Sociomaterial theories, including actor-network theory (ANT), materialist feminism and posthumanism, are sometimes argued to not be addressing or unable to address sufficiently the political and are therefore dismissed as irrelevant to educational research. Through an extended discussion of writers across the social sciences, this article seeks to…

Drawing upon the work of Foucault and Latour, this article reflects on 25 years of critique of competence-based education and its continuing strength as a way of framing education and training. Using an example from England, it rehearses the argument from Foucault that, despite its student-centred discourse, competence-based education can be…

This article represents four emergences through which to explore the significance of lifelong learning. Drawing in particular on complexity theory and actor-network theory, it seeks to develop an understanding of the reductions and emergences, and purifications and translations to which lifelong learning is subject. To do this, the article also…

Drawing on Foucault's notion of discourse, it is suggested that post-Fordism and globalization trends can be found in changing theories of distance education and open learning. Argues that notions of distance education are part of a trend towards uniformity under conditions of globalization, while those of open learning are part of a trend to…