ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1 we outlined some of the main ways in which emphasis is shifting away from education and towards learning, together with other changes associated with this in the nature of knowledge, institutions and processes. In order to understand how and why this is happening, we have to relate these changes to underlying trends in society itself. This chapter therefore introduces some of the most important social changes which help us understand the transition from education to lifelong learning. As was indicated in the first chapter, however, these changes should be understood not as abrupt or revolutionary, but rather as movements along a continuum, so that it is rarely possible to speak of a complete break with the past, only with movements and directions in which society is moving.
