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Adult Education and the ‘Learning’ Turn

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The Palgrave International Handbook on Adult and Lifelong Education and Learning

Abstract

In the 1990s, the terms ‘adult education’ and ‘lifelong education’ began to be displaced by a novel discourse of ‘lifelong learning’. This learning turn in education policy affirmed ‘learning as performance’ but also discounted the established world of adult and lifelong self-development. In that moment, the meanings of ‘adult education’, ‘lifelong learning’ and ‘lifelong education’ became unclear. But what is being entangled here and with what effects on knowing and doing adult education? I use the concept of ‘analytic borderlands’ to understand change in global transitions and report on research that traced the learning turn in Australian adult education through three different historical contexts. Re-reading empirical case study research, I show how these historical contexts intersected in ways that transformed publicly provided Technical and Further Education (TAFE) into mixed economy Vocational Education and Training (VET). I argue that these three concepts of ‘lifelong learning’, ‘adult education’ and ‘lifelong education’ are historically specific forms of more general political rationalities, institutionalised spaces and necessary utopias.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC, 3086, Australia

    Terri Seddon

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  1. Terri Seddon
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Correspondence to Terri Seddon .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

    Marcella Milana

  2. Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    Sue Webb

  3. School of Education, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

    John Holford

  4. Department of Education and Childhood, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

    Richard Waller

  5. Department of Politics, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom

    Peter Jarvis

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Seddon, T. (2018). Adult Education and the ‘Learning’ Turn. In: Milana, M., Webb, S., Holford, J., Waller, R., Jarvis, P. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook on Adult and Lifelong Education and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55783-4_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55783-4_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55782-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-55783-4

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