Lifelong Citizenship

Book excerpt: As citizenship is lifelong and life-wide, the function of adult education is crucial to enable individual members of society to continue learning and improving their skills in the face of changing democratic societies. In recognition of the need to adjust higher education to democratic societies’ needs, this book focuses on examples of educational practices concerned with developing the necessary lifelong learning skills for democratic citizenship in the information era, with an emphasis on teacher education. The practices presented in this book primarily address the integration of lifelong learning skills with democratic citizenship skills, encapsulated in the concept of ‘lifelong citizenship’. This concept denotes the up-to-date skills required from a citizen in modern-day democracies along four key dimensions: (1) personal wellbeing, (2) digital literacy, (3) learning to learn by experience and practice, and (4) social cohesion and justice. This volume provides a valuable updated reference book for pedagogical and research purposes for a wide audience of students, teachers, policy-makers, curriculum designers, and teacher educators who deal with promoting lifelong learning, as well as for those who are interested in fostering capacity building initiatives in higher education to adapt teaching-learning-assessment processes to meet the lifelong citizenship dimensions.