Lifelong Education Policies in Europe and Latin America

This book examines lifelong learning through the lens of policy studies. It scrutinises the implications of lifelong learning policies in a variety of states and localities to explore the interplay between commonalities and differences within and across Europe and Latin America.

The chapters explore adult education and learning, vocational education and training, higher education and employment policies in Europe and Latin America with a focus on how decision-makers have designed and implemented them. These contributions analyse to what extent diverse providers offer opportunities to learners with a variable range of ages. Their main research questions focus on the interactions between providers, educational authorities and employers of graduates at local, regional and national geographical scales. This book invites the readers to broaden up the concept of lifelong learning beyond the scope of compensatory, upskilling measures. The chapters spell out subtle but powerful connections between lifelong learning, digitalisation, employability, social inclusion, strategic policy-making and local development.

This volume will be a key resource for practitioners, scholars and researchers of lifelong and adult education, educational policy, education studies, sociology, political science and psychology. It was originally published as a special issue of International Journal of Lifelong Education.

Xavier Rambla is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Spain. In the last decade he has participated in research on lifelong learning policies in the European Union and Education for All in Latin America. Further information is available here: https://geps-uab.cat/xavier-rambla/

Marcella Milana is Associate professor of general and social education at the Department of Human Sciences, and since 2019, Honorary professor of adult education at the University of Nottingham, School of Education, UK. Expert in adult education and lifelong learning, her research interests focus on education policies and governance - at local, national, regional and global levels, and in a comparative perspective, for this reason she draws on multidisciplinary knowledge and collaborates also with sociologists and experts in political science. Methodologically she believes qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods are all needed, but is mostly devoted to qualitative research.