Re-conceptualising Life Long Learning: Shifting the focus to learners' needs

Summary, in English

As Rubenson has argued, "the main problem with life long learning is that it fails to critically assess how conditions for individual development, ethnic and social background, previous schooling and working life conditions create very different preconditions for life long learning" (Rubenson, 1996, p. 43). Using longitudinal data from the Malmö Longitudinal Study, the paper clarifies how different preconditions have influenced individual life patterns. The results confirm that long standing egalitarian policies "are not in any way sufficient for achieving an "open" class structure" (Jonsson & Colin, 1993, p. 243). Especially as regards women, life long learning strategies have not been effective: equality of opportunity for women is not reflected in Sweden's highly gender segregated labour market, nor in women's self-rated "success in life" and well-being. Rather the study confirms that "Sweden is well described by the same hierarchy, reproduction, and inheritance terms as England, though at a somewhat lower level" (Erikson & Goldthorpe, 1987 cited in Jonsson & Colin, 1993) and that "privilege, it seems, is more easily transmitted across generations than disadvantage is "inherited"(cf. Heath, 1981): and this is especially true in Sweden” (Jonsson & Colin, 1993, p.241).

• Författare: Mina O'Dowd
• Publiceringsår: 2005
• Språk: Engelska
• Dokumenttyp: Konferensbidrag
• Ämne: Educational Sciences
• Conference name: Nordic Conference on Adult Education, 2005
• Conference date: 2005-05-13 - 2005-05-14
• Conference place: Turku University, Finland
• Status: Unpublished