Tarja Tikkanen and Barry Nyhan (editors)

Cedefop 2006, 270 pp.
Cat. No. TI-73-05-251-EN-C
Charge: EUR 25

This book addresses the issue of older workers from a lifelong learning perspective. The main focus is on European approaches and experiences, but the European perspective is also placed in a wider international context thanks to contributions from Australia, Japan and the US.

The central message is that policy changes are crucial in the following three areas: creating new attitudes to ageing and learning at work; building inclusive, supportive, learning-oriented workplaces for people as they grow older; and creating partnerships throughout society to address the demographic challenge.

Topics include the impact of workplace practices on older workers’ learning, the views of older employees on work and learning (including personal reflections) and critical perspectives on policy and practice.

Table of contents

Executive summary 3 [Full text of executive summary]
Preface  4
Contributors  7
Chapter 1. Introduction: promoting age-friendly work and learning policies - Tarja Tikkanen and Barry Nyhan 9

Part I: Older workers and lifelong learning: current state of play
Chapter 2. The lifelong learning debate and older workers - Tarja Tikkanen 18
Chapter 3. New policy thinking on the relationship between age, work and learning - Barry Nyhan 48

Part II: Overview of the situation: Europe and beyond
Chapter 4. Review of European and international statistics - Pascaline Descy 68
Chapter 5. The situation in Japan - Toshio Ohsako and Yukiko Sawano 90

Part III: Views of older employees on work and learning
Chapter 6. Employees’ conceptions of age, experience and competence - Susanna Paloniemi 108
Chapter 7. Work attitudes and values of older US public service employees - Renée S. Fredericksen 123
Chapter 8. Company policies to integrate older male workers in Denmark - Leif Emil Hansen and Tom Nielsen 140

Part IV: Personal reflections of older learners
Chapter 9. Taking a higher education degree as a mature student: a personal story - Titane Delaey 148
Chapter 10. From steelworker to nurse: the story of Carl - Hanne Randle 155

Part V: Theoretical and critical perspectives on policies and practice
Chapter 11. Identification with work: inhibition or resource for learning? -  Henning Salling Olesen 164
Chapter 12. Older workers and learning through work: the need for agency and critical reflection - Stephen Billett and Marianne van Woerkom 177
Chapter 13. Lifelong learning funding policies for older workers in the Netherlands: a critical review - Barry J. Hake 190

Part VI: Impact of workplace practices on older workers’ learning
Chapter 14. Building workplaces in line with the ageing process - Bernd Dworschak, Hartmut Buck and Alexander Schletz 208
Chapter 15. Learning in a restructured industrial environment: older workers ‘displaced’ from the British steel sector - Mark Stuart and Robert Perrett 224
Chapter 16. The impact of a learning incentive measure on older workers - Albert Renkema and Max van der Kamp 240
Chapter 17. Older workers’ learning in changing workplace contexts: barriers and opportunities - Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin 257
 

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