Candlestick and faces: Aspects of lifelong learning

This paper suggests that the UK government's current view of lifelong learning is shaped by an ‘economistic’ discourse that emphasises the development of human capital. The view is likened to the ‘candlestick’ of a familiar Figure/Ground diagram. The paper provides a reminder of the diagram's ‘faces’ aspect: of lifelong learning in the context of community rather than employment. It includes an abridged version of a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis undertaken as part of a study of the implementation and development of a community education policy. This highlights a number of local and practical problems but indicates some of the ways in which social capital may be generated within the framework of local communities.