Exploring the ‘New’ Moral and Technological Imperatives of Lifelong Learning
Neil Selwyn & Stephen Gorard
Cardiff University School of Social Sciences
Paper presented to
‘Demoralisation: Morality, Authority and Power’ Conference
Cardiff University 5th and 6th April 2002
Address for Correspondence:
Neil Selwyn
School of Social Sciences
Cardiff University
Glamorgan Building
King Edward VII Avenue
Cardiff CF10 3WT
UNITED KINGDOM
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Fax: +44 (0)29 20 874175
Acknowledgements
This paper derives from a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [R000239518]. The authors would like to thank the other members of the ‘Adults Learning@Home’ project team - John Furlong and Louise Madden.
About the Adults Learning @ Home Project
This is a 27 month research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council between Jan 2002- March 2004. The project team are Neil Selwyn, John Furlong, Stephen Gorard and Louise Madden.
This project explores adults’ use (and non-use) of information and communications technologies in domestic and community settings and, in particular, examines the impact of new technologies on individuals’ participation in formal and informal learning. In doing so the project seeks to increase our understanding of an integral part of the current education policy agenda; the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in facilitating individual access to learning and thereby increasing equalities of educational opportunity amongst the UK adult population.
Drawing on the research team’s recent work concerning patterns of participation in lifelong learning, home use of ICT for learning among children and technology-based adult education, the project has been designed around an innovative blend of large-scale quantitative and in-depth qualitative research techniques. The project is being carried out in four diverse communities in the West of England and South Wales and is initially based around a household survey of 1100 adults aiming to provide a comprehensive picture of patterns of access to both technology and learning. Findings from these baseline data are then being elaborated upon via 100 in-depth interviews with a stratified sample of ‘high’ and ‘low’ ICT-using adults. Finally, a carefully selected sample of case-study individuals are being studied in detail over a twelve month long period to examine their use of technology for learning both at home and community sites. This combination of methods will therefore allow the project to form rich and detailed answers to the following five areas of questioning:
· What are the established patterns of lifelong learning that can be documented amongst particular adult populations?
· Who, amongst those populations, has access to what forms of ICT within home and wider community sites?
· What do adults within those populations use ICT for and how does it fit into their lives more generally?
· How do adults learn to use ICT effectively for formal and informal learning activities?
· What are adults actually learning through their engagement with ICT environments?
For more information: www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/ict
Exploring the ‘New’ Moral and Technological Imperatives of Lifelong Learning
Neil Selwyn & Stephen Gorard
Cardiff University School of Social Sciences
Abstract: Since 1997 the New Labour government, along with other public and private actors with vested interests, has been responsible for a steady but subtle (re)construction and (re)positioning of ‘lifelong learning’ in the UK - ostensibly moving away from a notion of learning founded in an economic compulsion for individuals to participate in credentialised vocational education and training A significant element of this shift has been the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in a rebranding of lifelong learning from an avowedly economic concern to a societal and even moral pursuit for the ‘information age’. This paper considers how this ‘technofication’ of lifelong learning has been engineered to appear as constituting a ‘remoralisation’ of education and training; i.e. a reconstruction of lifelong learning as more than just an economic duty, but also as a civic and societal duty for the information age as well as being a ‘good’ and intrinsically nourishing activity for individuals to pursue. Having mapped out the nature of these ‘new’ imperatives and the discourses surrounding them the paper then goes onto assess the likelihood of these technology-based forms of learning achieving the goal of stimulating sustained lifelong learning for all individuals in society where previous policymaking has failed.
Introduction
Although it would be misleading to argue that education suffered from a lack of governmental concern over the past couple of decades in Britain, from the mid-1970s onwards it was schools and schooling which provided the focal point of policy-makers’ attention. However, over the past fifteen years, this focus has widened gradually to encompass a broader conceptualisation of ‘lifelong learning’, which whilst continuing to embrace the compulsory phases of education also includes activities in further and higher education, as well as continuing education and training throughout adult life (Coffield 1997). This is not to suggest, of course, that this shift in policy emphasis has produced a coherent strategy with respect to this ‘Cinderella’ sector of education and training yet the change is unmistakable. A plethora of official reports and policy statements on lifelong learning have flowed from government departments in recent years bolstered by the recent creation of a Minister for Lifelong Learning within the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and equivalent positions in the devolved Scottish and Welsh administrations. There have been three substantial reports (Kennedy 1997, Fryer 1997 and Dearing 1997), a major Green Paper (DfEE 1998) and a subsequent White Paper on the re-organisation of post-16 education and training (DfEE 1999). Lifelong learning has come to occupy a position which - symbolically at least - is at the centre of government strategy in both Westminster and Cardiff.
