ABSTRACT
This chapter reconstructs the political and scientific discourses on lifelong learning. It shows how the concept of lifelong education, which had highlighted the importance of organised learning opportunities for people at all stages of their lives, changed in the 1990s as politicians began talking about lifelong learning. This transformation led to manifold changes in educational science. Researchers were interested in biographical learning processes, analysed learning inside and outside educational organisations, and developed new perspectives to better understand the social embeddedness of lifelong learning. Drawing on practice theoretical approaches, their contribution to seeing learning differently will be discussed with a particular emphasis on the importance of socially situated practices, on learning as becoming, and on lifelong learning as learning trajectories.
