Adult education and reflexive activation : prioritising recognition , respect , dignity and capital accumulation

The economic crisis that emerged in 2008 put great stress on the so-called European project. The economic downturn put additional pressure on economically and educationally marginalised populations, who continue to experience high levels of unemployment and lower levels of access to societal goods. Activation is seen as one of the main strategies to combat unemployment. The EU also recognises a systemic shift in the nature of work, such that individuals will have several transitions between work and education during their careers. This is a significant societal level challenge that will likely pose greater stress on groups and individuals that are marginalised socially, educationally and economically. To deliver better long-term outcome it is necessary to adopt reflexive activation approaches. Reflexive activation is one in which unemployed people actively co-design the proposed resolutions. It is also embedded in a societal context. It is cognisant of citizenship, autonomy and human rights and leans towards traditional adult education values. The model of reflexive activation explored here is infused with understandings emerging from Schuller’s three types of capital and theories of recognition, respect and dignity developed by Honneth and others.


Introduction
Europe went into a deep economic crisis in 2008.That crisis challenged the viability of the European Union, the Euro currency and went to the very heart of the meaning of Europe.It challenged the fundamental principles of the political community, which evolved from the French Revolution.It also challenged notions of solidarity, which were expressed in the welfare state models of the 20 th century and sat at the heart of the raison d'être of the EU itself.It presented both the EU as an entity and the European way of life with an existential dilemma.Labour force activation is still seen as a key strategic response to this crisis.Activation policies have both individual and collective impacts and intersect with traditional views of adult education.Warner Weil, Wildemeersch and Jansen (2005) in developing their model of reflexive activation present an alternative paradigm in which the individual is more concretely engaged in identifying activation strategies.This has the potential of delivering better outcomes for the individual and meeting policy outcomes of increased employment in a more sustainable way.It also endorses the foundational principles of the European way of life, which is premised on citizenship, a citizen being a member of a political community endowed with rights and responsibilities and not a 'beneficiary' or indeed a customer.Two additional theoretical frameworks can help expand the reflexive activation model: Honneth's theory of recognition, expanding the concept of citizenship and Schuller's dynamic concept of three capitals.This latter model captures both the personal accumulation of types of capital that improve the quality of life and the capacity of individual actors, but also indicates the wider societal good of such accumulation.Reference to social networking theory will bring out some additional insights vis-à-vis socio-economically disadvantaged communities.
Adult education covers a diverse landscape, while labour force activation is a small part of the spectrum; it exhibits a strong utilitarian orientation that runs against a more holistic sense of lifelong learning that benefits both the individual and society.Activation policies are developed in the ideological shift towards neo-liberalism since the 1980s, including the so-called 'Third Way'.The policies often conflict with traditional adult education values like autonomy and self-direction, as they can be conceptually restrictive and include compulsion and sanction.Reflexive activation attempts to balance the educational, social and economic needs of the individual and the wider community.
Those most likely to encounter activation policies are younger adults (because of the persistence of high levels of unemployment in that cohort) and those from marginalised communities that continue to experience high levels of unemployment and lower levels of access to societal goods.The discussion here is contextualised against European wide metrics on educational attainment, participation and targets set for 2020 and a dramatic changes in working-life cycles.European policy advocates what is termed flexicurity (flexibility and security) in which individuals enter and leave both work and education several times in their lives.Such a model will be under its most significant challenge when dealing with those that are already socially and educationally disadvantaged, the people that currently disproportionately encounter activation policies.A reflexive model of activation can directly benefit these groups and deliver positive social, economic and political dividends.

The contemporary labour market
Arjona Perez, Garrouste, & Kozovska (2010) identify a complex cocktail of factors at play in the contemporary labour market one feature of which is 'temporality,' which makes 'multiple transitions a very common situation ' (p. 22).These transitions can be within employment, from employment to unemployment, from employment to education, from unemployment to education, from education to employment and so on.The indications are that these will become more rather than less challenging for individuals, for the maintenance of cohesive citizen based societies and for social, economic and environmental sustainability.In this climate certain populations (e.g., recent immigrants), people in low skill employment and women are particularly vulnerable.Arjona Perez, Garrouste, & Kozovska (2010) claim this requires 'flexible learning pathways so that people can transit from employment to education and vice versa ' (p. 22).The need for the capacity to make these transitions is also a view echoed by the OECD (2013a): 'programmes for adults with poor literacy and numeracy skills and limited familiarity with ICTs may provide considerable economic and social returns for individuals and society a whole ' (p. 224).
