Reflective learning as reflexive education in a risk society: empowerment and control?

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Abstract
This paper argues that the relationship between economy, education and training is characterised by ambivalence. This ambivalence creates a paradox whereby education is considered a threat to the prevailing economic power relationships, yet remains essential to their reproduction and development. It will be demonstrated that such ambivalence has been a continuous thread throughout the history of state education in the UK. However, the relative autonomy of any education system, containing as it does possibilities for empowerment, radicalism and change represents a potential threat to the powerful. It is argued that reflective learning is central to the economic needs of reflexive modernisation in late modernity. Education that corresponds with the needs of reflexive modernisation perpetuates the paradox; reflective learning becomes essential for the reproduction of existing social‐economic relations and yet at the same time it represents a potential catalyst for the radicalisation of modernity.

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