Over the past 30 years, many changes have taken place in education in Scotland. Adult learning has increasingly figured in the broad canvas of education, teachers are increasingly being viewed as mangers of learning resources or facilitators of learning, and the emphasis has shifted from imbibing knowledge through books to active learning and reflection on experience. The notion of the learning society has given succinct expression to many of these changes. A learning society is one in which people are encouraged to engage in knowing themselves, each other, and the world. The notion that learning is somehow integrated with responsible participation in society is an implication of the notion of a leaning society. It may be suggested that learning about identity, difference, and relatedness touches the heart of the most difficult challenge facing human beings: the need to know oneself and one's own culture while also becoming more open and capable of knowing, communicating and collaborating with, and valuing other people from other cultures. Current developments in the relationships between Northern Ireland's Catholic and Protestant communities and between Scotland and England are contemporary examples of attempts to meet or evade that challenge. (Contains 15 references.) (MN)