The Strategic Framework for European Cooperation in Education and Training ('ET 2020') has set a Europe wide target of 15% participation in adult learning by 25-64 year olds by 2020.Achieving these targets is not just about education and skill acquisition, it is also about participation in the good life, however that may be conceptualised.Attempting to pin down a single definition of the good life is futile.Brennan (2009) says '[a] discursively redeemable concept of the good life is incompatible with late modernity... given far reaching differences in values, worldviews and forms of life' (p.33f).The task is not to define, but to recognise that each individual has a right to pursue a good life, within the context of wider societal imperatives.It sits at the heart of the later discussion on the distinction between restrictive and reflexive activation.One offers an imposed version of the good life the other offers a communicative process for its pursuit.What can be said with greater certainty is that proficiency in literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technologyrich environments is positively associated with other aspects of wellbeing.In all countries, individuals who score at lower levels of proficiency on the literacy scale are more likely than those with higher levels of proficiency to report poor health, believe that they have little impact on the political process, and are less likely to participate in associative or volunteer activities.In most countries, individuals with lower proficiency are also more likely than those with higher proficiency to have low levels of trust in others (OECD 2013a) The evidence suggests that many adults have lower levels of proficiency in key educational areas that inhibit their full participation in society and militate against their prospects in the jobs market.
Denmark, Sweden and Finland stood out from the other EU-27 Member States 1 as they reported considerably higher proportions of their respective populations participating in lifelong learning, ranging between one fifth and one third; the Netherlands, Slovenia and the United Kingdom were the only other Member States where the participation rate in 2011 already exceeded the 15 % target (EUROSTAT, 2013).

Activation and flexicurity
Arjona Perez, Garrouste, & Kozovska (2010) list the following challenges as being critical for an individual's prospects of securing a place in the workforce: Socioeconomic factors, demographic factors, personal attributes, human capital, qualitative matching, quantitative matching and search process.Qualitative matching refers to the individual's fit for a specific job, while quantitative matching is about the number of jobs vis-à-vis the number of those seeking those jobs.They cite the value of education and training systems in helping people navigate through this list of challenges.The European Union and its members states have been grappling with these sorts of realities as they strive to bring Europe into a new era of 'flexicurity,' a framework that attempts to balance the need to make 'labour markets, employment and work organisation more flexible' (Wilthagen 2004, p.166), while at the same time retaining the European way of life, which is bed rocked by citizenship, social cohesion and solidarity.This is especially challenging when it comes to the more vulnerable citizens who are likely to experience greater periods of unemployment, poorer contractual conditions, less security and greater barriers to re-entry to both paid employment and indeed education.Labour force activation policies have been designed and implemented to help address these challenges, however these policies are not necessarily positive nor even neutral, which is a key challenge that this paper addresses.
McGuinness, O'Connell, Kelly, & Walsh (2011) give a list of good reasons for labour force activation, among which are to keep people active in the labour force, increase employability, reduce long-term unemployment and to reduce the burden on the economy.They also point to the negative impacts of unemployment, the barriers incurred through long-term unemployment and some of the root causes of unemployment.These include a well-articulated set of factors like social exclusion, poorer health profiles, difficulties of getting back into work even in times of high employment due to poor, eroded or out dated skills and education.There is nothing new in this, so it's really a matter of what activation might look like and whether this is a full and complete picture from a sociological perspective.Warner Weil, Wildemeerch & Jansen (2010) address the potential objectives of activation, which could be plotted on a continuum, edging from being 'predominantly connected to labour market participation...[to] a broader orientation towards different kinds of participation in society ' (p.196).In their research they found a number of activation approaches, which at one end contained pressures to 'discipline the participants' and at the other end ones that encapsulated 'informing and helping' strategies.They categorise these two poles as 'duties of the beneficiaries'.The other focuses on the 'right of the beneficiary'.Their assessment of the activation models they encountered is somewhat negative 'we fear that activation as currently understood and practiced will have mainly disciplining rather than empowering effects' (p.208).
