Henning Salling Olesen

Professional identity as learning processes in life histories

Refers to work domains that might be termed professional or semi‐professional: engineers, social workers, nurses, pedagogues, police, and researches the subjective engagement of the people in the development of their profession. Considers how to theorize the subjective side of work within a life history perspective and focuses on a critical discussion of the notion of professional identity. This theorizing is seen as a complementary contribution to a critical sociology of knowledge and other concepts of profession identity and learning.

Beyond the Abstractions!: Adult Education Research from Idealism to Critical Social Science.

The anniversary of the International Journal of Lifelong Education can participate in a conceptual landslide from lifelong education to lifelong learning. Contemporary discourses of lifelong learning etc. are abstractions behind which new functions and agendas for adult education are set. The ideological discourse of recent policies seems to neglect the fact that history and resources for lifelong learning are different across Europe, and also neglects the multiplicity of adult learners. Instead of refusing the new agendas, however, adult education research should try to dissolve the abstractions by broadening its scope of interest, by focussing on differences of learners, by age, gender, ethnicity, social experience, and differences in context, by socioeconomic environment, culture etc. Practically, it is argued, this means embracing the new focus on informal learning and work related learning. Adult education research must fulfil its potential conversion from normative philosophy to critical and empirical social science.The anniversary of the International Journal of Lifelong Education can participate in a conceptual landslide from lifelong education to lifelong learning. Contemporary discourses of lifelong learning etc. are abstractions behind which new functions and agendas for adult education are set. The ideological discourse of recent policies seems to neglect the fact that history and resources for lifelong learning are different across Europe, and also neglects the multiplicity of adult learners. Instead of refusing the new agendas, however, adult education research should try to dissolve the abstractions by broadening its scope of interest, by focussing on differences of learners, by age, gender, ethnicity, social experience, and differences in context, by socioeconomic environment, culture etc. Practically, it is argued, this means embracing the new focus on informal learning and work related learning. Adult education research must fulfil its potential conversion from normative philosophy to critical and empiric...

Learning and Experience: A Psycho-Societal Approach

This chapter introduces a psycho-societal approach to theorizing learning, combining a materialist theory of socialization with a hermeneutic interpretation methodology. The term ‘approach’ indicates the intrinsic connection between theory, empirical research process, and epistemic subject. Learning is theorized as a dynamic subjective experience of (socially situated) realities, relying on individual subjectivity as well as subjective aspects of social interaction. This psycho-societal theory of subjective experiences conceptualizes individual psychic development as interactional experience of societal relations, producing an inner psycho-dynamics as a conscious and unconscious individual resource in future life. The symbolization of immediate sensory experiences forms an individual life experience of social integration, and language use being the medium of collective, social experience (knowledge, culture). This life experience remains a (hidden) potential in all future experience building.

The Roskilde Model and the Challenges for Universities in the Future

In the concluding chapter Henning Salling Olesen and Anders Siig Andersen elaborate on some of the potentials of the Roskilde Model’s three dimensions, i.e. the PPL pedagogical model, the educational structure, and the academic profile of study programmes. They discuss in what ways the Roskilde Model may be a valid proposal for a radical university reform – recognizing the learning processes and revisions that have occurred over more than four decades. They also highlight some of the challenges that the European harmonization of education represents to the Roskilde Model as it takes place in a political climate that increasingly prioritizes narrow occupational and business considerations in organizing university study programmes. From one perspective, they focus on educational policies, the future of universities, and their roles and functions in society. From another perspective, they view students as a potential driving force in the development of universities in advanced societies, if universities are able to mobilize students’ subjective experiences and expectations for future work career and life prospects. These two perspectives may be joined in the practical development of an educational structure combining problem-oriented and project-based studies and an academic profile characterized by scientific innovation and critical edge.

Adult Learning, Economy and Society: Modernization Processes and the Changing Functions of Adult EducationModerniseringsprocesser og Voksenuddannelsens skiftende funktioner

The article relates the different types of adult education, continuing education, and training to an overall societal context of socioeconomic modernization by focusing on the multiple functions of adult learning. Each of the well-known empirical categories is seen in its historical relation to modernization processes. Literacy is a precondition for the development of division of labor and remote power relations; community education defending and sometimes enhancing cultural and social autonomy; and lately, the lifelong learning which is required for work competence but also seems to take an all embracing form which sets a new framework for human participation in the new global society.