Today I read a chapter written by Sultana in which he presents conceptualizations of knowledge and of learning as they appear in several FRP 4 and FRP 5 projects (Research projects by the European Commission related to LLL).
Sultana identifies 6 themes, expands on how those themes are represented in the projects, and then concludes that “...the discourse evolving around the debates on the Learning Society is marked by contradictions that are difficult to resolve, as they attempt to serve fundamentally irreconcilable humanistic, emancipatory and technocratic interests” p. 58.
He spends a lot of time on the first theme: Justifying the Learning Society.
He points out that until relatively recently, LLL was conceptualized very much in emancipatory and hermeneutic terms. While he admits that these representations make their way into the projects, technocratic rationality is dominant.
"...to a view of the Learning Society whose primary function is to guarantee the availability of suitable human resources necessary for the reproduction and accumulation of capital in a knowledge-based economy, …” p. 59
He says that the European Round Table of Industrialists has had a pronounced effect on the direction of the EC. The result is a research and policy agenda which defines the individual as someone who has to be flexible, multi-skilled and ever-ready to reinvent themselves and their skills. There is little reference in the projects of low-skilled workers or low-ability jobs.
Linked to this first theme is the second: learning has become a moral imperative. Continual learning, including intra and inter-personal skills is seen as a duty to the economy. The needs of the market determine the mould into which a worker must form him/herself. The benefits to the worker is modest, since the wealth created in the economy by the efforts of the worker is siphoned largely to the few.
The other themes he addresses, in less detail, are:
* performativity and a skills-agenda
* learning as social
* All can learn, given the right (alternative) environments, and
* the reality of the learning society.
In the latter theme, he points out that there is an implementation gap: the learning society isn't developing as the EC would have hoped. He points out several barriers including the capacity of SMEs to deliver training, the disposition of the aging workforce, and the time-deficit that many find themselves working under.
He concludes:
*...the failure of progress in achieving the so-called ‘knowledge-based society’ is not to be necessarily read as a deficit on the part of schools, governments, or citizens, but rather as a reaction against—and resistance to—the further colonisation of our world by technocratic rationality…” p. 71
Something is troubling me about the direction of this and much other discourse (critique) about policy and LLL and the KBE. I am not quite able to articulate it yet. Perhaps it will come in future installments. But it's related to the separation of the 'ivory tower' and 'the grass-roots.' It seems to me that something is missing in academic discussions about LLL and the KBE. And Sultana begins to look at it with his last theme. What really IS happening 'on the ground?' Academics seem very interested in the possible effects of discourse and policy and research: very interested in the subjectivities created, the norms promoted, and the social exclusion enabled. But really, what are the effects? If we are concerned that a discourse/ideology is creating new norms and subjectivities, who is exposed to that discourse? Is that audience the audience that is involved in such a way that through them these norms and subjectivities can be enacted? Is there any power to the discourse to do what academics are afraid it will do? Are workers exposed to the discourse or the effects of the discourse? Is there a path from the text to the ground where it can act?
This is something I have to think about more. But I am wondering....
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