The Education Publishing Company Ltd

The August issue of Adult Education Quarterly (Sage, Vol.60 No.4) features the article ‘Are Low-Income Canadians Financially Literate? Placing Financial Literacy in the Context of Personal and Structural Constraints’ by Jerry Buckland. This article argues that financial literacy varies across socioeconomic groups and their neighbourhoods, in part because of the adult learning that occurs within a local context. The study begins by explaining that financial literacy needs vary across socioeconomic groups and that there are important structural factors affecting the financial well-being of low-income people. Drawing on data from qualitative field research undertaken in three Canadian inner cities, it then moves to examine low-income respondents’ financial literacy. The results show that many low-income respondents evidenced financial literacy in that many learned to cope with strict budgets, used diversified activities to raise their income, constrained their credit, and were reasonably knowledgeable about relevant government programs and banking services. Where particular constraints were noted in financial literacy, they related to detailed knowledge about institutional policies and attitudes about deeper financial and life goals.

The latest issue of the International Journal of Lifelong Education (T&F, Vol.29 No.4) is a special issue entitled ‘The Future of Lifelong Learning’. Stephen Billett’s article, ‘The Perils of Confusing Lifelong Learning with Lifelong Education’, proposes lifelong learning as a socio-personal process and a personal fact. As such, it is conceptually distinct from an educational provision, which constitutes one kind of institutional fact. In making this distinction, this article seeks to elaborate a major flaw in the precepts for conceptualisation and enactment of the report Learning through Life, published by NICAE in September 2009, which called for a rethink of the way Government, employers and individuals spend an estimated £55 billion every year on lifelong learning. Mr Billett claims that the report is ill-informed, partial, of limited use and dangerous as it could lead to the misrepresentation, marginalisation and undermining of a broadly premised provision of adult learning. He says that the emphasis on educational provisions rather than individuals’ learning and the diversity of settings in which individuals learn stand as major flaws that seemingly arise from the authors’ perspectives and stakeholder interests.

Citizenship and belonging was identified as one of the nine progressive themes of the NIACE inquiry into the future of lifelong learning in the UK. It was used to inform the inquiry's recommendations on the desired form of that future. Richard Bagnall’s article, ‘Citizenship and Belonging as a Moral Imperative for Lifelong Learning’, articulates a critique of the report and recommendations of the inquiry from a citizenship and belonging perspective. Three different contemporary conceptions of citizenship and belonging are proposed: a formal conception, grounded in the rights and duties of citizenship or the individual values that it demands of citizens; a participatory conception, grounded in what it means to engage as a citizen; and an existential conception, grounded in the substantive nature and experience of being and belonging as a citizen. The conception of citizenship and belonging that emerges from the inquiry report is strongly participatory.

And Patricia Gouthro’s article, ‘Wellbeing and happiness: critical, practical and philosophical considerations for policies and practices in lifelong learning’, argues that while the Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning that was commissioned by NIACE makes some helpful recommendations for broadening the scope of lifelong learning to include considerations around wellbeing and happiness, the reports do not provide a sufficiently critical or philosophical analysis of the challenges facing the field of lifelong learning today. She says that while the report makes some beneficial recommendations, the contributors have not taken the opportunity to assert the importance of critical adult education taking the lead in informing the future direction of lifelong learning in the UK.

The June issue of Studies in the Education of Adults (Vol.42 No.1), one of the journals of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, features the article, ‘The End of Lifelong Learning: A post-human condition?’ by Richard Edwards. This article explores the significance of theories of the post-human for lifelong learning. Drawing upon the works of Karen Barad and Bruno Latour, it suggests that education has focused on the learning subject as a result of an a priori assumption of a separation of matter from meaning, the object from the subject. By contrast, a post-human intervention points to the constant material entanglement of the human and non-human in the enactment of the world, and thus the problematic status of subjects and objects as separate from one another. This contrast is examined in relation to the distinction made by Latour between matters of fact/objects and matters of concern/things. The article suggests that a post-human condition could signal the end of lifelong learning and provide a rationale for responsible experimentation as a way of enacting an educational purpose.

And finally, the latest issue of Staffordshire University’s journal, Widening Participation in Lifelong Learning (Vol.12, No.1) contains an article by Fay Linacre and Deborah Kinnear called ‘The learning experience of part-time students who study higher education in further education colleges’. The study was based in two University of Plymouth Partner colleges, City of Bristol College and Somerset College. The research explored the learning journey of part-time students studying higher education offered in further education colleges, from the application stage through to the summer term of the first year of the course. It concluded that tutor and lecturer support for students was the most important factor in facilitating part-time learners to succeed in higher education. Other important factors that would improve the learning experience for part-time students included effective communication, IT support, flexibility of delivery, transparency and early information about practical arrangements for course delivery. The authors felt that consideration also needed to be given to access to resources and support services, the relevance of the qualification in meeting employer requirements, and recognition of student status as mature, experienced and knowledgeable.

September 2010

[Michael Marshall was research editor of Education Journal for many years and until the beginning of September he was also Director of Research at the Education Publishing Company. He now works at the University of Exeter and writes a series of research articles for Basic Skills Bulletin and its sister newsletters.]