Adult Learning in the Digital Age

Information Technology and the Learning Society

Neil Selwyn, Stephen Gorard, John Furlong

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134248957
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This engaging book sheds light on the ways in which adults in the twenty-first century interact with technology in different learning environments. Based on one of the first large-scale academic research projects in this area, the authors present their findings and offer practical recommendations for the use of new technology in a learning society. They invite debate on:

• why ICTs are believed to be capable of affecting positive change in adult learning
• the drawbacks and limits of ICT in adult education
• what makes a lifelong learner
• the wider social, economic, cultural and political realities of the information age and the learning society.

Adult Learning addresses key questions and provides a sound empirical foundation to the existing debate, highlighting the complex realities of the learning society and e-learning rhetoric. It tells the story of those who are excluded from the learning society, and offers a set of strong recommendations for practitioners, policy-makers, and politicians, as well as researchers and students.

Chapter 1
The promise of adult learning in the digital age

Introduction

The information age presents many challenges for those in education and government. The need for the whole population to be able to access and use new technologies such as computers, the internet and digital television is often seen as crucial to establishing a skilled workforce and empowered citizenry for the twenty-first century. The potential of these new technologies to allow people to learn throughout the life-course is also seen as a ready means of establishing developed countries as learning societies’. Governments around the world have therefore set targets and developed policies to help all adults to learn, work and live with the support of information and communications technologies (ICTs).

But despite the vast sums of money and effort being directed towards ICT and education we still know little of how close we are to establishing technology-based learning societies’ and what problems may be faced along the way. Key questions of who is using ICTs for what purposes and with what outcomes remain largely unanswered within the current literature. Our understanding of who is not using ICT and why they are not doing so is also vague. Beyond recognising the promise and potential of new technologies, mapping how ICTs and ICT-based learning fit with the everyday lives of adults is a vital task for the research community.

There will be few readers of this book whose lives do not involve the use of information and communications technology. There is, for example, a good chance that a typical reader of an academic or policy-relevant book will have some form of internet access at work or at home. Many will have a mobile phone and perhaps a handheld computing device of some description. In short, the majority of readers should at least notionally be part of the ‘information society’—a world in which the ‘anytime, anyplace, anypace’ reach of telecommunications technologies is transforming people’s day-to-day lives. Enthusiastic accounts of the ‘power’ of new technologies to support and shape our everyday activities proliferate via newspapers, textbooks and television screens. From ecommerce to e-tailing and cybersex to blogging, networked computerised technologies are heralded by some to be as epoch-making as the nineteenth-century industrial revolution. Inspired by grand notions of globalisation and post-modernity some scholars have taken to portraying adults in the early twenty-first century as living in a plentiful post-physical age where all that is solid melts into bits (Negroponte 1995). As William Mitchell (2001) would have us believe, ‘e-topia’ is but a mouse-click away.

Much of this excitement has been triggered by a recent ‘coming of age’ of information technologies. Although technologists had long talked of fully interactive and user-centred networked computers, until relatively recently such technologies were conspicuous by their absence on the high street. Yet the last decade or so has witnessed a rapid convergence of computers, telecommunications and broadcasting technologies—resulting in a proliferation of modern-day consumer technologies with remarkable communicative and networking capacities. This new-found availability and affordability has been supported by a ‘rebranding’ of the term ‘information technology’ into ‘information and communications technology’—a reference to the convergence of technological artefacts such as computers, digital broadcast technologies and mobile phones into platforms all capable of supporting information and communications resources such as the world wide web and email.

ICTs and the political challenges of the information society

From a technical point of view the semantic shift from IT to ICT is an unnecessary one. All the technologies mentioned above can still be described as ‘information technologies’—a fact reflected in the failure of ‘ICT’ to be used widely as a term outside Europe. Yet the phrase is significant in marking a new-found recognition that the growing availability and use of these technologies brings with them a range of important societal and economic implications which cannot be ignored by those involved in the running of countries. As Miles reasons:

ICTs allow for new rules of the game in all areas of economic activity and [mean] that organisations of all types need to innovate and redefine their objectives in this context. Not all developments will involve the new technologies, but often they will be central. Standing still is rarely an option. Although beleaguered services and individuals may resent being told about the need to adapt, a sea change is taking place.

