<p>Comparative analysis of the CPD systems internationally and nationally revealed that CPD is mandatory for some whilst for other countries it is compulsory, but not mandatory for licensing purposes. Licensing occurs on a yearly basis, but CPD recognition is accredited over a time period with expiry deadlines and minimum requirements. A portfolio was a common method of recording and proof of evidence for CPD, and a continuous theme was that CPD is needed to ensure competency. The Nursing Act 33 of 2005 makes provision for CPD for nurses but to date the South African Nursing Council has not yet decided on a model of CPD for implementation for SA nurses.</p>

This thesis is a collection of five independent but closely related studies. The overall purpose is to approach the analysis of learning outcomes from a perspective that combines three major elements, namely lifelonglifewide learning, human capital, and the benefits of learning. The approach is based on an interdisciplinary perspective of the human capital paradigm. It considers the multiple learning contexts that are responsible for the development of embodied potential – including formal, nonformal and informal learning – and the multiple outcomes – including knowledge, skills, economic, social and others– that result from learning. The studies also seek to examine the extent and relative influence of learning in different contexts on the formation of embodied potential and how in turn that affects economic and social well being. The first study combines the three major elements, lifelonglifewide learning, human capital, and the benefits of learning into one common conceptual framework. This study forms a common basis for the four empirical studies that follow. All four empirical studies use data from the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) to investigate the relationships among the major elements of the conceptual framework presented in the first study. <u>Study I. A conceptual framework for the analysis of learning outcomes</u> This study brings together some key concepts and theories that are relevant for the analysis of learning outcomes. Many of the concepts and theories have emerged from varied disciplines including economics, educational psychology, cognitive science and sociology, to name only a few. Accordingly, some of the research questions inherent in the framework relate to different disciplinary perspectives. The primary purpose is to create a common basis for formulating and testing hypotheses as well as to interpret the findings in the empirical studies that follow. In particular, the framework facilitates the process of theorizing and hypothesizing on the relationships and processes concerning lifelong learning as well as their antecedents and consequences. <u>Study II. Determinants of literacy proficiency: A lifelong-lifewide learning perspective</u> This study investigates lifelong and lifewide processes of skill formation. In particular, it seeks to estimate the substitutability and complementarity effects of learning in multiple settings over the lifespan on literacy skill formation. This is done by investigating the predictive capacity of major determinants of literacy proficiency that are associated with a variety of learning contexts including school, home, work, community and leisure. An identical structural model based on previous research is fitted to the IALS data for 18 countries. The results show that even after accounting for all factors, education remains the most important predictor of literacy proficiency. In all countries, however, the total effect of education is significantly mediated through further learning occurring at work, at home and in the community. Therefore, the job and other literacy related factors complement education in predicting literacy proficiency. This result points to a virtual cycle of lifelong learning, particularly to how educational attainment influences other learning behaviours throughout life. In addition, results show that home background as measured by parents’ education is also a strong predictor of literacy proficiency, but in many countries this occurs only if a favourable home background is complemented with some post-secondary education. <u>Study III. The effect of literacy proficiency on earnings: An aggregated occupational approach using the Canadian IALS data</u> This study uses data from the Canadian Adult Literacy Survey to estimate the earnings return to literacy skills. The approach adapts a labour segmented view of the labour market by aggregating occupations into seven types, enabling the estimation of the variable impact of literacy proficiency on earnings, both within and between different types of occupations. This is done using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). The method used to construct the aggregated occupational classification is based on analysis that considers the role of cognitive and other skills in relation to the nature of occupational tasks. Substantial premiums are found to be associated with some occupational types even after adjusting for within occupational differences in individual characteristics such as schooling, literacy proficiency, labour force experience and gender. Average years of schooling and average levels of literacy proficiency at the between level account for over two-thirds of the premiums. Within occupations, there are significant returns to schooling but they vary depending on the type of occupations. In contrast, the within occupational return of literacy proficiency is not necessarily significant. The latter depends on the type of occupation. <u>Study IV: Determinants of economic and social outcomes from a lifewide learning perspective in Canada</u> In this study the relationship between learning in different contexts, which span the lifewide learning dimension, and individual earnings on the one hand and community participation on the other are examined in separate but comparable models. Data from the Canadian Adult Literacy Survey are used to estimate structural models, which correspond closely to the common conceptual framework outlined in Study I. The findings suggest that the relationship between formal education and economic and social outcomes is complex with confounding effects. The results indicate that learning occurring in different contexts and for different reasons leads to different kinds of benefits. The latter finding suggests a potential trade-off between realizing economic and social benefits through learning that are taken for either job-related or personal-interest related reasons. <u>Study V: The effects of learning on economic and social well being: A comparative analysis</u> Using the same structural model as in Study IV, hypotheses are comparatively examined using the International Adult Literacy Survey data for Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The main finding from Study IV is confirmed for an additional five countries, namely that the effect of initial schooling on well being is more complex than a direct one and it is significantly mediated by subsequent learning. Additionally, findings suggest that people who devote more time to learning for job-related reasons than learning for personal-interest related reasons experience higher levels of economic well being. Moreover, devoting too much time to learning for personal-interest related reasons has a negative effect on earnings except in Denmark. But the more time people devote to learning for personal-interest related reasons tends to contribute to higher levels of social well being. These results again suggest a trade-off in learning for different reasons and in different contexts.

