In todays society, people and organisations increasingly undergo processes of transition. Experiences of change affect all areas of life: our jobs, relationships, status, communities, engagement in civil society, lifestyles, even understandings of our own identity. Each person must expect and make ready for transitions, engaging in learning as a fundamental strategy for handling change. This is where lifelong learning steps in. From career guidance to third age programmes, from learning to learn in kindergarten to MBA, from Mozart for babies to gender re-assignment counselling, people face a crowded world of learning activities designed to help them through transitions.
Researching Transitions in Lifelong Learning presents new research from Britain, Australia and North America. The authors include leading scholars with established international reputations - such as Kathryn Ecclestone, Sue Webb, Gert Biesta, W. Norton Grubb, Nicky Solomon and David Boud - as well as emerging researchers with fresh and sometimes challenging perspectives. While emphasising the complexity and variety of peoples experiences of learning transitions, as well as acknowledging the ways in which they are embedded in the specific contexts of everyday life, the authors share a common interest in understanding the lived experiences of change from the learners perspective. This volume therefore provides an opportunity to take stock of recent research into transitions, seen in the context of lifelong learning, and outlines important messages for future policy and practice. It will also appeal to researchers worldwide in education and industrial sociology, as well as students on courses in post-compulsory education.
1. Troubling transitions: learning and the changing life course PART I:
THEMES, METHODS AND CONCEPTS
2. Lost and found in transition: the
implications of identity, agency and structure for educational goals
and practices
3. A View of Canadian Lifelong-Learning Policy Culture through
a Critical Lens
4. Time, Individual Learning Careers, and Lifelong Learning
5. Who Is The Responsible Learner? Viewing learning careers through social
narratives and recursive methodology
6. Older mens lifelong learning: common
threads/sheds
7. Biography, Transition and Learning in the Lifecourse: The
role of narrative PART II: CHANGING PLACES OF LEARNING
8. Approaches to
Lifelong Learning: American Community Colleges and age inclusiveness
9. Two
conceptual models for facilitating learners transitions to new post-school
learning contexts
10. Worlds of difference: dual sector institutions and
higher education transitions
11. Improving Transfer from Vocational to Higher
Education: International lessons
12. Imagined transitions: social and
organisational influences on the student life-cycle
13. Accumulating
knowledge in researching technology enhanced learning: going with the flows
PART III: TRANSITIONS THROUGH WORKING LIFE
14. Working out work: integrated
development practices in organisations
15. "Drifting", "desperate" or just
"diverse"? Researching young people in jobs without training
16. The limits
of competency-based training and the implications for work
17. "Well, if the
government wont do it, we bloody well will!" Third Age Activism and
Participatory Action Learning
18. Researching Transitions: trends and future
prospects
John Field is Professor of Lifelong Learning at the University of Stirling and co-director of the Centre of Research in Lifelong Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University. He is author of Social Capital (Routledge, 2003) and co-editor of Lifelong Learning: Education across the lifespan (Routledge, 2000).
Jim Gallacher is Emeritus Professor of Lifelong Learning, Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University. He is author of Researching Widening Access to Lifelong Learning: Issues and approaches in international research (Routledge, 2004) and Learning Outside the Academy (Routledge, 2006).
Robert Ingram is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University. He is a political scientist who has worked on a number of studies in lifelong learning policy, and he has published a number of research papers.
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