Combining qualitative and quantitative methods in a wide-ranging international comparative study, the book explores how far the EUs lifelong learning agenda has been successful and what factors have limited its ability to reshape national adult and lifelong learning systems. The chapters also look at adults' participation in formal education, what they see as the obstacles to taking part, and the nature of their demand for learning opportunities.

FREELY AVAILABLE ONLINE AS OPEN ACCESS BOOK! The European Union is now a key player in making lifelong learning and adult education policy: this is the first book to explore a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives researchers can use to investigate its role. Chapters by leading experts and younger scholars from across Europe and beyond cover the evolution of EU policies, the role of policy ‘actors’ in what is often seen as the ‘black box’ of EU policy-making, and the contribution state theory can make to understanding the EU and its relations with Europe’s nations. They consider what theories of governmentality—drawing on the work of Foucault—can contribute. And they demonstrate how particular methodological approaches, such as ‘policy trails’, and the contribution the sociology of law, can make. Contributors include both specialists in adult education and scholars exploring how work from other disciplines can contribute to this field. This is the first book in a new series from the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults, and draws on work within its Network on Policy Studies in Adult Education.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This comprehensive collection discusses topical issues essential to both scholarship and policy making in the realm of lifelong learning (LLL) policies and how far they succeed in supporting young people across their life courses, rather than one-sidedly fostering human capital for the economy. Examining specific yet diverse regional and local contexts across Europe, this book uses original research to evaluate differences in scope, approach, orientation, and objectives. It examines the embedding of LLL policies into the regional economy, the labour market, education and training systems and the individual life projects of young people, with a focus on those in situations of near social exclusion.

Learning across generations in Europe: Contemporary issues in older adult education constitutes an important book in the emergent field of study of older adult learning. The book gives a clear and wide overview on the different concepts, ideas, and meanings, related to older adults' education, learning and intergenerational learning through strong theoretical standpoints, empirical research, and policy directions. The field of older adult education has expanded immensely in recent years since it raised questions that are connected to a rapidly ageing society in very turbulent times of economic and social changes in Europe. This book provides the basis for an in-depth analysis of the understandings and interpretations of education and learning in later-life, rethinking the development of different approaches for education of older adults, as well as diverse research and evaluation of different forms of older adults' education and learning. It brings together both orthodox approaches to educational gerontology and older adult learning on important emerging issues faced by educators around the globe. The chapters address the contemporary differentiated discussion on diverse phenomena labelled ranging from intergenerational learning to older men learning, providing robust impulses for the development of further theoretical and empirical research on older adult and intergenerational learning. It is the editors' intention that this collection of papers acts as a persuasive argument for formal and non-formal learning agencies to open more doors for older adults.

Lifelong learning and education is a key concept for the development of adult education as an area of practice and theoretical consideration. In recent decades, meanwhile, the idea of lifelong education and learning has been central to the guidance of various international organisations of many countries.

Based on a 5-year research project conducted by experts in 13 countries, this comprehensive book analyses the ways in which national characteristics frame the Lifelong Learning agenda.

This one volume reference book covers all the major issues in lifelong learning in four sections: Theoretical Perspectives; Curriculum; International Perspectives; and Widening Participation.