Recalibrating lifelong learning and active citizenship: implications drawn from the capability approach

Lifelong learning is one of the main routes of the European welfare systems reform. Such a reform is linked to the idea of an active and enabling welfare state. For these reasons, LLL stands in the middle of those activation policies that are focused on empowerment. However it is not enough to guarantee the subjective right to learn lifelong: it is necessary to ensure everyone has the capability to enact that right. This paper goes deep into these issues, moving in the perspective of the capability approach. This approach leads us to see LLL as a crucial factor to convert individual resources into functionings. This means acknowledging the link between human capital and human capability. It also means giving a central role to the learning to learn competence and to the construction of a “learnfare system” truly capable of making LLL a factor of social protection and active citizenship.