Lifelong learning was adopted as the guiding principle of the educational reform that took place in Hong Kong in 2000. This important educational agenda interested the author not only because of its position in many global and local education policies, but also because of the personal insights that she has gained throughout her years as a lifelong learner. Debates on lifelong learning in Hong Kong are dominated by economic imperatives and so the author's interest was to explore the topic from a humanistic perspective, informed broadly by interpretivism. Narrative inquiry was employed to gather the experiences of lifelong learning of four Chinese people in Hong Kong. The analysis of the narratives, together with her own reflexivity, enabled the author to identify the precursors to learners' commitment to engage in lifelong learning, i.e. the intrinsic motivation to personal growth and a close relationship between their learning and their personal life. There is a paucity of knowledge from the humanistic perspective in our understanding of lifelong learning. This study addresses this and underlines the importance of the learner's voice as a way of reflecting the influence of Confucian heritage culture (CHC) in her/his conceptualisation of lifelong learning. Problematising lifelong learning as an educational concept that has developed and flourished in Western contexts, such as the UK and Scandinavia, and been transferred somewhat uncritically to Hong Kong, the author indicates, using creative techniques, such as fictionalisation, how the narratives gathered shed light on understanding how lifelong learning manifests itself in Confucian cultures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:689599 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Crystal, Cheung Ching Ying |
| Publisher | University of Bristol |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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