Policy documents for schools and education are being increasingly standardised all over the world and some research claims that a global curriculum is developing in which aspects such as entrepreneurship, lifelong learning and sustainable development are common denominators. This is regarded as a sign that economic rationality is gaining more and…

Vocational guidance and counselling have usually focussed on supporting individuals to develop life projects that give meaning to their work and life. However, the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of today's world makes it difficult to support sustainable life courses on an individual level. There is a need to address social…

After more than a year of living with the COVID-19 pandemic, much experience has been accumulated by countries around the world. There have been many failures, and there have been some things that have gone well. Adult learning and education in some form has played a significant role in public health since, without the ongoing continuing…

Summative assessment is often criticised as an unfair representation of learner effort and aptitude. In summative high-stakes examinations, economically privileged learners consistently outperform marginalised counterparts, perpetuating inequitable social class reproduction. But UN Sustainable Development Goal No.4 calls for equitable quality…

This article explores whether and how contemporary discourses in lifelong learning (LLL) can support intercultural universities in Latin America. Since the late twentieth century, LLL has primarily been seen through a Eurocentric lens, with a strong focus on the development of skills for knowledge-based economies and societies. As this discourse…

We conduct a critical discourse analysis of the extent to which Sustainable Development Goal 4, "to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all and promote lifelong learning," promotes a utilitarian and/or transformative approach to education. Our findings show that despite transformative language used throughout the Agenda,…

This Handbook provides a wide-ranging frame of reference for researching adult and lifelong education and learning. With contributions from scores of established and newer scholars from six continents, the volume covers a diverse range of geopolitical and social territories across the world. Drawing on the multiple heritages that underpin research…

Distinctively economic objectives for lifelong education, especially adult learning and education, feature prominently in policy-making agendas and educators' practice in much of the world. Critics contend that humanistic and holistic visions of lifelong learning for all have been marginalised and neglected. The current turn of political attention…

International Education Inquiries is a book series dedicated to realizing the global vision of Education 2030. This vision involves "ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all." The founding editors seek to provide a forum for the diverse voices of scholars and practitioners…

This paper analyzes the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for education, which sets benchmarks for member states to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong opportunities for all" by the year 2030. I examine ways in which the underlying philosophical rationale for the targets invokes a…

This Guide to Action highlights concrete approaches to the development of green and healthy learning cities, equitable and inclusive learning cities, and decent work and entrepreneurship in learning cities. It includes examples of good practice, which demonstrate the diversity of initiatives and reflect the manifold contexts and development stages…

This research focuses on young children's understandings about economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Participants were 43 children, aged from 3 to 7 years of age, recruited from two kindergartens in Croatia. Children's ideas were discussed through semi-structured interviews that focused on saving, spending, recycling, justice,…

This article uses three value constructs, Catholic social thought (CST), feminist political economy (FPE) and ecological economics (Eco-Econ) to critique current mainstream economics. Insights from these values open a way to seeing and creating a just, sustainable future. Within this value framework we propose the integration of these themes in…

The World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien in 1990 marked the first concerted effort to prioritize educational development around the world, and subsequent meetings continue to advance the global agenda for what education--and the world--could become. In 2000, the Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals laid out the…

The UNESCO-UNEVOC Global Forum "Skills for Work and Life Post-2015" took up the vital topics of youth, skills and greening TVET in the context of the post-2015 development agenda. 2015 marks the end of the Education for All (EFA) initiative, and global and regional debates are sharpening the focus of discussions geared towards setting…