Lifelong learning and higher education in Europe 1995–2011: widening and/or narrowing access?

This introductory paper sets out the central themes and main argument of papers within this special issue, which focuses on the contribution of higher education to the European Union’s agenda on lifelong learning. The focus on lifelong learning in Europe coincided with the resurgence of capitalism in post-socialist European states in eastern and central Europe and the rapid enlargement of the EU in the mid-1990s. This period of European expansion and growth was followed from 2007 onwards by an ongoing financial crisis, prompting a rolling back of the state in most European countries. The papers in this special issue examine the role played by higher education in facilitating social mobility for some groups, whilst also, somewhat paradoxically, facilitating the reproduction of existing economic inequalities.