Re-reading the 1972 Faure report as a policy repertoire: Advocacy of lifelong education as recurrent education with neoliberal tendencies

Abstract

This paper explores transnational circulation during the early 1970s of lifelong education and recurrent education as ‘policy repertoires’ addressing redistribution of participation in organised (adult) learning throughout life. Focused on a re-reading of UNESCO’s 1972 report on lifelong education, the paper offers a critical analysis of the Faure Commission’s ‘position-taking’ with regard to its understanding of recurrent education as a policy repertoire. Frequently cited differences between the Commission’s policy recommendations for lifelong education and its position-taking regarding recurrent education are shown to have fragile empirical foundations. This paper argues that Faure’s report explicitly appropriated and openly incorporated arguments favouring recurrent education in its own policy recommendations for lifelong education. Mainstream interpretations of the Faure report are subsequently subjected to a critical analysis of putative neoliberal tendencies articulated by the Faure Commission’s own report. Key areas for further social-historical research regarding policy repertoires in the 1970s are identified.