Bilder av bildning - och dess frånvaro i det politiska talet om ett livslångt lärande

Studying a sample of what has been written about the concepts Bildung and lifelong learning, we find little connection between the two. The term Bildung, mostly used in the hermeneutic tradition, is understood as an individual’s way of interpreting the world. The skills of interpretation create individual freedom and a potential to achieve communicative capacity, which is essential in developing a deliberative democracy. In contrast, with the term lifelong learning, which is mostly found in a political context, the perspective of individual freedom in the above-mentioned sense is put to one side infavour of individual adjustment to economic needs. This essay raises questions about the importance of understanding the concept of Bildung in aknowledge-based community.