Program of Work

Over the last decade Professor Judith Chapman and colleagues associated with the Centre for Lifelong Learning have been engaged in a progressive program of policy analysis, research and publication, community outreach and professional engagement. Their work has contributed to the setting of the policy and research agenda in the field of education and lifelong learning and has been instrumental in the operationalisation of policies for learning across the lifespan. Their work has been been focussed around the following areas of priority:

  • Setting the Agenda for Learning across the Lifespan (Priority 1) ;
  • Lifelong Learning and the Overcoming of Disadvantage (Priority 2) ;
  • Lifelong Professional Learning for Members of the Education Profession (Priority 3) ;
  • Lifelong Learning and an Education in Values (Priority 4).

PRIORITY 1:  Setting the Agenda for Learning Across the Lifespan

The International Handbook on Lifelong Learning co-edited by David Aspin, Judith Chapman, Michael Hatton and Yukiko Sawano (Dordrecht: Kluwer 2001) set out an agenda for lifelong learning in research, policy and program development and professional advancement of those working in the field in higher and tertiary education institutions, government Ministries and departments of education, schools, colleges and universities, and other providers of learning (both formal and informal).

Professor Chapman in a chapter in The International Handbook of Lifelong Learning entitled 'Schools and the Learning Community: Laying the Basis for Learning Across the Lifespan' proposes a set of agenda for schools in the 21st Century, building from the notion of the ‘learning community’ and acknowledging the importance of schools as having a key function in the provision of an enduring basis for learning throughout people’s lives.  Drawing on an analysis of policy documents emerging from the work of inter-governmental agencies and national authorities, a study of the application of new thinking in social and political theory to the development of educational policy, and an analysis of data collected in the course of an investigation of international “best practice” in schooling, new directions in educational policy and practice are identified, and a set of agenda for schools committed to the idea of lifelong learning proposed.  The argument is that the aims of this undertaking may be realised through the implementation of such important objectives as:

  • The provision of educational opportunities throughout life that adhere to such principles and policy objectives as: economic efficiency and advance; social justice, social inclusion, and democratic participation; and personal growth and fulfilment;
  • The re-assessment of traditional school curricula and pedagogies in response to the educational challenges posed by key economic and social changes and trends associated with and arising from the emergence of those developments coming to be known as the ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘learning society’ of the new ‘global age’ of the 21st century;
  • The re-appraisal and re-definition of places in which learning can take place and the creation of flexible learning environments that are positive, stimulating and motivating for a far more extensive range of learners and which overcome the constraints of standardised curricula, age- and subject-divisions, narrow time-tables and rigid approaches to pedagogy;
  • The acceptance of the importance of the idea of ‘value-added’ learning consisting of increased emphasis on individualised instruction, the development and monitoring of personal development plans, assessment of success in achieving personal learning targets, and the development of cross-curricular competencies integrating cognitive growth and the emergence and the cultivation of moral awareness and the capacity for moral judgement and action;
  • The awareness that, whilst schools may be starting to be seen as less important as primary authorities for and sites of the acquisition of knowledge, they are becoming more important in the socialisation of young people and the nurturing of young people towards the development of a sense of moral understanding together with a movement towards an acceptance of civic responsibility and the need for community involvement and service;
  • The evolution of inter-connected learning pathways among and between schools, further and higher education institutions, employers and other education providers, impacting on the formation of relationships between schools and a wide range of constituencies and stake-holders in the community having and interest in and a concern for the education of citizens for tomorrow;
  • Promoting schools as learning communities and functioning as centres of lifelong learning catering for the widest possible range of needs and interests among all members of the community.

In the revitalisation of schools, it is argued that the school committed to the idea of lifelong learning will be strengthened in its mission through the development of: (1) a clearly articulated strategy for change built around a unifying concept; (2) a re-conceptualisation of the place and function of schools in the community; (3) a preparedness to re-culture the school; (4) a readiness to invest in people; (5) a willingness to adopt an evidence-based approach to change; (6) an expansion of the outreach of the school to the local, national and international community; (7) a commitment to maintaining the momentum of change, sharing good practice  and celebrating success; (8) a commitment to the idea of leading for learning.

In a second chapter in The International Handbook on Lifelong Learning entitled ,  “Towards a Philosophy of Lifelong Learning”, David Aspin and Judith Chapman set out to show that attention to the philosophical questions about lifelong learning are not only an indispensable element of theories in conceiving and articulating lifelong learning programs and activities, but that philosophical enquiries have practical implications for developing programs, curricula and activities of lifelong learning. Sound and productive philosophical approaches to enquiries about lifelong learning depend upon the nature of the problems being looked into, the intellectual histories and interests of those tackling them, the outcomes at which they aim, the considerations that make their selection of particular categories, concepts, criteria and procedures significant in framing questions, making enquiries, and deciding what shall count as valid answers or good theories and the reflections that make certain moves in their arguments and theorising decisive. Such analysis is also important in the endeavour of developing a theory or set of theories and constructing a theoretical framework against which programs and activities of lifelong learning might be tested, to see whether the practice matches the principles. The chapter reviews a number of versions of “lifelong learning” and sets out the main lines of the conceptions of education and lifelong education articulated in them. It criticises most such definitions on the ground of their underlying ‘essentialism’ and empiricism, going on to propose a more acceptable alternative. This is argued to consist in the post-empiricist, pragmatic and problem-solving approach. This approach points to the triadic nature of lifelong learning endeavours: for economic growth and advancement; for social inclusion and democratic empowerment; and for personal growth and the increase of autonomy. The article lists a number of problems on which this approach may be fruitfully brought to bear, all of them arising from and to do with these three aims of lifelong learning.  
philosophical perspectives
reconnection: countering social esxclusion through situated learning
developing lifelong learning for women in higher education
recovering informal learning
lifelong learning - signs, discourses, practices

The success of The International Handbook on Lifelong Learning provided the basis for the international academic publishers (Kluwer/Springer Press International) to invite Professor Chapman to co-edit the “Lifelong Learning” Book Series that they instituted in 2003. This book series has issued already in a number of ‘state-of-the-art’ books all of which have been subject to rigorous academic peer referencing and review and have been well taken up in the market.
Centre for Lifelong Learning
Australian Catholic University

 

updated : May 24, 2007 8:59