Tarek Mostafa

The effects of learning on wellbeing for older adults in England

ABSTRACT There is growing interest in factors which can contribute to the wellbeing of older adults. Participation in learning could have beneficial effects, but to date research on the benefits of learning has tended to focus on young people or those in mid-life and there is currently little evidence on the impact of learning on the wellbeing of older adults. In this paper we provide new, quantitative evidence on the relationship between participation in learning and the wellbeing of older adults. Our study used data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a continuing, longitudinal survey of older adults. To measure wellbeing we used the CASP-19 instrument, a subjective wellbeing measure which is available at all waves of the ELSA survey. Respondents were asked about four types of learning activity: obtaining qualifications; attendance at formal education/training courses; membership of education, music or arts groups or evening classes; membership of sports clubs, gym and exercise classes. To take account of unobservable factors which might influence wellbeing, we applied fixed effects panel regressions to four waves of ELSA data. Learning was associated with higher wellbeing after controlling for a range of other factors. We found evidence that more informal types of learning were associated with higher wellbeing. There was no evidence that formal education/training courses were associated with higher wellbeing.

Pre-School Education and Care: A ‘Win-Win’ Policy?

Pre-school education and care (PSEC) is often claimed as a ‘win-win’ policy which simultaneously enhances both economic competitiveness and ocial cohesion. High levels of PSEC are said to raise living standards by increasing female employment rates and improving young people’s skills and to mitigate inequalities by reducing social gaps in learning outcomes. Much of the evidence for this rests on analysis of data for a small umber of countries. In this paper we test the claims using cross-national time series data for a large number of OECD countries. The analysis of determinants of employment rates, using a variety of controls, does confirm the association between PSEC participation levels and female mployment rates. However, the cross-national analysis does not support the argument that raising aggregate levels of PSEC participation ecessarily reduces social gaps in attainment at 15 years of age. Participation in PSEC increases educational performance at 15 by similar amounts for children of all social groups in most countries. Social gaps in performance at 15 may only be mitigated by high levels of PSEC provision where children from less advantaged families get more – or better quality – provision. The recently announced Department for Education plan to extend free provision of PSEC for fifteen hours a week to two-year-old children from disadvantaged families (i.e. in care or qualifying for free school eals) therefore points in the right direction. However, it remains to be seen whether this will bias participation towards this group sufficiently to reduce inequalities in learning outcomes.

The Dynamics of Education Systems: Convergent and Divergent Trends, 1990–2010

Debates about societal convergence and divergence have persisted since Enlightenment thinkers first developed theories about universal patterns of development (‘Progress’) which ‘counter-Enlightenment’ thinkers contested (Kumar, 1991). As sociology developed in the nineteenth century, universalistic conceptions, stressing convergence, were typically associated with the ‘functionalist’ theories and positivist methods of rationalist social science (e.g. Emile Durkheim), while particularistic conceptions, stressing cultural and national differences, were associated with anti-rationalist or heuristic traditions. The latter derived from the eighteenth-century Sturm und Drang romantics, like Johann Gottfried Herder (Greenfeld, 2003), and were also exemplified in Germany by Friedrich List’s school of National Political Economy (List, 1885) and later partially reflected in the works of comparative sociologists like Max Weber and Ferdinand Tonnies. The debates have continued to be a staple of modern social science, which has reprised many of the nineteenth-century arguments between universalists and particularists in new forms (Gray, 2007).