Gender and Lifelong Learning »

Lifelong learning is a key feature of the educational landscape today. This important book breaks new ground in examining issues of gender in relation to lifelong learning. Drawing on policy analysis and research in the UK, European and global arenas, Gender and Lifelong Learning demonstrates the ways in which patterns of access to, participation in, and outcomes of lifelong learning reflect gender divisions and power relations.
The scope of the book is wide-ranging. Divided into three sections, the discussion encompasses school, adult, community, further and higher education. The issues covered include gendered subject 'choices', reasons for non-participation and pedagogies of lifelong learning. There are also fascinating chapters that explore the widening of participation, the experiences of disabled students, and the visibility/invisibility of black women in higher education. Utilizing many different theoretical and methodological approaches, the book offers a range of critical feminist engagements to make visible, understand and critique gender inequalities in lifelong learning.
A key theme throughout the book is a critique of neoliberalism and of the dominance of economic rationales in shaping the concept of lifelong learning. Yet the book offers not only criticism of current policies and practices, but also alternative visions, different possibilities and new ways of conceptualizing and doing lifelong learning that might better reflect social justice concerns. It also includes many ideas and suggestions that can be practically drawn upon, and the concluding chapter ends with a summary of key implications for both policy-makers and practitioners.

List of illustrations     vii
Notes on contributors     ix
Acknowledgements     xiii
Introduction: gendering lifelong learning   Carole Leathwood   Becky Francis     1
The policy context     7
Unprotected participation in lifelong learning and the politics of hope: a feminist reality check of discourses around flexibility, seamlessness and learner earners   Jill Blackmore     9
Locating the learner within EU policy: trajectories, complexities, identities   Jacky Brine     27
Gendered constructions of lifelong learning and the learner in the UK policy context   Carole Leathwood     40
Accessing lifelong learning     55
Troubling trajectories: gendered 'choices' and pathways from school to work   Becky Francis     57
Masculinities, femininities and resistance to participation in post-compulsory education   Louise Archer     70
Fair access? Exploring gender, access and participation beyond entry to higher education   Penny Jane Burke     83
Experiences of lifelong learning     95
Community education: participation, risk and desire   Lyn Tett     97
From childcare practitioner to FE tutor: biography, identity and lifelong learning   Helen Colley     108
Disability, gender and identity: the experiences of disabled students in higher education   Sheila Riddell     121
The in/visible journey: black women's lifelong lessons in higher education   Heidi Safia Mirza     137
Older women as lifelong learners   Barbara Kamler     153
War and diaspora as lifelong learning contexts for immigrant women   Shahrzad Mojab     164
Conclusion   Becky Francis   Carole Leathwood     176
Bibliography     184
Index     207