UNESCO’s Utopia of Lifelong Learning: An Intellectual History

Description

With a focus on lifelong learning, this book examines the shifts that UNESCO’s educational concepts have undergone in reaction to historical pressures and dilemmas since the founding of the organization in 1945. The tensions between UNESCO’s humanistic worldview and the pressures placed on the organization have forced UNESCO to depart from its utopian vision of lifelong learning, while still claiming continuity. Elfert interprets the history of lifelong learning in UNESCO as part of a much bigger story of a struggle of ideologies between a humanistic-emancipatory and an economistic-technocratic worldview. With a close study of UNESCO’s two education flagship reports, the Faure and Delors reports, Elfert sheds light on the global impact of UNESCO’s professed humanistic goals and its shifting influence on lifelong learning around the world. Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements 1 Introduction 2 UNESCO’s Humanism: The Challenge of “Unity in Diversity” 3 UNESCO’s Early Years: Human Rights, High Hopes and Harsh Realities 4 Éducation Permanente and the “Crisis of Education” 5 Learning to Be: The Faure Report 6 The Delors Report and the 1990s 7 The Struggle of Ideologies Index