ABSTRACT
It is difficult to overstate the significance of lifelong learning (LLL) in contemporary society. The scope of lifelong learning includes policies on and practices in schooling as well as adult education, and much besides including aspects of informal as well as formal learning across the life course. As a strategy, it is applied to aspects of social policy as in the encouragement of single parents to return to work or education and to interventions in families designed to raise the educational attainment of children. Moreover, educational institutions themselves have expanded their boundaries in many instances, as in community schools in Scotland and in England there are proposals to make some form of education and training compulsory for 16-18-year-olds who will face sanctions if they do not comply. Governmental, institutional and individual commitment to lifelong learning does not mean more of what we had before and has brought changes in the meaning and significance of learning across the life course, new teaching and learning practices and institutional change. The vision of the learning society that is unfolding is also increasingly contested. In this volume, we explore some of these contestations, meanings, practices and institutional changes.
