This paper reports on the significance of social capital in relation to education, exploring its relevance to teachers and other professionals as well as among young people. It draws on aspects of five case studies undertaken by the Schools and Social Capital Network, within the Applied Educational Research Scheme in Scotland. These case studies focused on: an Inclusive Learning Network of teachers and parents of disabled children and young people concerned with inclusion; students from refugee families in one primary and one secondary school, working in association with Asylum Seekers Support Project units; young participants in a local authority youth club; independent (private) schools and a Get Ready for Work Programme. A framework for accounting for bonding, bridging and linking social capital as practices was developed and space was an emergent theme from these case studies.

This book of 10 chapters was produced as a result of a series of seminars held by the Hong Kong Institute of Education, particularly through its Elder Academy, supplemented by invited contributions from international scholars – the Academy commissioned ‘a series of critical reviews to evaluate the issues, policies, research and practices internationally in elderly learning and education’ (p. vii). The intent was to inform the Institute’s own development as well as provide advice to government in Hong Kong for future directions. The stated uniting theme for the contributions is ageing and learning. I approached the reading of this volume as an adult educator with a solid academic background in critical educational gerontology. The publication of Active Ageing, Active Learning coincided with the publication of my co-authored book with Marvin Formosa, University of Malta, on Lifelong Learning in Later Life (2011). The focus of the Boulton-Lewis and Tam publication is more restrictive in the sense that it understandably focuses on the issue of active ageing primarily in the Asian context. The majority of the authors are from neighbouring countries to Hong Kong and this concentration provides a rather unique assembly of papers on older adult learning from a different cultural context from western perspectives. In general, the writers are cognisant of western approaches (for example, John Field and Simon Biggs) but the attention is rightly placed on what elder learning looks like in the more local scene. Aside from the Introduction by Boulton-Lewis which provides an interpretation of what is to come, the book is divided into three parts, each with three chapters: Ageing Issues and Provisions for Learning; Research Methods on Ageing Issues; and Provision for Ageing in parts of Asia and Hong Kong. To a degree these subdivisions are artificial as there could have been other ways to categorise the nine contributions. Each chapter is stand-alone without reference to others so some topics and themes are repeated, as might be expected. This is a strength in the sense that a reader can acquire a different slant on an issue from different writers; however, it is occasionally annoying to have repetition. For example, both Ernest Chui (chapter 9 focusing on Chinese communities – China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore) and Maureen Tam (chapter 10 investigating elder learning in Hong Kong) cover similar ground on Hong Kong. Perhaps stronger cohesion could have been accomplished by the editors adding a reflective summative chapter at the end.

This chapter reports on the social capital processes in a Council supported Youth Club. The authors discuss how the connections among young people and volunteers in a youth club affect their opportunities to achieve their social, economic, and cultural needs. The results indicate that young people rely on the adult volunteers and council staff who attend the youth club for advice and role models and suggest that while the youth club connections were themselves fragile and not enduring, youth aspirations formed through family bonding social capital could be informed and supported by provision of information provided by bridging social capital accessed through the youth club.

Information literacy (IL), defined as the capacity to locate, evaluate and use information to create new knowledge, is a core adult life skill and an extension of the notion of functional literacy. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has identified information literacy as an essential capacity for participation in the knowledge economy and has included this construct as a strategic priority in the Information for All Programme (IFAP).To support this initiative UNESCO has commissioned research to consider whether a household survey could be used to identify the extent to which people in member states are information literate in all aspects of their life, including work and lifelong learning, and in relation to their personal well-being, and in their participation in civil society. United Nations agencies use surveys to provide indications of the extent to which various agreed objectives are being achieved. These include international surveys of education and of health and well-being. This paper reports on an investigation aimed at determining whether indicators of IL could be identified by secondary analysis of existing data collected in other household surveys.It was concluded that IL has unique elements that are not encompassed in the surveys that were examined.

3rd edition by Lyn Tett, Edinburgh, Dunedin Press, 2010, 136 pp., £14.99 (paperback), ISBN 13 9781906716103 In this third edition, there is a significant development, updating and reordering of the...

In most developed economies a substantial number of mature adults are not in employment for many and diverse reasons. Many have low prior educational attainments, low self-esteem and have been living in poverty. Most nations have initiated efforts to engage unemployed mature adults but in the main these have limited success. Most of these retraining programmes focus on numeracy, literacy and especially skills in using information technology. This chapter provides evidence for a more successful strategy. A reanalysis of data collected in Australia in 2003 has identified the crucial importance of recovering social identity and strengthening social capital as the prerequisites for successful re-entry to further education and employment. The conditions for success in designing initial re-entry programmes for adults are outlined.

Successful vocational learning outcomes depend on two factors. The first is the system itself and the way it is structured, how the system endorses and accredits skills, and the degree to which it includes and recognizes learner outcomes. The second, and perhaps the more important, is the quality and success of the learning that occurs during vocational learning experiences, whether those are formal or informal. Improving vocational learning outcomes requires us to develop an understanding of what research tells us about two aspects of the learning experience, namely what contributes to the nature and structure of the system, how well it caters to the needs of learners, industry and society, and what factors contribute to successful vocational learning. This chapter analyses the studies discussed in this book to illustrate the implications for practice and for theory. The analysis demonstrates that vocational learning is achieved by people who are enabled to access and use networks where information and skills are accessible. Formal TVET models that meet the challenges for future workforces will then recognize and connect to learners’ contexts and identities, while enabling them to develop, maintain and expand their vocational skills.

Paper presented to the Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA) conference held in the Royal George Hotel, Perth: 26-28 November, 2009.