ABSTRACT

The editors approached the 40th anniversary of the International Journal of Lifelong Education as an opportunity to consider the field by exploring how a corpus of 1462 articles (the first 40 volumes of the journal) questioned and shaped the field. A subset of advisory board members and the editors gathered in 2021 in groups to analyse major topics. The records of the reading, analyses and discussions of these groups offer a unique snapshot of the field and the journal’s place in it. In this paper, the editors draw three topics from that work which delineate fundamental debates of lifelong education and reveal how the journal’s authors have contributed to them. The topics are: citizenship and its learning; learning in, through and for work; and widening participation and higher education. Comparing the works contributing to these topical areas indicates how the field is evolving. It becomes clear that research and theory in lifelong education should remain vigilant, critical and robust if the field is to continue as a site of hope for future citizens, workers and students, rather than appropriated as an object for measurement, calculation and deployment for relatively narrow, less-than-human interests.

摘要

编辑们迎接国际终身教育杂志创刊40周年通过探索 1462 篇文章的语料库（期刊的前 40 卷）如何质疑和塑造该领域，以此作为思考该领域的机会。一部分顾问委员会成员和编辑于 2021 年聚集在一起分析主要主题。这些小组的阅读、分析和讨论记录提供了该领域和期刊在其中的地位的独特快照。在这篇论文中，编辑们从该著作中提取了三个主题，描述了终身教育的基本辩论，并揭示了该期刊的作者是如何为这些辩论做出贡献的。主题是：公民身份及其学习；在工作中学习、通过工作学习和为工作学习；扩大参与和高等教育。比较对这些主题领域做出贡献的作品表明该领域是如何发展的。