ABSTRACT

The literature on educational choices and participation has tended to focus on youth and to some extent on older adults, with little attention to the group in between. This paper therefore analyses participation in various types of learning by people in their 30s and 40s. This group are often juggling career and family life commitments meaning that there are substantial barriers and time constraints on learning participation. We draw on large-scale quantitative longitudinal data for Britain to examine the trajectory of engagement with learning using latent class analysis to identify patterns in the data and regression modelling to investigate explanatory factors. We show that both highest qualification reached by their early 30s and participation in learning activities of some kind in young adulthood are key antecedent factors predicting higher chances of participating in learning in mid-life. The research confirms the importance of cumulative processes in learning as in other aspects of the lifecourse.

摘要

关于教育选择和参与的文献往往侧重于青年，并在一定程度上侧重于老年人，很少关注介于两者之间的群体。因此，本文分析了 30 多岁和 40 多岁的人参与各种类型的学习。这个群体经常兼顾事业和家庭生活，这意味着学习参与存在巨大的障碍和时间限制。我们利用英国的大规模定量纵向数据来检查参与学习的轨迹，使用潜在类别分析来识别数据中的模式，并使用回归模型来研究解释因素。我们表明，在 30 岁出头时达到的最高学历和在年轻时参与某种学习活动是预测中年参与学习机会更高的关键先行因素。该研究证实了累积过程在学习中的重要性，就像在生命过程的其他方面一样。