This paper is based on hermeneutic research into creativity and learning mentors, focusing on mental well being and the role of the mentor throughout the creative cycle. Participants relate their experiences of the role of the mentor within the creative cycle in their own words. The researcher/participant hermeneutic dialogue shows that the…

An innovative scheme known as Project Yi Jin that provided an alternative route for students who failed in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) to gain an academic status for, and access to, higher education was evaluated after one year's implementation. A survey of 2416 students via telephone found that students who…

In the context of research that reports weaknesses in adults' critical thinking skills, the primary aim was to examine adults' use of critical thinking skills that are described in taxonomies and to identify areas for development. Position papers written by an opportunity sample of 32 experienced adult educators formed the data for a descriptive…

This paper develops the notions of dialogue and dialogic space in relation to adult education projects with emancipatory agendas. It explores the philosophical genealogy of the notion of dialogue in order to establish a basis for the concept of dialogic space, surveying the works of seminal figures such as Plato, Buber, Bakhtin, Habermas and…

This paper was provoked by Ted Bailey's article, 'Analogy, dialectics and lifelong learning' which appeared in the March-April 2003 edition of this journal. Dr. Bailey argued that students can be enabled to learn the key concepts of the subjects they are studying through the dialectical operation of analogy which makes new knowledge accessible by…

This ethnographic study employs a gender perspective to understand the motivations of eight women literacy learners participating in a village-based functional literacy programme in rural North-eastern Thailand. Field research took place over six months of periodic residence in a North-eastern Thai village, and involved participant observation,…

The Community University (CU) movement in Taiwan arose from calls for education reform and social change in the country since the last decade. In 1998 the first CU, Wenshan CU, operated by local activists and grass-roots groups, was established in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, as an outgrowth of a popular rally for education reform in 1994.…

There has been a strong faith in the power of education to create and maintain many kinds of progress in society: social cohesion and order, economic growth, equality, justice, etc. The history of education is in many ways involved in the history of religion and churches. Along with the rise of the lifelong learning policy, adult education has…

France has more than 30 years of experience with continuing education and training. Thanks to the 1971 law and subsequent reforms, enterprises are obliged to pay for education and training activities. What are the results after three decades? Did the law fulfil its initial objectives? As recently as this year, a new agreement has been signed…

The term lifelong learning has been used in different contexts and in policy application for a wide variety of purposes and initiatives. Singapore's approach to lifelong learning is pragmatic and rational. It is one of the economic drivers used by policy makers to enhance Singapore's competitiveness and is viewed as an antidote against…

The new South Africa has formally embraced the concept of 'lifelong learning' in its education and training policies. But what is the concept of 'lifelong learning' that has informed these policies and what progress has there been in implementing them? Have these new policies brought significant changes to education and training for adults?

This article is concerned with the politics of lifelong learning policy in post-1997 Hong Kong (HK). The paper is in four parts. Continuing Education, recast as 'lifelong learning', is to be the cornerstone of the post-Handover education reform agenda. The lineaments of a familiar discourse are evident in the Education Commission policy documents.…

This article examines New Zealand experiences and understandings of lifelong education and lifelong learning over the past 30 years or so. It investigates the place of lifelong education and lifelong learning discourses in shaping public policy in Aotearoa as well as questions about the similarities and differences between the discourse in New…