Towards the Political Economy Perspective on Lifelong Learning in Globalization

Abstract

Generally, the political economy perspective is considered as an old theory to understand lifelong learning in the current society. However, with increased situation of globalization, the political economy perspective can still provide systematic and analytic theoretical lens to the lifelong learning. Based on this belief, this paper investigates three topics: (1) What is the meaning of globalization and the fundamental driving force of it, (2) How the political economy perspective understands and analyzes lifelong learning in globalization and (3) What implications of political-economy perspective to lifelong learning are. This paper largely consists of two parts. The first part critically reviews diverse perspectives on the globalization and investigates what is the strength of the political economy perspective in understanding the globalization. The second part gives the more focus on the analysis of lifelong learning in globalization from the political economy perspective and the implications of it to the development of theoretical and practical dimension of lifelong learning.