Reflexive modernity, self‐reflective biographies: adult education in the light of the risk society

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Abstract
The aim of this article is to present a view on adult education in the light of the concept of ‘risk society’, as articulated by the German sociologist Ulrich Beck. In his view, there is no such thing as a post‐modern society; on the contrary we are rapidly entering into a new episode of history in which ‘simple modernization’ is transforming into ‘reflexive modernization’. This development confronts society, and adult education, with new themes such as ecological safety, the danger of losing control over technological and scientific innovations, the internalization of political structures, the growth of a much more flexible labour force, etc. A specific feature of risk society mentioned by Beck is the process of individualization: biographies become more ‘self‐reflexive’, i.e., what used to be a socially conditioned biography is gradually transformed into a biography in which the individual is free to make decisions about the organization of his life. In a way, biographies are de‐standardized; this development, however, should not be equated with an increasing autonomy and emancipation of the individual, because the process entails a great number of pitfalls. The ambiguous nature of processes in individualization in risk society is a tremendous challenge to adult education and its applications of traditional life course theories. In the final section of the paper some suggestions are discussed with respect to resulting methodological questions of adult education. These suggestions are partly based on 20 in‐depth interviews with practitioners in The Netherlands, on the basis of keywords derived from the theories presented in this article.

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