Researching the rhetoric of lifelong learning

In the analysis of polices for lifelong learning, the gap between the rhetoric and reality has become the focus for much debate and concern. Reality is compared with rhetoric and both are found wanting. In this paper, we argue that such critiques misconceive the significance of rhetoric and we outline the form a rhetorical analysis of lifelong learning policy could take. Using the UK government's 1998 Green Paper and 1999 White Paper on lifelong learning as illustrations, we suggest that rhetorical analysis helps to point to the politics of discourse that is at play in policy-making processes. This is a politics - often dismissed as spin-doctoring - with which we need to engage if our own attempts to develop lifelong learning are to be persuasive.