Lifelong Learning and the European Union: A Critique from a 'Risk Society' Perspective

Abstract

This chapter contributes to the debate on how lifelong learning policy has developed internationally. Lifelong learning has emerged during the 1990s as a core principle of European Union (EU) education and training policies. It has been hailed as the means by which European economies can compete successfully in the global marketplace and calls for flexibility, employability and individual responsibility for learning to live in dynamic and uncertain times. This chapter critically analyses the development of these policies in terms of sociological theories of globalisation, reflexive modernisation and risk society. The author suggests that the ‘learning society’ is actually a ‘risk society’ in which individuals must learn to survive over their lifespan. It is argued that the priorities of the EU policies do not take into consideration the dynamics of social and cultural (re-) production in post-industrial societies at structural, organisational and individual levels.