Adult Education and the Formation of Citizens turns attention towards normative claims about who adults should become through education, and what capacities and skills adults need to develop to become included in society as ‘full’ citizens. Through these debates, adults are construed as not yet citizens, despite already being citizens in a formal sense; this book problematises such regimes of truth and their related notions of the possibilities and impossibilities of adul...

"I highly appreciate the quality of Fejes’ and Dahlstedt’s research and writing. They manage to present in a comprehensible way some essential concepts of Foucault that help us to understand better what practices of lifelong learning, in a broad sense, are emerging nowadays in advanced liberal societies. In doing so, they contribute to the renewal of critical thinking in education. They convince me that such renewal is important and necessary… and I think both theoreticians and practitione...

In liberal, democratic and capitalist societies today, we are increasingly invited to disclose our innermost thoughts to others. We are asked to turn our gaze inwards, scrutinizing ourselves, our behaviours and beliefs, while talking and writing about ourselves in these terms. This form of disclosure of the self resonates with older forms of church confession, and is now widely seen in practices of education in new ways in nurseries, schools, colleges, universities, workplaces and the wide...

Neoliberalism and Market Forces in Education provides a wide perspective on the dramatic transformation of education policy in Sweden that has taken place during the last 30 years, with a specific focus on marketization. The marketization of education in Sweden is set in the wider international context of changes in education systems.With contributions from researchers across a wide range of scientific disciplines, the book provides examples of the consequences of market o...

Recognition of prior learning (RPL) has emerged in recent decades as an important policy area and policy concept. It is a phenomenon with a certain variation in practices as well as contexts, concepts and conceptions. However, there is a basic idea about giving recognition to prior learning wherever and whenever learning has taken place. Such ideas can be ‘materialised’ in formal assessment systems providing the basis for recognition, as well as in informal processes where prior learning i...

This book discusses the current state of the art in research on the education and learning of adults, and how such research has been transformed through contemporary policy and research practices. Gathering contributions from leading experts in the field, the book draws on previous research, as well as new findings in order to provide a map of this research field and its contemporary history.The chapters address a number of questions, including: What constitutes this research field...

Over the last twenty years there has been increasing interest in the work of Michel Foucault in the social sciences and in particular with relation to education. This, the first book to draw on his work to consider lifelong learning, explores the significance of policies and practices of lifelong learning to the wider societies of which they are a part.With a breadth of international contributors and sites of analysis, this book offers insights into such questions as:...

How is adult learning used to produce personal, organisational and social change? This interesting examination of adult learning for change illustrates through diverse case studies and theoretical perspectives that personal change is inextricably linked to broader organisational and social change. The authors explore how theorising education as a vehicle for self-change is relevant to the practices of educators, learning specialists and others concerned with promoting learning for change. ...

In Management Research the authors provide a stimulating and critical overview of the key theoretical debates on research paradigms and methodologies, demystifying the process and providing invaluable insights into the politics and practice of research.Conceived by Chris Grey as an antidote to conventional textbooks, each book in the ‘Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap’ series takes a core area of the curriculum and turns it on it...

Although education researchers have drawn on the work of a wide diversity of theorists, a number of these have been of particular significance to education. While the likes of Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, John Dewey and Paulo Freire influenced previous generations of educational theorists, much of the more contemporary theory building has revolved a

The primary objective of this book is to introduce students to the concepts underlying qualitative research and how this kind of research can be conducted in a practical manner. Thus, it discusses various approaches to qualitative research and provides examples of these approaches being carried out in practice. In doing so, the book shows how various disciplines all use qualitative research in order to discover answers to their own particular research questions. The various chapters presen...

In the second edition of New Learning: Elements of a Science of Education, renowned authors Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope explore the contemporary debates and challenges in education. In this time of dramatic social change, education represents significant possibilities and opportunities. Written in accessible and lively style, this book examines learners and their learning environments and considers how schools can prepare their students for the future. Featuring new classroom examples, ca...