McGuinness, O'Connell, Kelly, & Walsh (2011) tend towards endorsing the views expressed in the OECD report Activation Policies in Ireland by Grubb, Singh, & Tergeist (2009).Activation Policies in Ireland makes recommendations that 'activation requirements for the unemployed should be greatly intensified' (p.129), and move from a quasi-compulsory model to 'a more coercive approach', and adopt measures like making unemployment benefit 'conditional on participation', in job seeking programmes and 'more concrete checks on willingness to apply for and accept jobs that the employment service is able to propose' (p.134).Grubb, Singh, & Tergeist (2009) place heavy emphasis on a paternalistic and 'restrictive activation' approach: 'Even if this training provision is not particularly successful... it is probably successful in terms of using unemployment spells productively ' (p.136).It also commends the outsourcing of delivery of these sorts of approaches in which contractors are incentivised quantitatively for placing people in work rather than qualitatively in terms of the successful match and sustainability of the placement.The proposals seem pragmatic at face value, but they also hollow out the concepts of citizenship on which most western democracies are founded and on which flexicurity relies.

Three activation approaches
The potential for an activation policy to impart positive long-term benefits in line with the objectives of flexicurity depends to a major extent on its underlying rationale and objectives.In broad terms activation could be classified as 'restrictive activation', 'neutral activation', or 'reflexive activation'.This paper advocates 'reflexive activation' as it has much greater potential to deliver positive outcomes for individuals in terms of their capacity to participate in the labour force, but more importantly to live full lives as active citizens and members of vibrant communities.The European Training Foundation (ETF) puts forward a definition of activation, which could be classified as neutral activation.This definition sees activation as 'mutually supporting policies formulated to increase the capabilities and motivation of unemployed people... to participate in active labour market measures and to search actively for a job' (ETF 2011).It also extends its understanding of the policy as one aimed at enhancing inclusion and reducing poverty, which is very much in line with the objectives of flexicurity.By contrast, restrictive activation is a broad mix of policies that shift the emphasis away from mutuality and towards a more coercive approach to activation.Models, tends to be top-down, they normally include sanctions for non-compliance such as loss of benefits.They are oriented to direct the citizen towards courses.They are not well attuned to recognising the person's specific context, qualifications and the suitability, terms and conditions of the work proposed.They reduce personal autonomy and assume that unemployment is primarily caused by lack of motivation on the part of the unemployed person.
Activation is an exemplar of the classic dilemma for proponent of the 'Third Way', fitting between the ideological orientation of liberalism which emphasises autonomy and the free market and social democracy which emphasises social solidarity and a more collectivist understanding of the political community.The discussion by Warner Weil, Wildemeersch and Jansen (2010) really brings this to the fore in the almost competing pulls of social and labour activation.While liberalism is oriented towards autonomy of the individual, it is weak on social solidarity, by contrast social democracy, is strong on solidarity and relatively weaker on autonomy.Reflexive activation challenges both ideologies and in fact reverses the traditional orientation of both by emphasising both autonomy and social solidarity.If we map this onto Eysenck's (1964) typology of ideology we get a sense of how it challenges, what might be seen as the competing ideological pulls on the 'Third Way', which attempts to meet the demands of liberal self-determination through the requirement for recipients of welfare to prove their rights, which contradicts the universalistic social democratic approach.On the other side the idea of welfare contradicts the model of autonomous actors in free-markets espoused by neo-liberalism.In many ways activation represents the core contradiction inherent to the 'Third Way', it seeks to secure both strong social solidarity and a free-market ethos, the competing interests we could say of socialism and free-market capitalism and at the same time the two ends of Eysenck's vertical axis, being authoritarian in terms of compulsion to adhere to a strict regime which includes sanctions for non-compliance and simultaneously attempts to promote an entrepreneurial ethic that depends of high levels of autonomy (Eysenck, 1964, figure 6 and Figure 10, pp. 281-303).
