Lifelong Learning as an Emancipation Process: A Capability Approach

The chapter offers a theoretical outline of the heuristic potential of the capability approach in conceptualizing lifelong learning and tests the capacity of this approach to guide empirical studies on lifelong learning. It argues that the capability approach provides a theoretical framework for the understanding of lifelong learning as an agency process which is embedded in different social and institutional contexts, for grasping its different meanings for individuals and society and for its critical evaluation against the background of important values, such as justice, freedom and identity development. Drawing on data from the Adult Education Survey (2007), the chapter suggests an index of fairness in participation in adult education and explores various meanings of adult education and obstacles to participation in it