Making the Lisbon Strategy Happen: A New Phase of Lifelong Learning Discourse in European Policy?

Source: European Educational Research Journal, Volume 10 Number 1 2011, pages 11‑20.

The discourse of European lifelong learning policy has undergone great changes, from its initial engagement when it was a matter of social and humanitarian issues as outlined in the early documents of UNESCO, to emphasising lifelong learning as a moral and individual obligation in a more competitive and market-oriented language.

In this article, the author is interested to examine whether there is evidence enough to suggest that European policy on lifelong learning is now experiencing a discursive shift into what could be described as a new phase.

The author uses critical discourse analysis as a methodological framework.
The analysis of the empirical material points to a direction where it is relevant to speak about a new ‘phase’ of lifelong-learning discourse emerging in European policy, characterised by the urgent need for implementation.

In this article a tentative conceptual framework is presented as to how this new, action-oriented ‘phase’ can be understood.