ABSTRACT

This paper will argue that although EU lifelong learning policies claim to be geared towards the achievement of a European knowledge society, they in effect treat knowledge as a 'black box' and as a result formulate lifelong learning polices without any clear sense of what type of knowledge is required in a knowledge society/economy. It will argue that the reason for this black boxing of knowledge is the legacy of Carterisan though about the relation between mind and world in the two main literatures that have informed the educational debate about the knowledge economy: social theory (Bell, Castells) and mananagement theory (Gibbons et al. Nonaka and Takeuchi). This has resulted in knowledge being conceptualized as either 'science' or 'tacit' knowledge. The paper will explore the reason for this dualistic conception of knowledge by identifying the way in which the two worlds of knowledge manifests itself in the work of Bell, Castells, Gibbons et al. and Nonaka and Takeuchi, and it will identify the educational implications of taking the idea of the knowledge society/economy as a given. In contrast, the paper will argue that what is distinctive about the knowledge economy is that it is centred around 'epistemic cultures' and that these cultures require us to see the interdependence of, not the separation of, knowledge. On the basis of this argument it will: (i) argue for a more circumscribed definition of the knowledge economy based around the ability to mediate between different forms of knowledge; and (ii) identify the implications of this position for VET.