Lifelong Learning in Paid and Unpaid Work

Lifelong Learning is essential to all individuals and in recent years has become a guiding principle for policy initiatives, ranging from national economic competition to issues of social cohesion and personal fulfilment. However, despite the importance of lifelong learning there is a critical absence of direct, international evidence on its extent, content and outcomes. Lifelong Learning in Paid and Unpaid Work provides a new paradigm for understanding work and learning, documenting the active contribution of workers to their development and their adaptation to paid and unpaid work. Empirical evidence drawn from national surveys in Canada and eight related case studies is used to explore the current learning activities of those in paid employment, housework and volunteer work, addressing all forms of learning including: formal schooling, further education courses, informal training and self-directed learning, particularly in the context of organisational and technological change. Proposing an expanded conceptual framework for investigating the relationships between learning and work, the contributors offer new insights into the ways in which adult learning adapts to and helps reshape the wide contemporary world of work throughout the life course.

D. W. Livingstone is Canada Research Chair in Lifelong Learning and Work at the University of Toronto, and Professor and Head of the Centre for the Study of Education and Work in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE/UT). His books include The Education-Jobs Gap (2004) and Education and Jobs: Exploring the Gaps (2009).

Introduction: A Framework for Exploring Relations between Lifelong Learning and Work in the Computer Era, Part I. Surveys, 1. Work and Learning in the Computer Era: Basic Survey Findings, Part II. Case Studies of Unpaid Work and Learning, 2. Odd Project Out: Studying Lifelong Learning through Unpaid Household Work, 3. Volunteer Work and Informal Learning: Exploring the Connections, Part III. Case Studies of Paid Work and Learning, 4. Re-visiting Taylorism: Conceptual Implications for Studies of Lifelong Learning, Technology and Work in the Public Sector, 5. Women's experiences of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Work in the "Knowledge-Based" Society: Learning the Gender Politics of IT Jobs, 6. Beginning from Disability to Study a Corporate Organization of Learning, 7. Teachers' Learning and Work Relations: (Shifting) Engagements and Challenges, Part IV. Case Studies of Transitions between Education and Work, 8. Challenging Transitions from School to Work, 9. Biographical Transitions and Adult Learning: Reproduction and/or Mobilization, Part V. Concluding Reflections, 10. Reflections on Results of Canadian Studies and German Perspectives on Work-related Learning, 11.'Not just another survey': Reflections on Researchers' Working and Learning through Investigating Work and Lifelong Learning, 12. Reflections on the WALL Research Network and Future Studies of Work and Learning