History, place and the learning society: towards a sociology of lifetime learning

Abstract

This paper aims to shift the debate on the Learning Society away from the normative focus which has predominated hitherto. Rather than beginning with questions about what a Learning Society ought to constitute, we seek to engage with the patterns of participation in learning through the life‐course and their determinants. Our discussion begins with an examination of the way in which the official discourse of the Learning Society is dominated by human capital theory. The critical evaluation of the latter is thus a serious undertaking. Human capital theory involves an unwarranted abstraction of economic behaviour from social relations more widely; participation in lifetime learning cannot be understood in terms of the narrow calculation of utility maximization. This critique provides the basis for the development of a more satisfactory theoretical account, in which learning behaviour is conceived as the product of individual calculation and active choice, but within parameters set by both access to learning opportunities and collective norms. These parameters, by their very nature, vary systematically over space and time: accordingly, place and history must play a central role in any adequate theorization. We conclude that this kind of theoretical approach has important implications not only for empirical research, but also for strategies aimed at creating a Learning Society.