Documentation of activities Adult education trends and issues in Europe
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- 1.6 Structure of the Second part of This Report
1.5 Globalisation and EuropeSince 1989 and EYLL seven years later Europe and the wider world have changed significantly. Globalisation means an end to much that has been taken for granted in the era of nation states. Global warming, genetic engineering, the changing family, and nuclear power are products of the energy that produces globalisation. Each carries risk: ‘understanding and dealing with risk is essential to a dynamic economy and an innovative society’.10 Individualisation goes hand in hand with globalisation; self-identity has to be created and recreated more actively than before. There is rising conflict between cosmopolitanism (the acceptance of variety and differences) and fundamentalism. A large number of states have recently become democratic while in the established democracies there is disillusionment with governance. A need is seen to ‘democratise democracy’ and strengthen a civic culture which cannot be produced by the market or government alone. According to Castells11 the power of nation states is declining as they are transformed into network states. The EU is one of the answers to this process. In the network society’s information economy sources of productivity and competitiveness for firms, regions and countries depend more than ever on knowledge, information and the technology of their processing, including the technology of management and the management of technology. The global economy (not the same as a world economy) is a new reality. National, regional and local economies depend on the dynamics of the global economy to which they are connected through networks and markets. In reaching out to the whole planet this economy does not include whole planet. The majority are excluded in an uneven geography. The network enterprise includes multinational companies’ strategic alliances between corporations, networks of SMEs, and links between corporations and networks of SMEs. Power relations favour capital, with downsizing, subcontracting and networking of labour, and flexibility and individualisation of contractual arrangements. The processes of globalisation, business networking and individualisation of labour all weaken social organisations and institutions that represented/protected workers in the information age, particularly labour unions and the welfare state. The normative goals of a liberal democratic society - an educated society - and an economically competitive society - a learning market – confront the concept of participation in learning as an activity through which individuals and groups pursue heterogeneous goals. The European Social Model (ESM)12 is judged on two main indicators. It should be efficient, providing sufficient incentives for work and therefore generating relatively high employment. Secondly the ESM is deemed equitable if it keeps the risk of poverty relatively low. As between four European regions, Northern, Anglo-Saxon, Continental and Mediterranean, the Northern model is the only one which secures high employment and keeps the risk of poverty low at the same time, combining equity and efficiency. The Anglo-Saxon and Continental models appear to trade off equity and efficiency. The Mediterranean model is characterised by a relatively low level of employment and a high risk of poverty. ESM functions successfully in countries with a long-standing tradition of adult learning. Rooted in the development of democratic society, it gives an important role to civic society; uses state-governed regulation that is free of intervention; and offers incentives and an integrated approach to lifelong learning, including learning for a job. Differences that count as disadvantages in education and training arising from historical and national traditions can however be reduced within learning partnerships, whilst maintaining diversity, assisted by the high-level political integration going on within the EU and the growing harmonisation of policy development. This is necessary to make the social model of the whole European Union more cohesive. Adult learning has serious potential to contribute to this, so long as those who guide, provide and control it can come to terms with this different new world. 1.6 Structure of the Second part of This ReportIn preparing this report, and until the second draft in April, we separated an account of the situation today across several key dimensions, in one long chapter, from a consideration of trends, challenges and issues for action across a similar but wider range of topics, in a further long chapter, before offering some recommendations. In the interests of clarity, and for economy of space, we have now drawn these together in Part 2, as an integrated set of greatly abbreviated sections. For each of these we have so far as possible adopted a common format. We begin with the current situation or structure, then look at trends and tendencies, and then move on to implications and possible requirements for policy and action. Recommendations flowing from these different sections appear in consolidated form in Part 3. Earlier drafts dedicated a separate chapter to the EU Grundtvig programme. Instead of retaining that we have on the one hand widened the scope of reference to include all EU programmes, and on the other hand moved the topic from the now core Part 2 to the end. Grundtvig is of continuing importance to adult education, but a central point of lifelong learning is its life-wide character, permeating throughout the whole spectrum of EU and national policy portfolios. We come back to EU programmes in this wider sense at the conclusion of Part 3. Further references: Mediterranean region
CEE region
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