ABSTRACT
The word learning has come to be indispensable for speaking about ourselves, others and society. As employees in an organization, we recognize our need for the competencies necessary to do our job, and learning is regarded as a process or force to generate these competencies. Active citizenship and activities such as involvement and participation are regarded as necessary conditions for making democracy work, and in a similar way, it is argued that these democratic competencies can be learned. Moreover, activities in the so-called private sphere are regarded as competency-based or requiring specific skills. A range of activities, from child-rearing, having sex, eating or communication, to travelling and using free time, are regarded as being competency-based and in need of a prior learning process.
