BETWEEN BEING AND HAVE: DILEMMAS AND MEANING OF ADULT EDUCATION

Today, the field of adults' education has harboured at its core concepts located, once outside their initial configuration and whose safety is questioned given the ideal of a democratic education. The debate about the genesis and the assumptions underlying the ideal of lifelong education should be resumed, updated and faced with the new assumptions of lifelong learning. This article aims to contribute to the understanding of conceptual metamorphoses that the field of adult education has been suffering and confront the conceptualization of lifelong education and lifelong learning in a context marked by faction more managerial and human resource management. Thus, the article aims to enhance the reflection from a diachronic view of the principles that guide education and learning. This new educational vision of learning centres new concepts (such as competence, individualism and employability) that can convert education into a more individualistic and Darwinian dimension.