Implications: A Tool for Progress and a Symbol of Modernity

Abstract

The spread of lifelong learning is not only an empirical finding related to diffusion studies and restricted to education policy. Instead, the fact that a policy can be found in many countries irrespective of their national preconditions sheds light on the ability of world society — and particularly international organizations — to establish policy goals. While world society researchers used to show that worldwide exchange influences national policy development, the spread of lifelong learning in a way represents a new quality of diffusion. Researchers in sociological institutionalism most often analyze long-term historical developments (for example Meyer et al. 1992), while this book’s findings highlight a development which has progressed over approximately three decades. However, we must still assess the implications of this diffusion, resulting from its causes, its background and its consequences. I argue that lifelong learning, in the end, has become a norm in education policy-making around the world. It has thus taken on a central role in policy-making that also ranges down to the individual level.