(Miles 1996:51)

Governments and those involved in public services therefore find themselves tackling the real-life concern of how ICTs may be best shaped for contemporary society. Although the ‘hucksters of the information age’ (Winner 1986) are understandably keen to concentrate on beneficial aspects of technologically-mediated life, there is a very real (and some would argue an inevitable) potential for ICTs to exacerbate some existing societal divisions and inequalities. If new technologies are to fulfil their potential to reshape societies positively as has been predicted, then governments need to carefully and systematically plan the ways in which they make use of ICTs. In trying to create a benign and beneficial role for ICT within the public sector, a host of problems, pressures and predicaments come to bear which require serious and prolonged attention. As the fraught and often flawed integration of ICT into UK government services has shown over the last five years, the information society will not be built in a day.

This need for political sensitivity towards the social aspects of ICT has long been acknowledged by some. From the 1970s onwards, authors such as Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Tom Stonier and John Naisbett produced best-selling depictions of technologically-led new eras. The beginning of the Thatcher/Reagan era in the West was awash with visions of prosperous and flexible information-led societies transformed by new technological ‘waves’ and ‘megatrends’. The feeling of an imminent societal change was soon reinforced by a range of influential social forecasts from Europe and the USA, such as those of Masuda (1981) and Nora and Minc (1980). After a slight hiatus, the commercial rise of the internet during the 1990s then prompted policymakers and those in the public sector to sit up and take serious note of the implications of the information society. Once internet use began to move beyond the rarefied confines of the scientific and military communities and into domestic and work settings, it became increasingly clear to politicians and public alike that the information society represented more than a form of science fiction prophesy. It became a timely description for a fast-changing world.

Perhaps the most perceptive commentator at the time of these changes was the academic and government advisor Manuel Castells. In observing the development of what he termed the ‘network society’, Castells carefully spelt out the economic and social implications of the emerging informational society, moving the public and political debate out of the realms of futuristic speculation and into the sharp realities of global economics. For Castells, one of the key features of the information society was the ‘networking logic of its basic structure’ (1996:21), brought about primarily by technological developments as well as the restructuring of capitalism and statism throughout the 1980s. As he argued:

Dominant functions and processes in the information age are increasingly organised around networks. Networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in the processes of production, experience, power and culture. While the networking form of social organisation has existed in other times and spaces, the new information technology paradigm provides the basis for its pervasive expansion throughout the entire social structure.

(Castells 1996:469)

In Castells’ eyes the significance of the network society and ICT in general is primarily one of global economics. Indeed, Castells and those who have followed him are explicit in their portrayal of contemporary patterns of economic and social activity as depending ultimately on the dynamics of the global economy, the ‘network enterprise’ of modern multinational corporations and the networking of labour in the form of ‘flexi-workers’. In making these links, much of the network society thesis builds upon earlier writings on the post-industrial society. Here authors such as Alain Touraine (1969) and Daniel Bell (1973) mapped society’s shift from an agrarian to an industrial basis, followed by a modern-day shift from an industrial to a post-industrial society. As in the later accounts of the network society, these authors acknowledged the importance of the service sector, the rise of professional, scientific and technical groups and, most importantly, information technology as all being the new ‘axial principles’ in the post-industrial society. Such a society was predicated on the commodification of information and growth of telecommunications technology. This, in turn, had fundamental implications for ‘the way economic and social exchanges are conducted, the way knowledge is created and retrieved, and the character of work and occupations’ (Bell 1973:14).

