Combating Poverty: The Third World within the First World

摘要

This study addresses issues related to international strategies of lifelong education. The case of the United Kingdom is used to explore the degree to which approaches based on human-capital strategies can contribute to resolving inequalities. It is argued that claims made for the role of education as a means of protecting individual and national economic welfare have become almost hegemonic in nature. Yet these claims conceal stark internal contradictions. New work in the future may actually require less skills than at present; massive high-skill and high-income employment is unlikely. This study takes the view that most current forms of education employ a utilitarian discourse that depoliticises learning and individualises achievement. The author contends that a more appropriate way forward in lifelong education lies in developing a critical consciousness – a feature of education for the dispossessed in all contexts.