1st Edition

Lifelong Education Policies in Europe and Latin America

Edited By Xavier Rambla, Marcella Milana Copyright 2024

    This book examines lifelong learning through the lens of policy studies. It scrutinises the implications of lifelong learning policies in a variety of states and localities to explore the interplay between commonalities and differences within and across Europe and Latin America.

    The chapters explore adult education and learning, vocational education and training, higher education and employment policies in Europe and Latin America with a focus on how decision-makers have designed and implemented them. These contributions analyse to what extent diverse providers offer opportunities to learners with a variable range of ages. Their main research questions focus on the interactions between providers, educational authorities and employers of graduates at local, regional and national geographical scales. This book invites the readers to broaden up the concept of lifelong learning beyond the scope of compensatory, upskilling measures. The chapters spell out subtle but powerful connections between lifelong learning, digitalisation, employability, social inclusion, strategic policy-making and local development.

    This volume will be a key resource for practitioners, scholars and researchers of lifelong and adult education, educational policy, education studies, sociology, political science and psychology. It was originally published as a special issue of International Journal of Lifelong Education.

    Introduction — The stepping- stones of lifelong learning policies: politics, regions and labour markets

    Xavier Rambla and Marcella Milana

     

    1. Equity and social exclusion measures in EU lifelong learning policies

    Elena Tuparevska, Rosa Santibáñez and Josu Solabarrieta

     

    2. Youth in the context of chronic unemployment in Spain and Brazil

    Adriana D’Agostini and Mauro Titton

     

    3. Towards a network governance of European lifelong learning: a structural analysis of Commission expert groups

    Marcella Milana, Gosia Klatt and Luigi Tronca

     

    4. Regional lifelong learning policies and the social vulnerability of young adults in Girona and Vienna

    Xavier Rambla, Yuri Kazepov, Judith Jacovkis, Lukas Alexander and Marcelo Parreira Do Amaral

     

    5. Lifelong learning policies supporting young adults in two Portuguese regions

    Mariana Rodrigues, Rita Queiroga, Ana Bela Ribeiro, Natália Alves and Tiago Neves

     

    6. Lifelong learning policies and young adults: Considerations from two Italian case studies

    Mauro Palumbo and Valeria Pandolfini

     

    7. The coordination of skill supply and demand in the market model of skill formation: testing the assumptions for the case of Chile

    Oscar Valiente, Adrián Zancajo and Judith Jacovkis

     

    8. The local embeddedness of graduates’ education-job mismatch and of lifelong learning policies for its overcoming

    Pepka Boyadjieva, Petya Ilieva-Trichkova, Valentina Milenkova and Rumiana Stoilova

     

    9. Employability pathways for young adults: lived experiences of learners and practitioners in Youth Guarantee programmes

    Ellen Boeren, Alan Mackie and Sheila Riddell

     

    Biography

    Xavier Rambla is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Spain. In the last decade he has participated in research on lifelong learning policies in the European Union and Education for All in Latin America. Further information is available here: https://geps-uab.cat/xavier-rambla/

    Marcella Milana is Associate professor of general and social education at the Department of Human Sciences, and since 2019, Honorary professor of adult education at the University of Nottingham, School of Education, UK. Expert in adult education and lifelong learning, her research interests focus on education policies and governance - at local, national, regional and global levels, and in a comparative perspective, for this reason she draws on multidisciplinary knowledge and collaborates also with sociologists and experts in political science. Methodologically she believes qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods are all needed, but is mostly devoted to qualitative research.