The present study explores the relationship between the ‘knowledge-enabling environment’ and the demand for training using a sample of 18 small private companies providing educational and consultancy services in Sweden. In this way, the dissertation is an exploration of the ways Swedish knowledge-intensive companies manage their knowledge. The 18 companies have participated in a European program for developing employee competence, financed by the European Social Fund. As part of this European-financed program companies have evaluated their business activity and determined their training needs in order to remain competitive. The 18 companies, thus, provide a rare opportunity to explore aspects of the demand for training in small enterprises. Knowledge is understood here as both the structure and the content of mental schemas. It is embodied in individuals; it differs from information and data; and it can be tacit or explicit. When looking at organizational processes for managing knowledge, it is important to consider formal organized activities for learning, but also informal learning activities, which constitute the main source for tacit knowledge as well as the conditions in place for knowledge creation, what is here called the ‘knowledge-enabling environment’. It is argued that through knowledge management, companies are indeed implementing strategies for the promotion of lifelong learning. Each company in the sample is rather unique in their ‘knowledge-enabling environment’. The exploration of the demand for training shows that the selected companies invest only less than half their perceived training needs. In both sectors the working-environment characteristics that according to the theories reviewed, should promote learning, do not necessarily foster a higher demand for learning, with the exception of information technology. Finally, Also interesting is that employees demand more training if their engagement in informal learning is low.

This thesis examines the discursive construction of lifelong learning in Swedish, Australian and American policy. Lifelong learning has an aura of apparent self-evidence which this study wishes to challenge by deconstructing the normalised truths in contemporary lifelong learning policies. The thesis rests on a collection of four articles, written by the author within the framework of the PhD programme. Using foucauldian concepts of power/knowledge and governmentality, this study identifies a number of discursive stories about the present in terms of how the ideal society and its ideal citizens are envisioned. It shows that there are national differences in the usage of lifelong learning in terms of the meanings given to life, long and learning. Yet three stories also extend across the nations examined. First, learning is construed as work-related rather than a life-related. Secondly, the positive rhetoric of lifelong learning – the creation of ideal citizens – is accompanied by a parallel story of deviance, incompetence and failure. This leads to a third pervasive story of ‘medicalization’ where the deviant is pathologised as an undesirable other in need of treatment and correction by professionals who operate as the doctors and nurses of lifelong learning. Overall, the analysis suggests that as discourse, lifelong learning links the government of others and the government of the self.

The aim of this essay is trying to understand the ideological changing process over the last decades and the ideological meaning of the relatively new conception lifelong learning as well, and how it comes that the opportunities offered the individual pre-school child and the individual compulsory-school pupil to assimilate the so important learning, differs so dramatically all though the expressed ambition to offer each and every one equal opportunities. What are the ideological structures that are, and have been in function, that carries and have carried the perceptions of the use and value of fostering and education? In a time with the welfare ideology in a hegemonic position, it was seen important that the state took major responsibility for the education of the citizens. In our time, it appears, an economist ideology has taken the hegemonic position, and education is becoming an increasingly economic issue, and equality is decreasing along with, as in general society, the increasing of segregation within the educational system.

