Lifelong learning in the European Union: discourse’s concepts and evidence in practice
Author(s):
Claudia Neves Mariana Gaio Alves
Elisabete Xavier Gomes
Ana Luisa Oliveira Pires
Ana Margarida Vicêncio
Clarisse Afonso
Conference:
ECER 2008
Network:
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Format:
Round Table

Session Information

23 SES 04A, Lifelong Learning in the European Union: Discourse’s Concepts and Evidence in Practice

Round Table

Time:
2008-09-10
16:00-17:30
Room:
B1 116
Chair:
Mariana Gaio Alves

Contribution

This roundtable proposal results from a research project being developed at UIED/FCT/UNL - Education and Development Research Unit – Faculty of Science and Technology/University Nova of Lisbon with the financial support of the Science and Technology Foundation of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology an Higher Education (FCT-MCTES). The project’s theme is centred on European Educational Policies and aims at understanding and questioning the central position Lifelong Learning (LLL) has been assuming inside these orientation policies. Taking into account the state of the art of these research themes, which allowed the identification of research objects and privileged levels of analysis in educational research, it was decided, for this project, to undertake research that embraces different levels of analysis and several themes, all central to LLL. We consider that the approach we have been developing, in which there are several articulated levels of analysis, is innovative and can generate interesting contributions to the ongoing research on educational policy. Therefore, this approach allows exploring perspectives that will ease the understanding of how the general tendencies which affect European Educational Policies, have been (or not) being appropriated and interiorised in practical terms. It is intended at this roundtable to put to discussion some of the project results that, firstly allowed both a retrospective picture about the European Union’s role on educational policies and analysis of the way LLL has turned itself central to the contemporary educational policies; and secondly, consider the way these supra-national level emergent tendencies are articulated (or not) with changes in school institutions and in people’s education/training perspectives. It is also our intention to debate all these problems stimulating some reflection on the importance of doing research in these subject areas. Having in mind these objectives, four contributions will be presented, each one referring to ongoing empirical works on different themes and with different levels of analysis. At the supra-national level, results (1) of content analysis done on some European Union documents will be presented, namely a group of documents that focus on LLL key competencies and (2) a set of documents analysed aiming at explaining the LLL concepts existing in the main political documents which were selected from the programs “Lifelong Learning 2007-2013” and “Education and Training 2010”. Also at this supra-national level but articulated with Portuguese ongoing programs and projects, the developed work has allowed some contributions to the understanding of (3) the process of learning foreign languages through different curricula. It will also be presented, in a completing way, (4) the results of an analysis study focused on the individual concept about the more generic tendencies towards European Educational Policies. This case study is based on the enlargement of access to higher education to non-traditional public – adults without the qualifications usually required for this school level – and on a set of interviews done to several people about these themes. Therefore, the aim was to understand the dynamics involved in accessing higher education and education/training in a LLL promotion context.

Method

The project team, in what refers to the research work, started by exploring the information provided by the European Union through the “Education and Training 2010”, and then studied the type of documents produced for this area by the European Union. This study made possible the selection of European Union reference documents related to Education and Training Policies. These selected documents were then read and category grids were built to allow their content analysis. Sub-teams were organised to perform this work and different case studies were developed due to the different kind of documents identified and team members’ interests. Sub-team 1 analysed documents related to key competencies for lifelong learning (Work Group B from “Education and Training 2010”). Besides document analysis, this sub-team is developing an empirical research that will be completed with interviews to adults (aged 30-40), with different schooling routes aiming at identifying social representations around the LLL theme. Sub-team 2 analysed the main European Educational Policy reference documents, namely those referring to “Education and Training 2010” and “Lifelong Learning 2007-2013” programs. This was a two level analysis, firstly qualitative and then quantitative. The qualitative level included a two-phase content analysis: in the first one, the analysis was done upon pre-established categories and in the second, the documents were thematically analysed through an identification of the concepts explicitly defined through out the texts. At the quantitative level, a lexical analysis was performed. Sub-team 3 analysed the main European Union documents that define orientations for foreign languages learning through different curricula. Sub-team 4 developed a case study at Escola Superior de Educação, Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, Portugal, together with a team of this school teachers, where an enquiry was done to adults who had access to higher education through “Maiores de 23 anos” (“Older than 23”), aiming at understanding their motivation and expectations while at higher education level.

Expected Outcomes

The aim of this Project is to obtain contributions from the empirical work that allow to understand European Educational Policies and the central position of LLL, based on two perspectives: on one side, by analysing the perspective embedded in the policies themselves through document analysis (these documents are perceived as “political texts” (Lingard and Ozga, 2006), i.e., texts that try to focus and change educational practices or even to act as means to disseminate a specific political message); on the other, by trying to get individual perspectives (common citizens or involved in organizations or education/training activities) on the themes under analysis.

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Author Information

Claudia Neves
UIED
Fac. Ciência e Tecnologia - University Nova de Lisboa
Carnaxide
174
Mariana Gaio Alves
UIED - FCT/UNL
Caparica
174
Elisabete Xavier Gomes
Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Unidade de Investigação, Educação e Desenvolvimento
Lisboa
174
Ana Luisa Oliveira Pires
Unidade Investigação Educação e Desenvolvimento (UIED)
faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Monte Caparica
174
Ana Margarida Vicêncio
FCT - UNL
Educational Sciences
ALMADA
174
Clarisse Afonso
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas-Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Departamento de Línguas, Culturas e Literaturas Modernas
Lisboa

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