THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, PERSONAL AND PEDAGOGICAL BASIS OF THE CONCEPT OF LIFELONG LEARNING

Abstract

At the dawn of the new millennium, lifelong education is proving to be a rich academic concept and a widespread political slogan. Yet, can one include such a vast notion in a simple definition? In this article, we have hypothesized that lifelong education is produced today by a range of national, European and international educational and political actors. The qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed that lifelong education resembles a chain whose main links comprise five poles: economic, social, personal, educational and political. This approach will be complemented by other revealing elements discussed in the article.

Keywords

• lifelong learning
• training
• learning
• European Union
• international organizations
• discourse analysis