Conference Program

Drawing on an analysis of policy reports produced by international organisations, in particular UNESCO and the OECD, this contribution will trace the evolution of the concept of lifelong learning in the context of the transformation of capitalist society. Lifelong education emerged as an idea in the context of the post-World War II struggles for greater democratisation and equality of the education system and of society as a whole and debates about the balance between economic growth and the welfare state. However, lifelong education represented too many challenges to established institutions to gain traction as a policy idea. Under the influence of neoliberal policies, lifelong learning has been largely reduced in scope and co-opted by the neoliberal agenda of efficiency and employability (Elfert, 2018). In the contemporary late capitalist moment, characterised by the commodification of all aspects of life, the broken contract between the state and the citizens, and the exhaustion of the promises of globalisation and neoliberalism (Brown, Lauder, & Ashton, 2010; Beckert, 2020), the meaning of lifelong learning has shifted towards the necessity to acquire “resilience” to keep up with the pace of (working) life characterized by ever greater precarity and uncertainty and technological requirements in an ever-changing and crisis-ridden world (Evans & Reid, 2016; Jameson, 1991). While the discourse of lifelong learning is still ubiquitous (e.g. Schleicher, 2025), the prevailing focus on “skills” and digitisation diminishes the emancipatory and humanistic dimensions of lifelong learning and promotes a fragmented understanding of the human person. By concentrating on measurable performance while marginalising the broader concept of lifelong learning, educational discourse appears to be shifting away from democratic principles.