of tilling familiar ground, as many other writers had done this earlier (Murphy, 2007; Field, 2001, 2010; Tuijnman, A and Boström, 2002; Wain, 2004; Borg and Mayo, 2005).