The Economic Basis of Lifelong Learning as a Policy Concern
It is now widely recognised that the rise of lifelong learning is more than a narrowly technical adjustment to the organisation of educational provision, with most analysts broadly agreeing that (in policy terms at least) lifelong learning suggests a transformation in learning opportunities, which is crucial to effecting a profound restructuring of wider economic and social relations. As Tony Blair crudely put it, lifelong learning is a manifestation that “education is the best economic policy we have” (TES 1998 p.27). The intellectual basis for this is provided, in turn, by what has become a widespread consensus amongst policymakers and policyshapers about the emergent requirements of the economy. Simply put, it is now acknowledged that the production and distribution of knowledge are increasingly significant processes in the determination of economic competitiveness and development, which are reflected, in turn, in economic growth, employment change and levels of welfare. The capacity of both organisations and individuals to engage successfully in learning processes of a variety of kinds has come to be regarded as a crucial determinant of economic performance (for example, Lundvall and Johnson, 1994). For some commentators, this implies nothing less than a fundamental transition from an industrial to a knowledge-based or learning society (OECD 1996, Leadbetter 1999). Clearly, alternative accounts of the nature of the learning society are possible and many have been propounded at length in the literature (Gorard et al. 1997). However, the ideological impact of this particular version derives precisely from the fact that it is rooted in a coherent - albeit contested - analysis of contemporary patterns of economic and social change.
As has been argued at greater length elsewhere, this emphasis on the economic activities of individuals reflects a model of participation in lifelong learning, which is based upon a highly simplistic version of human capital theory (Rees et al. 1997, Fevre et al. 1999). Hence, according to this model, individuals participate in lifelong learning according to their calculation of the net economic benefits to be derived from education and training (cf. Becker 1975). Given the dominant consensus about the general direction of economic change towards more knowledge-based forms of production, it follows that a worker will seek to participate in lifelong learning in order to capitalise upon the benefits which will flow from skills renewal and development. In this account, the principal issue which government policy needs to address is to ensure the removal of the ‘barriers’ which prevent people from participating in education and training. These include ‘situational’ factors, such as finance and lack of time because of other commitments, as well as the ‘institutional’ features of educational organisations which make them unresponsive to potential learners (McGivney 1990) and less tangible ‘dispositional’ factors on the part of the individual learner. Achieving a learning society often thus comes to be defined in these rather simple terms.
Thus by the end of the 1990s lifelong learning was crystallised in government discourse and policy as a largely individual concern with economic consequences for society at large. Moreover it was the duty of individual citizens to develop their potential and ‘grow’ for both their own personal benefit and the benefit of society, with the identity of the self-driven and economically-determined ‘lifelong learner’ carefully generated, constructed and maintained by governments and employers anxious for a more ‘flexible’ and ‘efficient’ workforce. As such, an individual’s engagement in education and training was seen as a subset of other forms of economic behaviour (along with producing and consuming goods and services), primarily being economically motivated and with economic meaning. Non-economic values and meanings, especially moral meanings in the Durkheimian sense - less tangible beliefs about what constitutes right and wrong behaviour for humans, beliefs about what constitutes good actions and good society - were seen as being subjugated at all times by an individual’s economic rationality.
