Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

This paper critiques the concept of lifelong learning and its tendency to narrow our view of learning and education for older adults. Drawing on two academic traditions, the Anglo-American curriculum tradition and the German-Nordic Didaktik tradition, the paper shows how lifelong learning risks emphasising the learning process at the expense of educational content. To address this, I propose Didaktik theory as a fundamentally different approach to understanding education for seniors. Didaktik theory offers valuable theoretical insights into how older adults’ non-formal education develops. The paper illustrates that teachers’ opinions on older adults’ learning do not match the idea of lifelong learning.