The accounts of Bell, Touraine, Castells and others all highlight the key roles that education is seen to play in the fortunes of post-industrial economies. One of the most widely discussed areas of economic change within these literatures is the apparent restructuring of paid work and officially organised production and services. For example, new technologies such as the computer are accepted by most to have assisted the expansion of the services sector, and contributed to an associated shift in patterns of employment. ICTs are seen to have played no small part in the shift away from the traditional ‘Monday to Friday, job for life’ towards the individualisation of working patterns and the rise of ‘flexi-workers’ and careership. Specifically, the knowledge economy is seen to be predicated on quick-response, just-in-time production of goods and services, with countries, corporations and communities increasingly requiring workers and citizens with flexible, ‘just-in-time’ skills, competencies and knowledge. As Mossberger et al. observe, this is both an opportunity and a threat for workers and governments alike:

A broad economic restructuring has widened economic disparities, automated some jobs out of existence, created new types of jobs, modified organisational practices, and altered traditional career ladders. In the ‘new economy’, workers are more likely to hold a number of jobs over a lifetime. Less-educated workers have watched their standard of living erode, and skills demands are increasing even in jobs requiring only a high school degree or less.

(Mossberger et al. 2003:61)

For many commentators, a ready solution to these challenges is to be found in education. Educational policies are now justified by notions such as ‘90 per cent of all new jobs require some ICT capacity’ (Lewis 2002). Indeed, there is seen to be an increased ‘informisation’ of work—whether in the primary, secondary or tertiary sectors of production. Castells (1999) talks of ‘information agriculture’ and ‘informational manufacturing’, indicating that such industries are relying, more than ever, on using technology to process information and knowledge. The underlying message is twofold: (i) an information society and ‘knowledge’ economy requires an information-skilled workforce in order to succeed; and (ii) the key to an information-skilled workforce is education and learning.

The importance of learning and education in the information society—the rise of the ‘le@rning society’

The prominence of education and learning within the post-industrial, information society analysis was in no small part responsible for the high-profile reassessment of education and training by educators and politicians in developed countries over the latter half of the 1990s. In the UK this was infamously embodied in New Labour’s 1997 election commitment to concentrate on ‘education, education, education’. The information society and knowledge economy agenda were particularly evident in the rise to political favour during the 1990s of the broad concept of ‘lifelong learning’, a notion embracing not only the compulsory phases of education but also education throughout adult life (Faure et al. 1972; Coffield 1997). Although it would be overstating the case to argue that many countries have since developed coherent strategies with respect to education and training through the life-course, the change in the political climate was unmistakable. In the UK, for example, official pronouncements about lifelong learning proliferated spectacularly from 1997 onwards; including three substantial reports (Kennedy 1997; Fryer 1997 and Dearing 1997), a major Green Paper (DfEE 1998) and a White Paper on the reorganisation of post-16 education and training (DfEE 1999).

This lifelong learning drive involved, and continues to involve, more than a narrow technical adjustment to the organisation of educational provision. It is an attempted transformation in learning opportunities in order to meet the implicit demands of the information society/knowledge economy. If, as previously discussed, it is accepted that the production and distribution of knowledge and information are increasingly significant processes in the determination of global economic competitiveness and development, which are reflected, in turn, in economic growth, employment change and levels of welfare, then the capacity of organisations and individuals to engage successfully in learning processes of a variety of kinds is an obvious determinant of economic performance (Pantzar 2001). For some commentators, the notion of the information society implies nothing less than a fundamental transition from an industrial to a knowledge-based learning society, with a need for education throughout the life-course predicated upon the unstoppable juggernaut of contemporary patterns of economic and social change (OECD 1996; Leadbetter 1999; Lundvall and Johnson 1994).

