Education

The book addresses contemporary ideological discourses concerning education in the United Kingdom. It provides a synthetic analysis of the roots of the political changes in education in the UK from the tenth to the first decade of the twenty-first century, with particular emphasis on the last hundred years. It presents British political and education thought during the tenth through the sixteenth centuries, then in the Age of Enlightenment, showing the roles of the positivist current in British education, the Chartist movement, and educational changes related to them. The remainder of the book focuses on the trends and stages of educational development up to World War II, the postwar reform of the education system in England and Wales, the neoliberal trend in the educational policy of Britain, and the genesis of the 1998 educational reforms in England and Wales and their consequences up to 2013.

Lifelong Learning Today is the result of cooperation between the scientists of the University of Ljubljana and the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. The aim of the authors and editors was not to create a compendium of knowledge about the current state of the development of education in the field of lifelong learning. The creation of a publication that would present a comprehensive, "photographic" image of the state of research and practices in the field of lifelong learning would be so laborious and long-term that it would not keep up with the constant changes which appear in reality. The authors decided to present a compilation of examples illustrating areas worth considering, contexts and practices, as well as certain problems and dilemmas.

The image of the reality outlined in this book is very selective, but "spatial" to such an extent that it enables for the grasping of its size and dynamism of development. It encompasses not only significant issues from the standpoint of economy in the scope of key competences, but also concepts related to the social, cultural, scientific, artistic and common schooling, leading to more comprehensive personal development and to raising the quality of life.