Tackling vulnerability through lifelong learning policies?

This chapter discusses different concepts of vulnerability and reviews the policies of European countries to overcome vulnerability. The main thesis is that the current situation gives rise to prerequisites for vulnerability and that the type and number of disadvantaged groups is increasing. Special attention is paid to the Roma – the most at-risk ethnic minority in Europe. A key focus of the chapter is that tackling vulnerability and minimizing it is the result of policies at different levels - European, national, regional. The chapter puts forward a review of the most recent key policy measures for equal education opportunities and social inclusion targeting at-risk groups. Various aspects of adopted policy interventions for stimulating social and LLL inclusion are illustrated, and supplemented by a critical analysis in different EU countries. The conclusion is that the required strategic actions targeting educational equity for marginalized social groups have been indeed formulated by the stakeholders; yet, certain shortcomings have been noticed and these are primarily linked to practical implementation of the national documents into real actions.

Conclusion

The chapter takes stock of the insights produced in the different chapters of this collection and draws conclusions based on three theoretical perspectives that guided our analysis. Each of them highlights a few important points that are helpful to make sense of the evidence posited by the thematic chapters. Cultural Political Economy provides crucial insights on the intimate connections between complexity reduction and the institutional normalisation of life courses. Life Course Research sheds light on the equally relevant connections between young adults’ biographies and active learning. Finally, Governance theories account for the regional dimension of lifelong learning policies. Some lessons learned are discussed and a plea to listen to the voices of young adults is made.

Governing the normalisation of young adults through lifelong learning policies

Policies are based on – explicit and implicit – assumptions of well-functioning institutions, a prosperous economy, a good citizen, and so forth. In short, they have a vision of a desired society with reasonably behaving individuals. Against this background the chapter scrutinizes the taken-for-granted logic behind lifelong learning policy measures targeted at so called ‘vulnerable youth’. The term ‘vulnerable’ itself bears within it connotations that influence policy makers’ and policy actors’ perception of the individuals categorized under the label ‘vulnerable’. The chapter is interested in the ways by which lifelong learning policies with their variety of policy measures, projects, regulations and practices, incentive structures and sanctions, aim to govern (regulate, steer, mould) the ‘vulnerable’ young adults to govern themselves – their reasoning and conduct – according to the desired direction. The aim of this chapter is to make visible the underlying assumptions and tacit implications beneath the ‘normal’ life course, how ‘vulnerability’ is produced in policy texts, and how the normalization of ‘vulnerable’ youth is governed. Besides theoretical analysis the article uses policy documents, descriptions of policy measures and projects, and international, national and regional statistics to make sense of practices of governing the normalisation in empirical contexts.

Lifelong learning policies for young adults in Europe: a conceptual and methodological discussion

In order to be successful, Lifelong Learning (LLL) policies in Europe have to reconcile numerous concurrent aspects related to their different contexts, timeframes, target groups and the specific issues they confront. Failing to recognise these specificities risks producing unintended effects and/or exacerbating the problems they intend to tackle. Further, these may have substantial impact on young adults’ life courses as the policies are often formulated at the national level while having to unfold at the regional level, but also because they often do not take into account the specific needs, diverse social and living conditions and regional/local infrastructures in education and labour markets. The first section introduces conceptual considerations drawn from Life Course Research, Governance Studies and Cultural Political Economy that help us identify and analyse these various aspects across countries in the interplay of levels. The second section describes the implementation of a mixed-method approach. The complementary approach results in a juxtaposition along the project’s sub-studies that generate insights for enhancing each other as we analyse different phenomena interwoven with our research object by approaching them from different viewpoints. The third section reflects on the possibilities, conditions and limits of producing comparative multilevel knowledge that is relevant for policy-making.

Young adults as a target group of lifelong learning policies

Lifelong learning policies may construct target groups in two different ways. First, sometimes encompassing systems of lifelong learning policies implement programmes for specific social categories in terms of school performance, gender or ethnicity. Second, lifelong learning policies are much more fragmentary in many countries. There, experts and the very young adults may assume that programmes compensating for early school leaving and vocational training schemes ‘are’ lifelong learning. In these circumstances, it is likely that the same specific social categories become the target of these policies by default. This chapter discusses the consequences of constructing these target groups of lifelong learning policies in nine member states of the European Union. The pros and cons of this policy instrument is considered at different geographical scales such as the whole Union, member states and functional regions. In addition, the chapter will explore to what extent the construction of these target groups draws on wider societal classifications of socio-economic background (e.g. previous school performance), gender and ethnicity.