The model of reflexive activation that is proposed here draws on a model developed by Warner Weil, Wildemeerch & Jansen (2010).It is about the providers of social services, unemployed people and (community) educators setting goals together on the basis of mutual trust, dignity and equality.This model would lead to positive overall results, including gains in employability and stable employment.This model calls on individual's inventiveness, perseverance and courage to open up new forms of dialogue and practice relating to educational, social and economic participation (c.f.O'Sullivan, Ó Tuama & Denayer, 2015).Schuller's model of capital accumulation projects a very different perspective on activation, though ostensibly using very similar components.Warner Weil, Wildemeerch & Jansen (2010) refer to the extent to which 'identity issues' (which is connected to identity capital) and 'employment issues' (which relates to human capital) are part of the discourse around activation, though in a problematizing way, while they found little reference to social capital (p.204f).Reflexive activation needs to address all three spheres of capital.Additionally theories of recognition and respect (developed by Honneth and others) are also critical as they underpin civil society and make possible the accumulation and maintenance of all three capitals.
Three types of capital Schuller (2010), in the report Learning Through Life: Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, highlights the intrinsic value of education for individuals using a concept of three capitals: '… forms of assets which have value for individuals and for society: human capital, social capital and identity capital' (p.110).Human capital refers to the sorts of skills, knowledge and learning that individuals can use in the job market, but of course they can also deploy them in their personal and community lives.Social capital is about the networks in which an individual participates.
Schuller's (2010) model is a sort of triangle in which the sides are both mutually dependent and mutually supportive.An effective actor needs the social networks generated through social capital to maximise access to a whole range of social goods including jobs.Actors need the types of social skills at the nexus of social and identity capital that enable them to be effective in society.They need the skills and qualifications that are part of their human capital, to perform in the contexts enabled by social and identity capital.They need the identity capital that not only gives them the self-esteem necessary to build the other two capitals, but equally derives from the accumulation of capital in the other two spheres (p.110f).
While social capital is generated in all aspects of life, it can be enhanced through education, thus bringing direct benefit to the individual as a social actor and to the wider community in which she or he participates.Although an individual may have strong social capital within her or his existing circle, education both expands those networks and allows the person to play enhanced roles within existing ones.Key aspects of social capital like mutual trust, the confidence to take risks, to develop new links and overcome real and perceived barriers are also enhanced through the accumulation of identity capital.
There are many and perhaps somewhat conflicting definitions of social capital.In the educational sphere Stanton-Salazar (2011) defines it 'as consisting of resources and key forms of social support embedded in one's network or associations, and accessible through direct or indirect ties with institutional agents' (p.1067).He places significant emphasis on an institutional agent as a key factor in how social capital works to benefit someone in a disadvantaged community or context.An institutional agent is a person 'who occupies one or more hierarchical positions of relatively high-status and authority' (Ibid.).Stanton-Salazar is primarily addressing the context of marginalised youth.However it is very often the failures of the educational system that young people encounter that in turn presents generations of adults whose educational attainments are deficient for full participation in the economic, social and cultural life of the wider society.In order to overcome the barriers that exist both through socialization and structural factors he contends that individuals need to leverage 'instrumental relationships with high-status, non-kin, institutional agents who occupy relatively high positions in the multiple dimensional stratification system, and who are well positioned to provide key forms of social and institutional support' (p.1075f).This theme is equally applicable to adult learners as it is to young people in high school.
In cohort contexts the engagement between adult learners can be a catalyst that helps make the social networks of each individual more positively oriented to the positive potential of education.This can have significant worth for the individual in terms of building confidence and motivation to stick with education and to envisage its potential to open doors to a better quality of life.It also expands to their kin networks, for instance influencing their adolescent children to stay in education and to perceive it in a more positive light, which is echoed by the experiences of the women interviewed for Breaking the Barriers (O'Sullivan, Ó Tuama & Denayer; 2016).In addition it gives them access to the types of institutional agents envisaged by Stanton-Salazar (2011).Lin (1999) suggested that the simple premise of social capital is 'investment in social relations with expected returns ' (p.30).Not all social networking has this high level of utilitarian intent, though some is clearly intentional, instrumental and pragmatic.Some accumulation of social capital is purely circumstantial.Lin identifies three social capital gains that emerge from investing in social networks.The first is a better flow of information that could lead to 'useful information about opportunities and choices otherwise not available' (p.31); secondly it opens the possibility to leverage the support of a well-placed institutional actor in some important transaction like seeking a job; the third is a sort of validation of a person's social credentials or a reinforcement of identity and recognition (identity capital).Granovetter (1983) offers a good pointer to one root cause of the social, educational and economic factors that militate against people who live in disadvantaged communities enjoying mobility opportunities by focusing on social networks and specifically strong and weak social networks.Many disadvantaged communities have vibrant clusters of strong social networks and contrary to many assumptions about such deprived areas, the weak social networks are often quite robust too.What is critical from Granovetter's analysis is that they are to some extent isolated from wider networks.