La riflessione teorica e l'applicazione empirica del costrutto di comunità di pratica costituiscono fondamentali elementi a supporto di un'idea di educazione che sia continua lungo tutto il corso della vita di un essere umano. La posizione teorica di fondo è caratterizzata dagli assunti secondo cui la conoscenza viene creata attraverso il confronto con altri e il conoscere è un fenomeno sociale in quanto situato in un contesto specifico, che nel medesimo tempo trasforma e viene trasformato. Le comunità di pratica si pongono come luogo privilegiato al cui interno avvengono processi condivisi di costruzione della conoscenza. Frutti della partecipazione a una comunità e benefici per ciascun membro sono da un lato proprio la condivisione dei saperi e delle pratiche, dall'altro la crescita personale. All'interno delle comunità di pratica la singola persona ha la possibilità di acquisire nuove conoscenze, ma soprattutto di rielaborare le proprie esperienze pregresse e le proprie relazioni. Le modalità relazionali presenti all'interno delle comunità di pratica esplicitano il passaggio da una modalità conflittuale a una modalità consensuale di lavoro. Il presente lavoro si pone l'obiettivo di sintetizzare la letteratura relativa alle comunità di pratica, partendo dalla prima teorizzazione da parte di J. Lave ed E. Wenger e proseguendo fino agli studi più recenti. Grazie alle proprie specifiche caratteristiche la comunità di pratica detiene un alto potenziale educativo: analizzandole in chiave pedagogica, infatti, le peculiarità della comunità di pratica permettono allo specialista di educazione degli adulti di supportare il training educativo e trarre benefici dal naturale processo della comunità stessa. / The theoretical and empirical reflections about communities of practice constitute fundamental elements to support the idea that education is a natural process throughout life of human beings. The main theoretical position is characterized by the assumption that knowledge is created through discussion and dialogue with others, and that knowing is a social and situated phenomenon. Communities of practice become centres where processes of sharing experiences and creating knowledge take place. Consequences of the participation to the community are both the creation of a common repertoire of experiences and the possibility for the single to acquire new competencies, as well as to discuss his¬/her story and relationships. The typical way of building relationships inside communities of practice makes explicit the shift from a conflictual typology of working to a consensual one. This dissertation aims to make a synthesis of literature on communities of practice, starting from their first theorization by J. Lave and E. Wenger up to most recent studies. Thanks to its own features, communities of practice show a high educative potential: In fact, through an analysis of them from the pedagogical point of view, communities' of practice peculiarities allow to the adult education researcher to support educational training.

Diese explorative, ethnographische Arbeit squizziert die historische Entwicklung der Senga-Rolle und -kommunikation bei den Baganda im 20. Jahrhundert. Die Senga ist bei den Baganda die Tante väterlicherseits, Bezugsperson und Beraterin in allen Lebensphasen ihrer Nichte in Bezug auf Sexualität, Weiblichkeit und heterosexuelle Beziehungen. Die soziale Rolle der Senga ist in diesem Sinne eine Strategie des lebenslangen Lernens. Die Senga-Rolle ist auch in anderen bantusprachigen Gesellschaften Ostafrikas bekannt. Das 20. Jahrhundert stand in Uganda unter dem starken Einfluss der Missionierung und Kolonisierung, für die Schriftsprache ein zentrales Element der Kommunikation war. Die Senga-Rolle hat sich im Zuge dessen stark ausdifferenziert: von einer rein familiären sozialen Rolle zu einem sektorübergreifenden sozialen Feld, insbesondere für Frauen, wobei Schriftsprache eine wichtige Rolle spielt.

