"The great changes of our time are imperilling the unity and the future of the species, and man’s own identity as well. What is to be feared is not only the painful prospect of grievous inequalities, privations and suffering, but also that we may be heading for a veritable dichotomy within the human race, which risks being split into superior and inferior groups, into masters and slaves, supermen and submen.” (Fauré et al. 1972, p.xxi) (Wain, 2007)
One of the critiques levelled against the second generation discourse is that it may not alleviate, and may even exacerbate divisions in society that privilege some while marginalizing or excluding others. While all normalizing practices exclude and divide (Fejes, 2008), LLL is often positioned in the discourse as a solution to inequity, and yet the discourse does not examined the ways in which contribute to exclusion. Instead, the underlying neoliberal capitalist rationality assumes the automatic equity of the market. “…the market masks its social bias. It elides but also reproduces the inequities which consumers bring to the marketplace” (Ranson, 1992, p. 72) (Usher and Edwards, 2007)
Tightly linked to economistic values and neoliberal perspectives, some of the critique about inequity in the second generation LLL discourse is inseparable from critique of global corporate capitalist rationality. Capitalism is inherently divisive. Jarvis examined mercantile, industrial, and global corporate capitalism and argued that it has always been potentially divisive and that it focuses on the benefit of the individual at the expense of others. Capitalism differentiates people in terms of their economic value and is positioned to choose efficiency over equity (Rizvi, 2007). I suggest that not only does it divide people by their economic value, but it also rewards them (economically and in other ways) based upon those divisions. Economic value therefore translates into a variety of things such as social status, access to learning, and even health. LLL enables differentiation to be based on educational attainment, which may not be equally available to all. Where family and social position guaranteed your right to position pre-industrial revolution; and access to capital gained you entrance to the upper classes during industrial capitalism, access to knowledge and education is increasingly positioned as the ticket to the higher ranks in globalized capitalist knowledge-based economy.
The gap between the rich and the poor, both intra- and inter-nationally, is widening. Using Britain as an example where 1% of the population controls 24% of the wealth, Hunt (2007) claims that complains that Britain is approaching Victorian levels of inequity (Jarvis, 2008). Bagnall (2000) complains that the growing disparity between countries is creating situations where the wealthy are gaining access to more education, and access for the poor is declining. Gelpi expressed that some view LLL as a hegemonic project of the West and irrelevant to developing countries. (Wain, 2008).
As access to LLL increases, more opportunities may not necessarily be widened to include those who have been marginalized. (Edwards, 2006). As described earlier, those who have economic difficulty may find it difficult to raise or borrow the funding required for continuing education. Walker (2007) showed that higher education is more difficult for those in the working class. Fejes (2008) argues that sometimes those who could benefit the most from LLL such as the long-term unemployed, immigrants and people on social assistance find it more difficult to gain access to LLL; thereby, increasing the gap. Vosko (2008) specifically examined precarious employment in Canada and showed that it is climbing. Between 1989 and 2006, the proportion of workers in permanent fulltime jobs dropped from 67% to 63%. In that same time, the proportion of non-standard jobs grew (including full time temporary positions) from 4% to 7%. “Forms of employment characterized by insecurity, low income, and uncertainty are growing in Canada, especially among equity-seeking groups” (p. 164). Furthermore, Vosko explained that it is more difficult for those in such positions to gain access to LLL opportunities. These people also experience increased stress and health problems. Vosko positions the problem as a differentiation between employability security and employment security. Whereas the latter focuses on ensuring job availability, the former focuses on ensuring labour availability and rests on belief that personal human capital should be enough to provide security for individuals from market instability.
Some people have access to LLL through their employers, however this is still problematic. Most people do not work in organizations that provide learning opportunities (Ashton, 2000). Small and medium sized enterprises employ a huge portion of the workforce (Hyland, 2007) and are ill-resourced to provide LLL. The self-employed and the unemployed do not have access to these opportunities either. Even within companies that provide LLL opportunities, it is often those who have the most education that are able to access greater learning opportunities. Those in part-time, contract or otherwise precarious work situations will not have access. Furthermore, the opportunities provided by employers are often limited to what is done in work for work (Schuetze, 2008). Coffield (2000) argues that there are often limited opportunities for meaningful learning when employers provide the learning.
