UNESCOs Utopia of Lifelong Learning

With a focus on lifelong learning, this book examines the shifts that UNESCOs educational concepts have undergone in reaction to historical pressures and dilemmas since the founding of the organization in 1945. The tensions between UNESCOs humanistic worldview and the pressures placed on the organization have forced UNESCO to depart from its utopian vision of lifelong learning, while still claiming continuity. Elfert interprets the history of lifelong learning in UNESCO as part of a much bigger story of a struggle of ideologies between a humanistic-emancipatory and an economistic-technocratic worldview. With a close study of UNESCOs two education flagship reports, the Faure and Delors reports, Elfert sheds light on the global impact of UNESCOs professed humanistic goals and its shifting influence on lifelong learning around the world.