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.
Creative Common licence CC-BY-SA