In this manner, a learning society has come to be seen as one ‘in which all citizens acquire a high quality general education, appropriate vocational training and a job…while continuing to participate in education and training throughout their lives’ (Coffield 1994:1). A successful learning society is therefore predicated upon a comprehensive post-school education and training system in which everyone has access to suitable opportunities for lifelong learning. Within this society, provision of education should be both excellent and fair leading to national economic prosperity and social integration. Although it remains a disputed notion, this is a fair summary of what the learning society’ is deemed to be in British official discourse. As Quicke enthuses wryly:

The idea of a ‘learning society’ certainly appeals as a vision of a ‘better’ world …it comes with all the connotations associated with learning and development. It conjures up images of a society which is open, democratic and forward looking, where citizens are provided with opportunities at any stage of life to acquire the knowledge and skills for self-development as well as for the benefit of others; and of organisations which are adaptable and innovative and which treat their employees as persons to be developed rather than resources to be exploited. Moreover, it is an idea which appears capable of generating a new consensus about the aims and purposes of education by breaking down the barrier between the ‘world of work’ and the ‘world of education’. Many of the key goals of liberal democratic education—autonomy, respect for others, the development of critical capacities—are now seen to be more compatible with the kind of ‘competencies’ required by the polity and the economy. The scene appears to be set for the development of an education system which produces flexible pegs for a diversity of holes with ever-changing shapes!

(Quicke 1997:139–40)

The problem faced by politicians and policymakers is that the development of the learning society (defined in these terms) is by no means an easy task and entails manipulating complex economic and social processes. On the one hand, it holds the promise of increased productivity and an improved standard of living. On the other, it simultaneously implies that individuals and organisations face major challenges in adjusting to new circumstances. The emergent forms of economic activity affect the characteristic nature of work and the types and levels of skills required in the economy. As a result, the security and general quality of jobs are being radically altered, with profound implications for the welfare of individuals. Thus it is recognised that the nature of access to learning opportunities has implications not only for general economic competitiveness, but also for the employability of individuals and the consequent impacts on their standards of living. The dominant view has centred around the effective organisation of learning opportunities as being a crucial driver to both social cohesion and economic growth (Brown and Lauder 1996). The policy implications of this analytical approach are, of course, profound. Employability is based on the skills aspects of labour, and the enhancement of those skills is meant to be supported by lifelong learning from pre-school to post-retirement (Otterson 2004). Employees require not only good levels of general education, but also the capacity to adapt flexibly to changing skills requirements throughout their careers. Moreover, educational institutions should be organised in ways which ensure that these standards of general education are attained and also that the renewal of skills through continuing education and training is facilitated. As Frank Coffield (1999) has argued, however, one of the striking features of lifelong learning policies in countries such as the UK and US is that they have concentrated very much on the implications of this analysis for the formal education of individual learners.

Crucially this emphasis on individuals reflects a model of participation in lifelong learning which is based upon a simple notion of human capital theory where individuals participate in lifelong learning according to their calculation of the net economic benefits to be derived from education and training (Becker 1975). Given the dominant consensus about the general direction of economic change towards more knowledge-based forms of production, this logic sees workers seeking to participate in lifelong learning in order to capitalise upon the benefits which will flow from skills renewal and development. In this account, the principal issue which government policy is required to address is to ensure the removal of the impediments or ‘barriers’ which prevent people from participating in education and training. Achieving a learning society often thus comes to be defined in these ostensibly simple terms.

The importance of adult learning within the learning society model

Although the fortunes of the learning society are predicated on participation in educatio...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: The promise of adult learning in the digital age
• Chapter 2: Impediments to adult learning in the digital age
• Chapter 3: Questioning adult learning in the digital age Research questions and methods
• Chapter 4: What makes a lifelong learner?
• Chapter 5: What do people use ICTs for?
• Chapter 6: Adult learning with ICTs in the home
• Chapter 7: Bringing ICTs home: The Influence of the workplace
• Chapter 8: Adult learning with ICTs in public and community settings
• Chapter 9: The social processes of learning to use computers
• Chapter 10: Making sense of adult learning in a digital age
• Chapter 11: Recommendations for future policy, practice and research
• References