Learning and Work: Issues for Vocational and Lifelong Education Research

Abstract

This special edition of the EERJ explores some issues which are central to the development of a European understanding of the relationship between learning and work, particularly in the context of vocational and lifelong learning research. The articles collected here reflect the assumption that learning has a social and cultural basis and they have been developed from some of those given during the VETNET programme at the European Educational Research Association (EERA) European Conference on Educational Research in Lisbon, September 2002. Together, they set out some of the challenges for this field of the European research area and suggest ways in which the particular research community associated with the EERA VETNET network may develop. This special issue also suggests that effective policy development at a European level will require attention being given to some neglected issues which have been highlighted by research. One such issue is that the conceptualisation of both ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ has differed markedly between policy makers and researchers with the result that, in the policy domain, learning questions give way repeatedly to management questions or accreditation issues. Thus, the solutions promoted in the policy literature are over-definite; what they do not address is how people learn in general, vocational and lifelong education, particularly where they are introduced to different contexts of learning. Despite all the systemic and other policy reforms and a wealth of good intentions, the complex matter of learning as such is neglected. The problems which persist are evidence of this. Another problematic issue is the tendency to view the question of learning in dualistic terms: practical experience and theoretical learning. For example, research (Griffiths & Guile, this issue and forthcoming) shows that models of work experience in both general and vocational education have attempted to address new issues about skill development through boosting the