Exploring the (Re)Construction of Lifelong Learning Since 1997
By the end of the 1990s and the election of the New Labour government the dominant model of ‘lifelong learning’ could therefore be conceptualised as this instrumentalist notion of learning based around an economic compulsion for individuals to take responsibility for participating in credentialised vocational education and training (Tight 1998a, 1998b, Ainley 1998, Gorard & Rees 2002). Yet as New Labour began to formulate a medium-term strategy for education and training above and beyond the hyperbole of ‘education, education, education’ this broad consensus of definition could not disguise the fact that significant proportions of the population were still not responding to the human capital challenge as expected. The ‘barriers’ to participation appeared to be remaining intact, with around one third of the population not engaging in any form of learning beyond compulsory schooling - let alone sustained and repeated learning throughout the lifecourse (Gorard and Rees 2002). Almost as soon as it began to become clear what lifelong learning was it was also becoming clear to the new Labour government that it was far from being realised in practice.
Thus over their last five years in power we contend that the government has been responsible for a steady but subtle (re)construction and (re)positioning of ‘lifelong learning’ - both in terms of policy and practice. Most significantly, and the focus for this paper, has been the use of ‘information and communications technologies’ (ICT) in a rebranding of lifelong learning from an avowedly economic concern to an apparently more societal and moral imperative. In particular, given the focus of this conference, we will consider how this ‘technofication’ of lifelong learning could be seen at first glance as constituting a ‘remoralisation’ of education and training; i.e. a reconstruction of lifelong learning as more than just an economic duty, but also a civic and societal duty for the information age as well as being a ‘good’ activity for individuals to pursue in a fast changing world. Having mapped out the nature of these ‘new’ imperatives we can, go onto assess the likelihood of these ‘new’ forms of lifelong learning reaching the goal of sustained learning throughout the lifecourse for all individuals in society.
I: Practical Steps Towards Establishing Technology Based Lifelong Learning - Overcoming Institutional and Situational Barriers to Individuals’ Learning
New Labour swept into power five years ago on a wave of technological optimism, declaring themselves to be ‘the pioneers of new thinking’ in the face of two decades of uninspired Conservative IT policy making (Labour Party 1995). Even when the post-election furore had died down it did seem for a time that Tony Blair was embarking on a technological love affair on a hitherto unseen scale in UK politics. Coinciding with the appearance of the ‘information superhighway’ and bolstered by support from newly found friends such as Bill Gates, the new government of 1997 seemed to have their fingers on the pre-millennial pulse of the nation, promising that it would only be a matter of time before the UK became a bona fide information society (Central Office of Information 1998). Significantly, much of New Labour’s technological efforts since 1997 have been in the area of education and training; in particular initiatives aimed at widening access to ICT and initiatives aimed at providing access to educational provision through ICT.
On the one hand, the government has attempted to ensure that exclusion from the ‘opportunities of the information age’ does not take place. The government’s drive to widen access to ICT has been constructed around the pledge to achieve ‘universal access’ to the Internet by 2005. In practice this stated commitment to ‘universal access’ involves a variety of initiatives, latterly collated under the umbrella brandname of ‘UK Online’ (DTI 2000). In terms of widening adult access to ICT these initiatives have focused largely on establishing distributed community sites of technology access. For example, at the beginning of 2001, the government announced plans to establish a network of 6000 ‘UK Online Centres’. This initiative is focused on ‘disadvantaged communities’ throughout England and will establish technology centres in a variety of existing learning sites such as schools, museums and libraries, thus providing flexible access to new technologies for those without ICT facilities at home or at work (DfEE 2001a). In providing such community access the focus is on overcoming barriers of geography by bringing ICT “to people’s doorsteps” (DfEE 2000a).
Alongside these Department for Education initiatives, £200 million of New Opportunities Funding has been committed to the Public Libraries IT Network; with its stated aim of linking every public library to the Internet by 2002. Moreover, community access to ICT was also included as an integral element of the then Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions’ ‘New Deal for Communities’ funding. The focus of all these initiatives on community-based technological accessibility has been latterly reinforced by a series of financial announcements concerned with extending levels of home access to ICT among the UK population. In 1999 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a £15million scheme to make 100,000 refurbished computers available to low-income families for as little as £5 per month. Subsequently a £10million 'Wired-Up Communities' program was launched in 2000 aiming to provide high quality access to ICT hardware, online access and training to 14,000 households in seven 'highly socially deprived' communities in England (DfEE 2001b).