Author Description

'This is a must read for policy makers, practitioners and academics. This brilliant book richly contributes to the comparative literature on lifelong learning. It provides an intriguing framework for how the variety in national systems of adult learning and their outcome can be addressed. The theoretical work is grounded in sophisticated national case studies that offer unique insights into why, or why not, a person embarks on adult learning. Finally, the work establishes the critical role of policy.' - Kjell Rubenson, University of British Columbia, Canada. 'Saar, Ure and Holford have offered the definitive statement on the increasingly crucial area of lifelong learning across a vast range of European nations. The volume is far more than a collection of isolated and independent case studies, but is instead a tightly coherent and thematically unified piece of theoretical and empirical sociological work. Both researchers and policy makers will find much of value in Lifelong Learning in Europe.' - David B. Bills, University of Iowa, US. Based on a five-year research project across thirteen countries, this comprehensive book analyses how national characteristics frame a central feature of European Union social and economic policies - lifelong learning. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods in a wide-ranging international comparative study, the book explores how far the EUs lifelong learning agenda has been successful and what factors have limited its ability to reshape national adult and lifelong learning systems. The chapters also look at adults' participation in formal education, what they see as the obstacles to taking part, and the nature of their demand for learning opportunities. Using country typologies, the authors challenge assumptions - whether held by policy makers or researchers - that there is just one economic trajectory for market economies and their lifelong learning systems. This book will therefore be valuable to scholars, researchers and pol