Welsh Journals

2. INDUSTRIAL SOUTH WALES: LEARNING SOCIETY PAST, PRESENT OR FUTURE? Gareth Rees, Stephen Gorard and Ralph Fevre INTRODUCTION The main purpose of this paper is to describe some of the results of a recently completed study of adult participation in learning in south Wales since 1890, and in doing so to bring these results to the attention of a wider audience in Wales. This is therefore a paper about a project, but it is also a paper about the choices people face. The study is focused regionally to allow a detailed knowledge of the actual opportunities for participation to underpin the analysis of choices. The study is not focused on one era, to allow the detection of trends in patterns of participation over time. In this way it is possible to consider claims that the UK is moving towards a 'learning society', in the light of evidence that, for some sections of society at least, participation in lifelong learning was fuller in the recent past. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY The development of an adequate social theory of the determinants of lifetime learning is a necessary condition of creating a 'learning society', however conceived. Rather than beginning with normative questions about what a learning society ought to constitute, the principal concerns here are with what the patterns of participation through the life-course actually are and how best to understand their determinants. This is important not only to strengthen the social science of this field, but also to provide a proper basis for the formulation of policy (cf. Coffield, 1997a). Previous analysis in this field has tended to isolate individuals from the social and economic contexts in which participation in learning takes place. In particular, a dominant interpretation of the determinants of