The development of the knowledge society and globalization, the definition of transnational educational policies, and the emergence of lifelong learning as a central concept in policy, society and education represent a problematic complexification of education and its relation to learning. This relation is not clarified, promoting the delusion that they are interchangeable concepts and even reducing education to learning. Lifelong learning policies expand, and erode (Edwards, 2009), the contexts for learning. The student, as well as the teacher, become lifelong learners (Falk, 1999; Popkewitz et al, 2006; Gonçalves et al, 2012). Different agents, in diversified contexts, now develop their work in order to ‘promote’ and ‘facilitate’ plural subjects’ learning. There is traditional schooling as well as recognition of prior learning or virtual learning; we find teachers working as educators in museums, libraries and hospitals, and we find social workers, animators, artists and psychologists working with teachers in schools and developing educational work elsewhere. The diversification and expansion of learning experiences are not grounded on educational ‘content’ and ‘purpose’ (Biesta, forthcoming). This diversification of the learning contexts and experiences is not supported by a debate about the diversification of agents working in education/learning and the consequent plurality of understandings of the ‘work of education’ (Gonçalves & Gomes, 2012).

The official discourse legitimating this reality is grounded on managerial approaches that highlight the importance of leadership, productivity, benchmarking and international comparisons, naturalizing these as guidelines for educational systems, policies and practices. Beyond and within the recognition of this scenario there has been relevant theoretical work drawing on the implications of different contemporary philosophies for thinking education (Arendt, Foucault, Deleuze, Rancière). Concepts such as ‘governamentality’ (Foucault, Masschelein, Simons), ‘emancipation’ (Rancière, Biesta, Säfstrom), ‘subjectification’ (Deleuze, Biesta) reset the language of education and denaturalize familiar mechanisms.

We argue that these discourses and approaches are conflicting and have profound implications for understanding education in our days. Recognising the relevance of theoretical approaches to education, we propose to discuss the following questions:

-       Does the complexification of contexts and policies require a redifinition of education itself?

-       How can we think the work of education within this new reality?

-       What kind of settings, practices and relations count as educational?

In this symposium we gather contributions from different theoretical, epistemological and cultural traditions within Europe.