With a focus on lifelong learning, this book examines the shifts that UNESCO's educational concepts have undergone in reaction to historical pressures and dilemmas since the founding of the organization in 1945. Elfert interprets the history of lifelong learning in UNESCO as part of a much bigger story of a struggle of ideologies between a humanistic-emancipatory and an economistic-technocratic worldview.

Maren Elfert is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada.

1. Introduction 2. UNESCO's Humanism: The Challenge of "Unity in Diversity" 3. UNESCO's Early Years: Human Rights, High Hopes and Harsh Realities 4. Éducation Permanente and the "Crisis of Education" 5. Learning to be: The Faure Report 6. The Delors Report and the 1990s 7.: The Struggle of Ideologies