Syftet med forskningsrapporten är att undersöka hur kvinnor över femtio år använder en universitetsutbildning i formandet av sin framtidsstrategi. För att besvara våra forskningsfrågor har vi genomfört både en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ undersökning. Den kvantitativa undersökningen utgjordes av en postenkät som sändes till 30 kvinnor vid Linköpings universitet. Den kvalitativa metoden bestod av tre intervjuer med slumpmässigt utvalda respondenter från enkäten. Slutsatserna är baserade på våra resultat från enkäterna och intervjuerna samt den litteratur vi valt med anknytning till rapporten. Litteraturen berör bland annat begreppet livslångt lärande, som genom sin koppling till både arbete och utbildning fått en central roll i rapporten som helhet. Resultaten visar att önskan om utveckling, både gällande den yrkesmässiga kompetensen och på det personliga planet, har varit viktiga faktorer för beslutet att påbörja studier. Kvinnornas syn på mål och möjligheter handlar om att främja personlig utveckling, där nya utmaningar eller möjligheten till andra arbetssätt kan öka livskvaliteten. Ytterligare en slutsats som vi dragit är att man studerar på högskolan för att få möjlighet att stärka sin position på arbetsmarknaden. / The purpose of this research report is to examine how women, 50 years old or more, use their university education in establishing their future strategy. To answer our research question both quantitative and qualitative surveys were made. The qualitative method consisted of a questionnaire sent out to 30 women at Linköping university. The qualitative method consisted of three interviews with randomly selected women from the formerly mentioned group of responders. The conclusions are based upon the results from the questionnaries and the interviews, as well as the literature chosen for this research report. The literature deals with concepts such as lifelong learning. Being closely related to both work and education, lifelong learning became a key role for this study as a whole. The results show that the urge for development, both regarding professional competence and that of a personal level, has been an important factor in the process to start studying. The women´s views on the objectives and possibilities are about fostering personal growth, where new challenges or the alternative way of working can enchance life quality. Another conclusion is that by studying at the university the number of work options is increased. Thus the women strengthen their position in the labour market.

The aim of this study is to put forth the relationship between the transformation of the labor market and the production process and the vocational education and training in Turkey. The Study will reflect the effects of transformation on the individual and society. The research is conducted through interviews with social partners. The study touches upon the reflection of the understanding of new vocationalism adopted in line with the flexibilisation in the organization of work on the vocational and technical education in Turkey. It tries to explain how this new educational approach is shaped on the basis of the main three discourses such as lifelong learning, employability and flexibility. Consequently, the research focuses on the idea that transformation of vocational education and training in Turkey has occurred at discursive level and also based upon the prevailing opinion on the necessity of developing human resources in compliance with the needs of the economy / that the transformation process. Contrary to expectations of the new vocational education and training system, it produces individual who feel themselves anxious and uncertain about the future, fear and feel in insecure, and accordingly, experiences deprivation and social exclusion.

The Swedish preschool-model interlaces care, nurturing and learning and is organised to solve twin functions; providing children a playbased learning-environment and enabling parents to combine parenthood with work. The model was developed within the social sector then incorporated into the educational system 1998. This shift and the model´s “unique characteristics” praised by OECD formed the point of departure for this study. The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the discussions and negotiations shaping the Swedish preschool-model during 1968-1998. The research questions address: discursive themes; actors involved; governmental intentions; claims about the preschool´s task, pedagogical content and the preschool´s institutional identity and relationship to the institutions: social service, school and family. The study utilized abductive textual analysis inspired by discourse analysis and narrative approaches. Main text sources are: official reports, bills, steering documents, the preschool teachers´ periodical 1968 -1998 and a media debate. The results illuminate preschool-teachers´ struggle for a pedagogical identity and the construction of the educareconcept as a flexible and pragmatic solution to several societal interests and values. Governmental intentions concerning equality, emancipation and democratization have had great influence on the process in combination with a recurring theme about a revised preschool pedagogy with a strengthened focus on children´s learning. Political efforts to foster a preschool for all in a future are identified and described as one of the main discursive themes. Different standpoints about earlier school start are analyzed.  The overall result is that the framework and core features of the model laid down by the National Commission on Child care still has a great impact on the launched syllabus (Lpfö) in the end of the period as on the curriculum in a broader sense.