Educational-Political Ideals and Realities of the Educational System: On the prospects of lifelong learning among disadvantaged adolescents

Lifelong learning is one of the key aspects of national and international education policy initiatives. The paper deals with the possibilities for lifelong learning of a selected group of young people, namely those with less successful learning experiences in primary and secondary school. It, on the one hand, analyses the political discussion on lifelong learning and the political intentions. On the other, it looks at the institutional structures of the educational system in Germany and their contribution to the development of less educated young people's interest in involving in lifelong learning and their ability to do so, and raises the question in how far corresponding support is provided. For this specific target group, there exists a gap between political announcements and institutional realities, a circumstance that encourages social differences in educational participation and, as a consequence, broadens the gap between educational haves and have-nots.