For people within a neighbourhood to accumulate the sort of social capital they need to be better positioned to avail of their human capital they need an extension of their weak social networks past the neighbourhood boundaries.Adult education can help achieve this by gestating new weak social networks, leading to new links inside the neighbourhood, but also building bridges to external social networks.Granovetter (1983) argues that developing weak social networks forces the individual to think about the wider world in a different way, in a sense to break down the provinciality of thinking that exists within any tightly networked group.This process leads to greater potential for creativity and flexibility.At a second level he sees the wider reach of weak networks as giving rise to social capital that can lead to tangible opportunities like job opportunities for the simple reason that those closest to us share a great deal in common with us, while those at a further remove have access to different information and contacts (205).This trajectory is a critical positive benefit of adult education and a necessary ingredient of a reflexive activation approach as it not only brings students in contact with new knowledge, skills and perceptions, but it also widens their social networks and especially brings them past the neighbourhood boundary.Resilient communities need active, but weak, internal social networks, but they also need linkages to wider social networks, otherwise they end up creating inward looking, insecure communities and individuals who lack the confidence to take risks and opportunities in unfamiliar domains.
Identity capital is about the individual's self-esteem and dignity as a member of a community.This type of capital can be greatly enhanced through adult education, making the individual both a more self-aware and active contributor to the community.For the accumulation of identity capital recognition is absolutely essential.In turn identity capital is critical for an individual's capacity to build both social capital and human capital.While Schuller points out that they are interdependent, identity capital is an essential foundation on which the other two can be built, and in turn identity capital is reliant on recognition.
For all educators, no matter what the context, an understanding of the key roles recognition, respect and dignity play in the shaping of our identity and our capacity to fully participate as members of society is crucial.It may be even more critical in the field of adult education as very many people who engage with education as adults have had previously bad experiences.So rather than being second chance education, it could also be a last chance.Identity capital is a sort of lingua franca, without which it is futile to begin to talk about both social capital and human capital in a meaningful transformative way.This is essential to understanding the importance of reflexive labour force activation.Many of the factors that inhibit people entering the workforce, progressing in education and acquiring the competencies required to deal with flexicurity are embedded in low levels of identity capital.
The context in which labour force activation is being implemented is one where identity has become a central project in each individual's world.In their research Warner Weil, Wildemeerch & Jansen (2005) found that identity was a significant aspect of activation in practice.However, this was being shaped by what they term 'economicization' and the 'discourse of deficiency ' (p.200f).The macro context is well described by Honneth ( 2004): [... ], within the space of only two decades a marked individualisation of ways of life took place: members of Western societies were compelled, urged, or encouraged, for the sake of their own future, to place their very selves at the centre of their own life-planning and practice.(p.469) Driving the change described by Honneth were new educational opportunities, the breakdown of old career trajectories, the loosening of social mores, new opportunities for leisure, increases in wealth and mobility.These changes place much greater emphasis on the individual to succeed according to a personally plotted roadmap, but also each person is in constant comparison with other individuals' achievements.For those who are currently unemployed and for whom the formal education system has failed, then the new autonomies present opportunities but also elevated challenges as they are very much at the centre of the process of rebuilding their identities and their lives.These challenges may be even steeper in a context of lower levels of societal solidarity and the absences of the sort of traditional makers which previous generations were able to call upon.Heaped on this is Warner Weil, Wildemeerch & Jansen's 'discourse of deficiency', which labels certain groups with an identity of failure.
A reflexive model that allows both individuals and marginalized groups generate a positive identity project is a strong counter weight to a discourse of deficiency that assumes inter-generational failure and invokes the need for sanctions as a corrective measure.Additionally a clear understanding of recognition (in Honneth's terms) is necessary in order to create the conditions for an alternative perspective of identity and identity capital.
