Book Review: Lifelong Learning in Europe: National Patterns and Challenges

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From the point of view of adult education, contemporary research accounts on formal education and lifelong learning is somewhat eschewed. First line of discussion, concentrating on VET or higher education, often completely forgets or marginalises its nontaditional, adult students. The second strand of current research deals thoroughly with learning from the adults’ point of view, but mostly considers nonformal and informal learning. To bridge this gap and pay long due attention to the nontraditional, adult students in formal education system, the editors of this book have followed the tradition opened by Shuetze and Slowey 1 , but looking at a different set of countries – such that to some extent could be claimed more similar to each other than the ones discussed in the 2000 volume. This book provides an illuminating account of the nature of contemporary lifelong learning (LLL) in Europe. The institutional and social context to lifelong learning, as well as path-dependency of its development, is the cornerstone of the approach the editors employ.