The second edition of the International Handbook of Lifelong Learning is extensive, innovative, and international in scope, remit and vision, inviting its readers to engage in a critical re-appraisal of the theme of "lifelong learning". It is a thorough-going, rigorous and scholarly work, with profound and wide-ranging implications for the future of educating institutions and agencies of all kinds in the conception, planning and delivery of lifelong learning initiatives. Lifelong learning requires a wholly new philosophy of learning, education and training, one that aims to facilitate a coherent set of links and pathways between work, school and education, and recognises the necessity for government to give incentives to industry and their employees so they can truly "invest" in lifelong learning. It is also a concept that is premised on the understanding of a learning society in which everyone, independent of race, creed or gender, is entitled to quality learning that is truly excellent.

This book recognises the need for profound changes in education and for goals that are critically important to education, economic advancement, and social involvement. To those concerned about the future of our society, our economy and educational provision, this book provides a richly illuminating basis for powerful debate. Drawing extensively on policy analyses, conceptual thinking and examples of informed and world-standard practice in lifelong learning endeavours in the field, both editors and authors seek to focus readers' attention on the many issues and decisions that must be addressed if lifelong learning is to become a reality for us all.

About the Author: DAVID ASPIN is Emeritus Professor of Education, School of Graduate Studies, and formerly Dean of the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia. Prior to this he was Professor of Philosophy of Education at King's College London and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Philosophy of Education in the Institute of Education, both in the University of London. With Judith Chapman he is co-author of the publication The School, the Community and Lifelong Learning (London: Cassell 1997) and, with Judith Chapman, Michael Hatton and Yukiko Sawano, co-editor of the International Handbook on Lifelong Learning (Dordrecht: Kluwer 2001). In 1999 he was awarded a Visiting Fellowship at the International Studies Center of the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Como, Italy; in 2004 was appointed a Visiting Professor at the Nottingham University. In 2007 he was elected a Visiting Fellow at St Edmund's College Cambridge. In 2006 he was editor of two volumes in the Springer Press "Lifelong Learning" series - Philosophical Perspectives on Lifelong Learning, and (with Judith Chapman) Values Education and Lifelong Learning. His current research centres on lifelong learning, principally its epistemological, mental and methodological aspects; and on values and values education, principally their normative conclusions and meta-ethical aspects. JUDITH D CHAPMAN AM is Professor of Education and formerly Dean of the Faculty of Education at Australian Catholic University. Judith was formerly Professor of Education Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) of the combined faculties of Economics, Commerce, Education and Law at the University of Western Australia and Director of the School Decision-making and Management Centre at Monash University in Australia. KAREN EVANS is Professor of Education ( Lifelong Learning) at the Institute of Education, University of London, where she was formerly Head of the School of Lifelong Education and International Development. Her main research interests are learning in life and work transitions, and learning in and through the workplace. Books include Improving Literacy at Work ( 2011); Learning, Work and Social Responsibility (2009); Improving Workplace Learning (2006); Reconnection: Countering Social Exclusion through Situated Learning (2004); Working to Learn (2002); Learning and Work in the Risk Society (2000). She was Editor of COMPARE, the journal of comparative and international education, between 2004 and 2009 and is currently a leading researcher in the Economic and Social Research Council's Research Centre (LLAKES) on Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies. She is an Academician of the UK Academy of Social Sciences. RICHARD G. BAGNALL is a Professor in Adult and Vocational Education and Dean (Research) for the Arts, Education and Law Academic Group at Griffith University, Australia. His scholarly work is in the social philosophy of adult and lifelong education, with particular emphasis on the ethics of educational theory, advocacy and policy. He has published over 100 books and papers in that field, including Cautionary Tales in the Ethics of Lifelong Learning Policy and Management: A Book of Fables (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2004), and Discovering Radical Contingency: Building a Postmodern Agenda in Adult Education (New York: Peter Lang, 1999). His teaching is centred on the philosophy of adult and lifelong learning. He has supervised to graduation the doctoral studies of over 25 doctoral and 30 research masters and honours degree candidates.