There are many thousands of Europeans who are currently unemployed who do not have the self-confidence, the education and skills to find sustainable careers.A society in which some have a high level of autonomy to plot their destinies, while others have less autonomy are much more vulnerable economically, socially and psychologically does not add up to a fair and free society.It is therefore important that we re-examine the paradigm of labour activation.Some unemployed people need investment in their human capital through training and education; others need not only help with their human capital, but also with their social capital in order to leverage their education and training; others still need investment in their identity capital so that they can begin to accumulate the social and human capital they need to create new opportunities.
While work is not the answer to everything it can play a key role in terms of achieving human fulfilment and happiness.Hinchliffe (2004) offers a really useful discussion on the broader role of work in human flourishing.He claims that by understanding that work, however we define it, can have 'an ethical dimension as well as a technical one' (p.536) that takes the individual beyond personal satisfaction then it can be a real part in human flourishing.There is little question that on a number of fronts work can enhance an individual's experience of life, it can bring income, personal satisfaction, the expression of technique and in Hinchliffe's terms contribute to human flourishing.
It is only through the establishment of an identity that we can know ourselves as individuals.The development of identity is not a single moment, but a lifelong project; neither does it take a single upward trajectory.All human beings at some time suffer shocks to their sense of self.They come to doubt their own identity and perhaps even lose central parts of their identities through the breakup of relationships, physical and mental changes, losing a career or indeed their national identity.When we speak about people who are long-term unemployed, they very often have a low self-perception, which may have been reinforced over their entire lives through lack of opportunities and indeed poor experiences of education.Not only is it unrealistic to expect people in these circumstances to simply transition to work through enhancing their human capital, it is unjust.Society depends for its existence on human beings mutually recognising each other, when mutual recognition breaks down so do solidarity and in extreme cases this can lead to total breakdown of mutual trust and the emergence of extreme violence, which we have unfortunately seen too often.Recognition in that sense is both an individual and social good.For an individual recognition is about being valued by others as a full and equal member of society and being acknowledged for who she or he is.Honneth (2002) uses the young Hegel's 'three modes of recognition-love, rights and solidarity' to articulate its consequences both socially and individually (p.501).Recognition practically underpins how we operate as social beings, right from our everyday interactions with each other to the foundations of civil society itself including the origins of human rights and citizenship.In Honneth's words individuals are only free 'in the full sense of the word' when they are recognised in accordance with how they rationally understand themselves (p.509).

Conclusion
The model of reflexive activation proposed here draws on Schuller's three capitals.It acknowledges that education and training are key catalysts for capacity building to engage positively in the labour market.For very many people the path back to work is about a journey that ends with rather than starts with human capital.The journey can be seen as starting with identity capital, progressing through social capital in order to leverage human capital in the labour market.Reflexive activation can be a long-term project, especially for those with low levels of Schuller's capitals.In the unfolding world of flexicurity it is also likely to be a lifelong project as people have several changes of job, periods of unemployment, career changes, and erosion and obsolescence of human capital.Reflexive activation acknowledges that a person has one life, but potentially many jobs and indeed for some never a real job.The priority then is to address the individual's lifetime needs, rather than a short-term response in an everchanging employment landscape.
By giving individuals the tools, supports, advice and skills to navigate this environment and also providing them with life skills, interests and wider horizons we are equipping them to make the sorts of choices that will motivate and energise them, help them contribute positively to society, live healthier and more rewarding lives.
Lifelong learning is not an activity outside of the overall goals for a good society.It should and must be part of a project to not just help individuals improve their education, but to contribute to the overall educational enhancement of the wider society.Schuller's model of three capitals is useful in helping us see how adult education can help both the individual and society achieve its goals.Very many people today feel that the 'system' has failed them and the empirical evidence supports this view.Many of those people have extremely low levels of self-esteem and deflated senses of their own identities.For those people to reach their potential and contribute to their own futures and the future of society they need to interact with policies and practices that accord them with recognition of their human dignity.Reflexive activation is such a model of engagement.The adult learners is at the centre of things both in terms of identifying their own needs and aspirations and being able to contribute to the design of appropriate responses to help them engage positively with their lifelong learning and their role as citizens and participants in the labour force.Reflexive activation can also contribute to capacity building for the type of sustainable employment framework envisaged through flexicurity.

Notes
1 Croatia became the 28 th and most recent member of the European Union in 2013.