The Knowledge Economy and Lifelong Learning: A Critical Reader(4 The Knowledge Economy and Education)

This book presents some of the most trenchant critical analyses of the widespread claims for the recent emergence of a knowledge economy and the attendant need for greater lifelong learning. The book contains two sections: first, general critiques of the limits of current notions of a knowledge economy and required adult learning, in terms of historical comparisons, socio-political construction and current empirical evidence; secondly, specific challenges to presumed relations between work requirements and learning through case studies in diverse current workplaces that document richer learning processes than knowledge economy advocates intimate. Many of the leading authors in the field are represented. There are no other books to date that both critically assess the limits of the notion of the knowledge economy and examine closely the relation of workplace restructuring to lifelong learning beyond the confines of formal higher education and related educational policies. This reader provides a distinctive overview for future studies of relations between work and learning in contemporary societies beyond caricatures of the knowledge economy.

About the Author :
D. W. Livingstone is Canada Research Chair in Lifelong Learning and Work and Professor Emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. David Guile is Professor of Education and Work at the Institute of Education, University of London.

Review :
“A valuable reference. . . This book bridges an important gap in the literature as it questions taken-for-granted assumptions about the challenges that the knowledge economy poses to further growth and expansion of contemporary societies, and attempt assessing under which conditions lifelong learning proves an adequate response. As a ‘reader’ the book pools together much of already published material with the addition of fewer original pieces by as many as twenty-eight scholars, several of whom have a long tradition in examining the relations between economic growth, work, education and learning. One of the book’s strength is in the thoughtful (re)organization of the single contributions into two main sections devoted, respectively, to a critique of key common assumptions on the knowledge economy, and to insights on the diverse forms in which people uses and develop knowledge in a variety of occupations. " - in: International Journal of Lifelong Education, 2014 “What I found very interesting when I was reviewing this reader was that the title of the book runs across the entire volume in terms of content and its relevance to different dimensions of lifelong learning. This has been excellently done, and concepts of the Knowledge Economy (KE) are applied to different but related contexts of the lifelong learning agenda …. a book one starts reading and would not want to stop. The book makes total sense to me, and is worth the effort of the authors, publication space and costs, and marketing to a wider readership globally.” - in: International Review of Education , 2014