London Review of Education

New Directions in Lifelong Learning

The 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals places quality education and lifelong learning (LLL) opportunities for all at the forefront of the international agenda for global transformation (UN General Assembly, 2015). In this context, LLL perspectives have become increasingly important in contemporary education studies. A key example of the influence of the international LLL agenda was the establishment of the Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Lifelong Learning: Policy and Management (MA LLL) in 2006. Through a consortium between the Danish School of Education (DPU), Aarhus University, the Institute of Education (IOE)(now a faculty of University College London), Universidad de Deusto (UD), Bilbao, and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE), University of Melbourne, the MA LLL became the first programme of its kind aimed at enhancing global education perspectives and addressing the rapid transformation of LLL policies and practices across a wide range of organizational contexts (Blakemore and Lloyd, 2010).

From 2015 to 2017, the guest editors for this feature formed part of the final cohort of MA LLL students travelling and studying in multiple countries. Inspired by their transnational experiences, they wanted to draw attention to the widely different professional trajectories and research that former MA LLL graduates are involved in and provide evidence of how joint schemes like this can be a platform to emerging scholars around the world. For this special feature, the editors invited contributions from established and emerging researchers with links to the MA LLL to submit articles reflecting the highest quality research carried out during their studies or upon completion of the programme.

Lifelong learning encompasses many themes and areas of research and the articles in this feature represent a sample of the wide range of debates, issues and innovative practices in lifelong learning in the contexts of India, Ethiopia and two Latin American countries. The diverse themes addressed here are a testament to the international dimension of the MA LLL programme.

Publication date: 1 November 2019. Volume 17, Issue 3.

Guest Editors

Lorena Sanchez Tyson, PhD candidate, UCL Institute of Education, UCL, UK.
Valerie Watson Vega, PhD candidate, UCL Institute of Education, UCL, UK.