Conceptualizing the meaning, theory, and practice of learning societies during an age of disruption

This chapter reviews the literature to provide a background on the historical development, definitions, and principles why the concept of a learning society continues to be relevant, more so in an age of disruption. It illustrates what is meant by “age of disruption”, which includes the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0, globalization, climate change, technological disruption, artificial intelligence, and geopolitical peace and conflict situations. In particular, this chapter presents learning societies against a recent, urgent, concentrated example of a truly global disruption: the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. While COVID-19 is global in scale and interconnected in complexity, its impact is still very local—hence the importance of place and context. This opens up the relevance and urgency of the learning society concept to be applied in practice. The current practice of utilizing a learning city approach to learning societies is growing. But to truly implement this concept, what is needed is an application of the theory of lifelong learning and learning societies that considers place and context. Implementation of appropriate policies; more responsive governance structures; multi-stakeholder partnerships; civil society engagement; and measurement and evaluation, are all key elements for a learning society in an age of disruption.