Lifelong learning, young adults and the challenges of disadvantage in Europe

This edited book synthesises the outcomes of a three-year cross-institutional project, ENLIVEN, which engaged with original evidence and secondary data to examine the state and status of lifelong learning across the European Union. Using a wide range of concepts and methods – both qualitative and quantitative – the authors successfully showcase the individualised and complex nature of accessing and navigating learning in young adulthood. The book can be commended for its rigour and creativity in deploying di ﬀ erent methodological tools (e

of the studied contexts and maintaining a focus on research aims rather than being guided by methodological preferences.The chapters include sufficient rationales and evaluations of the methods chosen, providing the reader with an inspirational toolbox for further research in adult education.What is perhaps missing from this volume is a "map" or a comprehensive overview of methods used throughout the chapters.This would likely aid readers, particularly those interested in the project's design, in navigating the content more effectively.
Those reaching for the book hoping to read young individuals' stories and narrative evidence might find themselves asking for more.With Chapter 15 providing a commendable exception in the form of three detailed learning biography vignettes, the rest of the volume uses interview quotations and narrative data sparsely, limiting the reader's ability to understand how young adults themselves about their experiences of navigating lifelong learning.Nonetheless, as the book is only a synthesis of a larger body of academic and non-academic research outputs, readers interested in further evidence can use it as a starting point to explore other materials produced by the ENLIVEN team (e.g., ENLIVEN Project Consortium, 2020).Where the book's strength lies, however, is in its approach to policy evaluation and generation.The authors embark on a challenging task of finding "an approach which … provides a framework for providing 'penetrating' understanding of 'messiness and complexity', while delivering the simplicity and neatness which allow analysis to be applied in … a range of differing contexts" (p.21).To do so, they apply the policy trail methodology to map across spatial, sociopolitical, and economic landscapes how lifelong learning policy is shaped, applied, and contested by multiple actors (e.g., the "state", the learner, educators, trade unions, businesses).This innovative approach allows for the study of policy as a process rather than a stable entity.While the rationale for using policy trails is convincing, a broader evaluation of the method in the context of other approaches to studying policy in practice within educational scholarship (e.g., as proposed by Weaver-Hightower, 2014) would have enhanced the overall argument put forward.The authors do, however, engage well in investigating the contributions that policy-trails-generated data could have on policy making.To try and deliver "the simplicity and neatness", while recognising the tensions between policy trails and AI-aided tools, the authors attempt to develop an IDSS.In the book, they acknowledge their struggles with the limitations of the IDSS in cases, and those were plentiful, where answers are not straightforward and an individualised approach would be preferable.In light of these challenges, they see IDSSs as potentially powerful tools in the hands of practitioners and policy-makers, but only when used in conjunction with contextual information, not as a standardised approach.
Overall, the book effectively highlights the intricate nature of adult learning as embedded in individuals' ways of living and in social policy.It provides evidence for how participation in learning and motivation to access education differs across and within social groups and makes an important argument for shifting lifelong learning policy focus away from the language of "markets" to instead emphasise democracy, inclusion, and living fulfilling lives.This volume deserves a diverse and wide-ranging readership.It will be of value to educators interested in the broader context of lifelong learning in the EU and those seeking insight into the challenges and successes in curating individualised approaches, designing programmes, liaising at the institutional level, or interacting with policy.It is also a useful resource for educational researchersexperienced ones and those in trainingworking on proposals that aim to study various aspects of adult education.Full of impressive methodological tools, creative solutions, and compelling evidence, this book can serve as an important source of inspiration for innovative approaches and combining complementary methods.

Notes on contributor
Anna Gruszczyńska-Thompson is a Research Associate at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, UK.Her research in sociology of culture and migration focuses on young adults from immigrant backgrounds and the processes of navigating cultural heritage and self-identifications.
Dire Straitseducation reformsideology, vested interest and evidence by Montserrat Gomendio and José Ignacio Wert, Cambridge, Open Book Publishers, 2023, 331 pp., €27.59 (Paperback), ISBN 978-1-80064-930-9 The book's title captures the reader's attention to the tensions arising from ideologies and hidden interests.The book aims, from a comparative education policy perspective, to highlight how ideology and governance strongly orient education policies through facilitating or halting education reforms.The authors explore and analyse how ideology, defined as 'a form of political and conceptual orientation rooted in beliefs and values rather than evidence' (p.19), drives policymakers in education.
Education, from the authors' point of view, constitutes an arena for politics to shape, control, and operationalise its various systems.The reader is given a thorough examination of the intricate details that link policymaking, governance, and education.The book offers a detailed and coherent description and analysis of how ideologies and vested interests succeed in turning the curriculum into a battlefield, thus controlling the education sector and decisively impacting any education reforms.Two fundamental educational goals, quality and equity, are permeated by leftist and rightist ideological positions, thus reflecting an anchored ideological schism.To illustrate this point, the