1. Time sequence. Lifelong learning is concerned with human development in its entirety and, from the viewpoint of an individual’s learning career, may be char- acterized by the equal status of school and out-of-school educational experi- ences. The biographical significance of learning contexts depends on the degree to which they permit expansive learning and extend the scope for personal action (Holzkamp 1995, p. 492).
2. Spatial integration. Lifelong learning is present in all domains, roles and loci in which the subject can process and shape reality through actions. Given that we are concerned with individuals and their specific identities, the division of work and leisure, public and private spheres into separate learning arenas does
not hold water. Human beings piece to- gether various facets of life according to their interests and their existential designs. Separating vocational and general educa- tion is at odds with the nature of expan- sive learning, since the latter addresses life in its entirety. The same goes for iso- lating specific learning spheres from the rest of life.
3. School as the pursuit of life. John Dewey (1993, p. 408) provided the clas- sic description of how school serves life back in 1915: The purpose is not to make the school an adjunct of commerce and trade, but to use the factors of industry to make the school more active, richer in immediate meaning, and to bring it into close connection with life outside school. 4. Knowledge as a resource. Human beings use expansive learning to shape “their” world, having access to knowledge of extremely homogeneous origin, type and validity. Learning in the “lifelong” mode presupposes the skilful handling of knowledge resources which are becom- ing increasingly accessible with the per- fection of information technology net- works. But this skilfullness must not be reduced to its operative dimension, since it ultimately signifies an all-round com- mand of knowledge and also the diverse manifestations of uncertainty. The infra- structure of unlimited access to informa- tion is not in itself a resource system, which would be conducive to lifelong learning mainly because of its technical potentials. As part of a range of individual learning opportunities and enabling fac- tors, it must be integrated and processed selectively through the controlling func- tion of individual reason.
5. Accreditation of personal knowl- edge.
Assertive but subjectively controlled ac- cess to the knowledge and learning potentials of our multicultural scientific civilization does much to increase the variety of an individual’s contacts with the world and “existential techniques”. It also broadens the stock of human experience deserving accreditation and the means of development. Lifelong learning calls for our imagination and tolerance, so that we may appreciate personal forms of knowl- edge as a document of successful living and are sufficiently far-sighted to place
“In order to broaden their competence or open up new scope for development, hu- man beings need to build on existing experience which often cannot be acquired in retrospect.”
“The purpose is not to make the school an adjunct of commerce and trade, but to use the factors of industry to make the school more active, richer in immediate meaning, and to bring it into close connection with life outside school.”
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them on a par with formal learning prod- ucts.
6. Exclusion as a humanization gap.
The idea of using a broad range of learn- ing possibilities for the purpose of hu- manizing our life conflicts with the prac- tice of depriving a growing number of people of these possibilities through an increasingly stringent social distribution mechanism. The euphemistic messages implied in the proclamation of a “learn- ing society” cannot change this fact. The general efforts to promote lifelong learn- ing and growing acceptance of continu- ing training as the norm will inevitably be viewed with scepticism and even out- right rejection by those who find them- selves excluded from “added-value” edu- cational programmes by long-term unem- ployment and other forms of marginali- zation. The term “educational barrier” is an unfortunate choice for such potential benefactors of lifelong learning outside the production process. It conceals indi- vidual disappointment, self-dissociation and rejection of education (Axmacher 1990), which is what the social and po- litical tolerance of educational inequality often engender.
In a recently completed study (Künzel and Böse 1995) the present author proposed “motivation strategies for lifelong learn- ing”. A campaign to promote continuing training is one of these strategies. In con- sidering continuing training as an object
for such a campaign, we must bear in mind the intention and intensity of the expectations society places in participa- tion in continuing training and also look at the social forms of hindrance and dis- couragement which are apparently toler- ated in respect of groups who are either non-existent for the continuing training market or have been excluded from it. How these factors encouraging or hinder- ing participation in education may be rep- resented subjectively and what opportu- nities they leave for access to a form of learning which lacks the backing of a social lobby and cultural policy interests - this is the real concern of efforts to pro- mote continuing training. Such a strategy can only make sense if it supports the explorative and biographical projects which human beings consider, placing their confidence in the opportunities of- fered by education, even when access is made difficult or the prospects for putting the education to good use are misrepre- sented (Künzel and Böse, 1995, pp. 6 f). However, gearing motivation strategies to adults and to continuing training is in it- self a restriction of the biographical con- cept of lifelong learning, one which has been explicitly rejected in this article. To make possible expansive learning for an entire lifetime - this is the mandate of all educational establishments and learning contexts which are committed to the hu- manization of modern existence. And not only in Europe.
“The idea of using a broad range of learning possibili- ties for the purpose of hu- manizing our life conflicts with the practice of depriv- ing a growing number of people of these possibilities through an increasingly stringent social distribu- tion mechanism.”
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