Life Course Justice and Learning

Abstract

There is a paradox: While life courses are de facto pluralising, the pull to conform to an imagined standard is strong. In this thematic issue, we unpack the question: To whose standards do people cohere over the course of their lives? We seek the answers through the idea of life course justice, by which we mean a critical inquiry into how wealth, opportunities, and privilege are distributed and constrained in certain life stages and situations, and geographically. The dual focus of this thematic issue is thus on how people forge new ways to learn and work and how they try to resolve life course differences.