Page 50 - Looking_after_school

Looking after school: a critical analysis of personalisation in education

university). This discourse asserts that learning is a lifelong process
in a continuously changing society. In this context, the figure of the
learning citizen emerges as someone who is capable of learning for
the full duration of their life and who also takes on the responsibil-
ity of doing so. This discourse emphasises the societal importance of
learning and the responsibility of the learning citizen in that regard.
Historically there are four main perspectives which make up this dis-
course (Simons & Masschelein, 2008).

Firstly, there is the idea that learning is a process that produces knowl-
edge and skills, which are considered the raw materials of the modern
knowledge economy or a form the capital which can guarantee an
income. This means that education, and really any form of learning,
is considered an investment in human capital (Schultz, 1971). Learning
capacity is, in other words, treated as capital which adds value. Next to
this perspective of the capitalisation of learning, there is a perspective
on learning which emphasises that the learner is supposed to take
their learning process into their own hands; this is closely connected
to discourse from the end of the 1960s, in which the autonomy over
one’s own life is viewed as the one-true guarantee for self-realisation
and self-development. Learning is not only thought of as something
which adds value, but also something that guarantees freedom and
self-realisation, and something for which the individual citizen, alone,
is responsible for realising (Faure et al., 1972). A third perspective, in line
with the already mentioned theories of learning, emphasises that
learning is a constructive and active process that has to be managed
or taken charge of by the learner (Knowles, 1975). The image which
is being sculpted here is that of a learning citizen that is a manager of
their own learning process. Lastly, and more recent, is the perspective
on the employability of learning outcomes. This concerns the idea that
the learning citizen must be capable of acquiring those competencies
which will give them access to, and allows them to perform actions in,
a number of crucial areas (economic, but also social, cultural…). The
assumption is that the learning citizen, to a large extent, has control
over their own inclusion or exclusion through learning. This also sup-
poses that the learning citizen’s output of these learning processes
immediately becomes the input for their ability to perform in daily life.

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