Leona M. English and Peter Mayo (2021) : Lifelong learning, global social justice, and sustainability [book review]

Abstract

The Shakespearian image of the ‘innocent flower’ that hides the ‘serpent under it’, is adopted by English and Mayo to illustrate Machiavellian intentions in the rise of Lifelong Learning (LLL) and decline of Lifelong Education (LLE). The two terms boast different meanings, specifically, LLL promotes a more economically instrumental understanding of learning against the broadly political and educational meanings associated with LLL. The two have been promoted by separate institutions flexing their ideological muscles to impose their goals on the dominant discourse of lifelong learning. In this way, their proponents attempted to affect practices in and budgets dedicated to the field. The earlier version, LLE, was a bandwagon for Third World post-colonial promotion of newly-gained political independence, but also for revolutionary, state-run programmes with social and economic goals. This was Unesco’s baby, with LLE comprising a broad educational space inhabited by, amongst others, indigenous, nonformal, continuing, and comparative education. The intellectual support for such an approach was intense, and this is detailed in the book. [excerpt]