Assessing young adults’ living conditions across Europe using harmonised quantitative indicators: opportunities and risks for policy makers

This chapter uses harmonized quantitative regional data on the mediating role of LLL policies in the configuration of individuals living conditions. We focus our attention on four indicators: youth unemployment, tertiary education enrolment, early school leavers and NEET rates. To analyse the determinants of the contextual living conditions we fit persistence models, attempting to explain the status in 2014 with the observed conditions in 2006. We find strong evidence of path dependency. This indicates that the regional contextual living conditions of young adults are overwhelmingly dominated by a combination of the region’s history and developments at the national level. Looking forward, a historically prosperous region in a positive national context is likely to remain so, whilst equally a weak region within a weak national context is likely to remain so. If policy makers are intending to influence the contextual living conditions of young adults, they need to be aware of this inertia. Policies at the national level can be changed and they can be devolved. This could be one way of tackling the inertia, i.e. by providing more policy authority to NUTS-2 regions. Highlighting existing data gaps and improving the availability of territorial information are crucial steps to achieve better targeted policy that isn’t contingent up nation-state-based measures.

Coordinated policy-making in lifelong learning: functional regions as dynamic units

The assumption that the implementation of Lifelong learning (LLL) policies is best studied at the regional/local level invited us to take a more differentiated look than the national level allows for. By adopting the concept of ‘Functional Region’ (FR), we aim at conceptually taking into account not only their administrative aspects but also their functional dynamics, their interrelations with other units as well as the interaction of their different sectoral policies. This chapter presents FRs as a concept to understand differences in planning and implementing education, labour market, and economic policies at regional/local level. It first introduces the concept FR; second, it presents the units selected for research, focusing on functional and thus on dynamic rather than administrative units of the research sites. In a third section, the chapter discusses the value-added of the insights gained and the challenges related to this conceptualisation in order to draw first conclusions as to the utility of the concept in supporting the formulation of coordinated policy-making in the field of LLL.

The changing meanings of lifelong learning policies: consequences for young adults and their life courses

Lifelong learning policies have multiple meanings. They change across time, space, theoretical perspectives, and the types of actors that seek to make sense of them. This poses challenges to developing a research framework able to capture the myriad of understandings of lifelong learning ‘policy’. Furthermore, it defies coordinated policy-making and assessing its effects. This chapter aims to gauge such diversity and discuss its consequences for European young adults and their life courses. The chapter then moves on to, and concludes with, a discussion of how the tensions in the ‘growth and inclusion’ agenda interconnect with the movement from standardisation towards de-standardisation in the lives of young adults. In other words, we seek not only to provide an answer to 1) how de-standardisation is taken into account in European lifelong learning policies, but also to 2) how such policies impact and transform the lives of young adults.

Are lifelong learning policies working for youth? Young people’s voices

LLL policy programs and initiatives at the national and local level rarely begin by investigating the needs and aspirations of young participants, and even less opportunities are provided for young people to participate in the design, implementation and evaluation of policy interventions. In this chapter we attempt to highlight the views of young adults on how effectively policies support their personal life projects, educational and professional aspirations and more broadly, their need for empowerment in the transition to adulthood. This chapter presents young adults’ perspectives on their participation in LLL policies. The role of LLL programs and measures in shaping young adults’ life trajectories is best captured at one of the most pivotal turning points in their lives – the transition from school to work. To explore this, we apply a life course perspective to the analysis of a rich data set of 168 qualitative interviews. Interviews were conducted in 2017 with participants of diverse LLL policies across two functional regions in each of the nine partner countries in the YOUNG_ADULLLT project.

A social investment perspective on lifelong learning: the role of institutional complementarities in the development of human capital and social participation

The chapter investigates the relationship between social investment (SI) and lifelong learning (LLL). First, we present and describe the SI and LLL perspectives, reviewing their foundations and main principles. Even if lifelong learning policies are considered part of a SI strategy, the origin of LLL perspective dates back to the 1960s. These approaches present significant overlaps, but also differences related to the scope and aims of interventions. Moreover, both the critical debates on SI and LLL stress the relevance of ambiguities that can be traced back to the co-existence of a narrower functionalistic understanding and market-led human capital approach (functionalistic view); vis-a-vis a holistic comprehension of inclusion taking into account issues of social participation and human capabilities. Second, we discuss the critical issue of institutional complementarities as preconditions for the effectiveness of SI policies, to be identified in the complex and time-framed interface among labour market, education system, and welfare state. By doing this, we go beyond the mere consideration of LLL policies as an example of social investment policy. We argue for a strategic role of LLL policies as specifically addressing the time dimension by means of coherent interventions over the life course.