Complex knowledge and ideas are generated, shared and accessed globally. Andrea Cerroni turns to this knowledge society to offer a comprehensive social theory of its processes to bridge the gap between knowledge and democracy. Drawing on a long-term historical perspective, Cerroni assembles a cultural matrix, comprising ancient myths on nature, society and knowledge and modern myths of reductionism, individualism and relativism to improve our contemporary sociological imagination.

This volume offers an up-to-date guide to the principles of socioformation, which represent the foundation of the development of formative projects through collaborative working in academia, not only for the construction of the knowledge, but also for the development of research. It provides the reader with insights into the processes of collaborative working, presenting an analysis that offers a clear distinction between collaborative working and cooperative working.

At the end of the twentieth century, the concept of knowledge advanced to become one of the central factors of society and seemed to gain in importance in the twenty-first century, mostly understood as know-how and technical knowledge. Next to globalisation, knowledge seems to be the leading term both in public, as well as in scientific, discourses. What is more, the prominent status of knowledge is also reflected in the fact that it is used particularly in social sciences to explain complex social transitions and changes. Thus, one of the most widely discussed and debated social diagnoses takes place under the term Knowledge Society. However, the academic discipline of adult education has not yet profoundly engaged in the discourse on Knowledge Society. This book brings together a cross-section of European researchers in adult education who have contributed to the discourse on Knowledge Society from various perspectives. By presenting their recent research results, the book provides an overview of key concepts within the European discourse which, according to observations, is only at the beginning.

The original essays collected here under the general title of The Knowledge Society were first commissioned for a conference held in the late fall of 1984 at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, West Germany. The conference in Darmstadt saw a larger number of contribu tions presented than could be accommodated in this edition of the Sociol ogy of the Sciences Yearbook. However, all contributions were important and affected those published in this collection. We are therefore grateful to all participants of the Darmstadt conference for their presentations and for their intense, useful as well as thoughtful discussion of all papers. Those chosen for publication in the Yearbook and those undoubtedly to be published elsewhere have all benefitted considerably from our discussions in Darmstadt which also included a number of the members of the edito rial board of the Yearbook. In addition, we are pleased that the authors were able to read and comment further on each other's papers prior to publication. As is the case in every endeavor of this kind, we have incurred many debts and are only able to acknowledge these at this point publicly while expressing our sincere thanks and appreciation for all the intellectual sup port and the considerable labor invested by a number of persons in the realization of the collection.

A new collection in the IAU Issues in Higher Education Series that deals with the major tensions between education and science. Drawing on experiences from a range of countries and regions, the book demonstrates the need to find new avenues for the management of knowledge production to ensure that it can meet increasingly global goals and demands.

It is a great pleasure to share with you the Springer LNCS proceedings of the Second World Summit on the Knowledge Society, WSKS 2009, organized by the Open - search Society, Ngo, http://www.open-knowledge-society.org, and held in Samaria Hotel, in the beautiful city of Chania in Crete, Greece, September 16–18, 2009. The 2nd World Summit on the Knowledge Society (WSKS 2009) was an inter- tional scientific event devoted to promoting dialogue on the main aspects of the knowledge society towards a better world for all. The multidimensional economic and social crisis of the last couple of years has brought to the fore the need to discuss in depth new policies and strategies for a human centric developmental processes in the global context. This annual summit brings together key stakeholders involved in the worldwide development of the knowledge society, from academia, industry, and government, including policy makers and active citizens, to look at the impact and prospects of - formation technology, and the knowledge-based era it is creating, on key facets of l- ing, working, learning, innovating, and collaborating in today’s hyper-complex world. The summit provides a distinct, unique forum for cross-disciplinary fertilization of research, favoring the dissemination of research on new scientific ideas relevant to - ternational research agendas such as the EU (FP7), OECD, or UNESCO. We focus on the key aspects of a new sustainable deal for a bold response to the multidimensional crisis of our times.