ABSTRACT

Thus far we have documented the way in which globalisation has resulted in both ideas of information and knowledge societies. We have illustrated how the control of knowledge and information and the means of transmitting information lies at the core of global society and how power operates in instrumental ways to further the ends of capital, even to suggesting that this power operates on occasions contrary to international agreements and certainly not always to the common good, although those people who have been enabled to embrace a Western lifestyle and have become knowledge workers have benefited considerably as a result of it. Yet if knowledge changes rapidly, driven by the needs of capital to produce new marketable commodities and to do so efficiently and cheaply, then new knowledge has both to be discovered and learned. We have noted how the universities have a significant place to play in the knowledge economy even though the changes are not always favoured by those who work in them. We have also noted that this new knowledge has to be learned, as the new workforce is prepared and many members of the existing workforce need to be updated. This has led to the ideas of the learning society, the learning organisation, the learning city and learning networks and these are the subjects of this chapter, while the next one is on lifelong learning itself. In order to discuss these concepts, we are first confronted with a problem with the word ‘learning’, which is also implicit in ‘knowledge’ and ‘information’, and so it needs to be dealt with here. It will form the basis of the first section of this chapter and, thereafter, we will examine the other ideas.