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LIFELONG LEARNING AND THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY

LIFELONG LEARNING AND THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY. Some Considerations on Power and the Social Construction of Reality. NEWSPEAK. The concepts are spreading rapidly all over the place: they cover very different realities Policy documents, white papers, official declarations..

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LIFELONG LEARNING AND THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY

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  1. LIFELONG LEARNING AND THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY Some Considerations on Power and the Social Construction of Reality

  2. NEWSPEAK • The concepts are spreading rapidly all over the place: they cover very different realities • Policy documents, white papers, official declarations.. • Research and teaching: new names, new games (from depts. of education to depts. of lifelong learning) • New legitimations for educational research and teaching: to become fashionable when framed as ‘lifelong learning in the knowledge society’

  3. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS REFLECTING POWER RELATIONS • Is the ‘knowledge society’ a reality or is it a social construction? Rethoric or reality? • Freire: when you ‘speak the word’, you ‘create the world’. • So, in the power game, it is important to be able to define the world according to your perspective • Example: construction of a questionaire is not ‘a neutral activity’; it is inevitably a way of framing reality (e.g. view on democracy, tolerance) • Social scientists co-construct reality and in doing so, often help to legitimise the world of the powerful (they mutually need each other and reinforce each other)

  4. Example: International Adult Literacy Survey • IALS official rhetoric: ‘Literacy Skills for the Knowledge Society; it tells us that literacy means more than understanding how to read, write or calculate. It involves understanding and being able to use the information required to function effectively in the knowledge-based societies that will dominate in the twenty-first century’ (see IALS website) • The instrument: not only measuring literacy, numeracy and life skills but also defining/constructing what relevant skills are in relation to the so-called knowledge based society • Relevance: it appreciates particular skills while it depreciates other skills in view of an interpretation of what matters in society today

  5. CONCLUSIONS • The skills are not expressions of universal competences but of particular interpretations • The interpretations and definitions create a world-view, they create divisions (among groups: the cut-off between the literate and illiterate); they create needs (who needs schooling); • These ‘words’ privilege particular forms of knowledge (e.g. schoolish knowledge and Kenya) • These ‘words’ and their related instruments, are not neutral reflections of the ‘objective’ world, but human constructions of reality reflecting power relationships

  6. MORE QUESTIONS • Is there a hidden agenda of the ‘Knowledge Society’ and Lifelong Learning? • Does it bring new forms of social control or informal compulsion? (see Maria José) • New avenues for the marketisation of education thanks to ICT ? (see GATS) • New forms of educational inequality are being created? (the social justice agenda under pressure?)

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