Geographical Education and the Challenge of Lifelong Learning

Abstract

Lifelong learning is one of the buzz-terms of contemporary educational policy making. It has superseded ‘recurrent education’ and ‘lifelong education’ in international educational discourse. Commonly, it is used as an umbrella term, a catch-all that embraces all forms of formal learning from the cradle to the grave. There are obvious weaknesses in such a generality. The term is at its strongest when it is used to draw attention to the need to reduce the barriers to continuity most evident in the terminal points in a learner’s cycle of learning: school-leaving, graduation from higher education, the acquisition of professional and vocational qualifications. However, this is only a limited perception. More broadly, the emphasis is upon lifelong learning as a seamless tapestry of learning that has no hurdles, where the flow of learning continues uninterrupted. Such a tapestry comprises threads of learning, both formal and informal, causing some commentators to distinguish between lifelong learning and lifelong education, pointing to the importance of the ‘self-fulfilment and achievement’ referred to in the quotation above. In this chapter we explore the implications of lifelong learning for geographical education and highlight the potential of cultural geography in lifelong learning provision. The essence of this discussion is that geographical educators worldwide have generally paid little, if any, attention to the implications of national policies for lifelong learning. We suggest that geographical learning has much to contribute to the evolving provision of lifelong learning.

We live in an age in which the social order of the national state, class, ethnicity and traditional family is in decline. The ethic of individual self-fulfilment and achievement is the most powerful current in modern society.

(Beck, 2000: 165)