"Learning Lives: Learning, Identity and Agency in the Life Course" is a major, large-scale research project which aims to deepen understanding of the meaning and significance of formal and informal learning in the lives of adults, and aims to identify ways in which the learning of adults can be supported and enhanced. The project runs from June 2004 until January 2008.

Learning Lives is a major longitudinal study which aims to deepen understanding of the meaning and significance of formal and informal learning in the lives of adults. What makes the project relatively unique is not only its length (a data-collection period of almost three years) and size (about 750 hours of in-depth life-history interviews with a group of 120 adults aged between 25 and 85, plus analysis of data from the British Household Panel Survey, a national longitudinal survey), but also the fact that we combine retrospective life history research with ‘real time’ lifecourse research.

The main focus of Learning Lives is on the interrelationships between learning, identity and agency in the lifecourse. On the one hand, we seek to understand how identity (including one’s identity as a learner) and agency (the ability to exert control over one’s life) impact upon learning dispositions, practices and achievements. On the other hand, we seek to understand how different forms and practices of learning and different learning achievements impact upon individual identities (including learner identities), on individuals’ senses of agency, and on their actual capacity to exert control over their lives.

In order to do so, we examine the meaning, significance and impact of a range of formal, informal, tacit and incidental learning experiences from the perspectives of adult learners. More importantly, we do so against the background of their unfolding lives. We aim to understand, in other words, the transformations in learning dispositions, practices and achievements which have been triggered by changes in the life-course.

We are particularly interested in the ways in which adults respond to events in their lives and in the processes of learning involved in such responses. Such events may be structured transitions or they may be changes of a more incidental nature, including critical incidents, such as redeployment or illness. Many such events stimulate encounters with new formal and informal learning opportunities. They can also result in forms of tacit learning of which individuals sometimes only become aware (long) after the event. Learning also occurs, however, in relation to the routines of everyday life, where ‘turning points’ (Strauss) are not immediately discernible.