Schuetze (2008) describe three models for educational funding:
· State funded
· Market funded
· Mixed state/market funded.
Whereas a state funded and state directed model would have opportunity and interest in addressing structural inequity, a market model has no such interest and often makes learning available mostly to those who already have a higher level of education (Schuetze). Currently, we are in a mixed model scenario, but are moving toward the market model, and where state intervention is involved, it is often too late and patchy (Schuetze, 2008). Inequitable structures are left intact. Corporate capitalism actually relies on inequity. It requires a cheap and flexible workforce, indifference to the poor, and trade rules that protect the rich (Barr & Griffen, 2007). Usher and Edwards (2007) argue that “…the historical record shows that the former [economic competitiveness] is usually attained at the expense of the latter [social inclusion]” (p. 151). Participation in higher education has been increasing for more than a decade, and yet there has been no positive effect on equity (Barr & Griff, 2007).
In Curriculum Evaluation for Lifelong Education, Skager & Dave (1977) outlined three prerequisites for lifelong education:
· Opportunity
· Motivation
· Educability (Ouane, 2008).
Policy seems most interested in opportunity, and specifically in access. However, the dominant discourse tends to superficially address and ignore the structural inequities that create barriers to access for the marginalized. It ignores educability as an issue. Since LLL is positioned as the way in which society will differentiate the value of individuals. The EU (1995, p. 2) states that an “individual’s place in relation to fellow citizens will increasingly be determined by the capacity to learn” (Simons and Masschelein, 2008, p. 53). Therefore, the current discourse relegates those who are less educable to lesser opportunities, lesser standards of living, and lesser participation as equal citizens.
When addressing motivation, the discourse positions a lack of motivation to learn as an individual deficit. Lack of participation is interpolated as a failure to learn the appropriate values such as a will to learn (Simons and Masschelein, 2008). Poverty and social exclusion are framed as results of a failure to engage in the economy and participate in LLL (Rizvi, 2007). The non-participant and the un-motivated are villainized. But participation and motivation depend on such things as socio-economic background, social capital, and quality if early learning experiences (Schuetze, 2008). The discourse forgets that a lack of motivation to learn may be a symptom of a person who has been victimized by an inequitable and inhospitable system. Those who have had bad academic, social, or emotional experiences in compulsory education are less likely to want to engage in more learning. By stressing only certain kinds of learning and knowledge, we threaten the self-esteem of those who learn and know in different ways. LLL cannot thrive broadly across the population if inequitable and inhospitable structures in compulsory education act as barriers to motivation to continued participation in learning.
Popkewitz’s (2008) model of LLL as unfinished cosmopolitanism is also divisive. The enlightenment constructed the reasonable, rational and hospitable cosmopolitan citizen. It also created the “less civilized” (p. 74) Other. The Other is seen as a project to work on, or if too otherly, they are simply feared. Students at risk of not becoming cosmopolitan lifelong learners are understood as socially and morally inferior and dangerous. They are documented and distinguished. In the US school reform, Popkewitz explains that certain such individuals are labeled as in need of “rescue[d]” (p. 81). These groups include learners who are poor, non-native, the disabled, female, non-white, and urban. Popkewitz speaks of the double gestures of hope and fear: There is hope that the Other can be rescued and rehabilitated but it is coupled with a fear that they won’t.
Fejes (2008) describes a change since the 1950s in the classification of the excluded Other. In that time, all individuals were viewed as having talents, and the talents of each individual were different. The “educable” were the “gifted” and they were the ones destined for higher education. Those who did not participate in LLL were not seen as otherly, nor were they vilified. The Other was the individual who did not live up to his or her individual talents. The dominant discourse today has abandoned notions of educable and non-educable, gifted and non-gifted. Everyone is considered educable, and through lack of any discussion to the contrary, it is suggested that all are equally educable. Lack of participation in LLL and lack of success in the capitalization of the marketable self is viewed only as a lack of motivation or basic skills that can be fixed (Fejes, 2008).
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