Abstract
The theme of this chapter is lifelong learning in relation to the postmodern condition. This requires a consideration of the contemporary role of education within the context of globalisation, risk, uncertainty, reflexivity and the foregrounding of diversity and difference that characterises that condition. I am going to argue that there is no single or simple definition of the ‘postmodern’. It is itself a contested area and as such its contribution cannot be said to be uncontentious in terms of what it might tell us about lifelong learning practices. Nonetheless, it can provide powerful conceptual resources for understanding the increased role and importance assigned to discourse and signification in the configuring of contemporary social practices. Locating social practices including those of lifelong learning within a theoretical framework provided by the postmodern can provide different and multiple understandings of such practices
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Usher, R. (2001). Lifelong Learning in the Postmodern. In: Aspin, D., Chapman, J., Hatton, M., Sawano, Y. (eds) International Handbook of Lifelong Learning. Springer International Handbooks of Education, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0916-4_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0916-4_11
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