While in Germany and France for example education connotes normative values (“Bildung”; “formation”), in Anglo-Saxon countries the term is less charged. Therefore we suggest an “empty” definition in the first place, referring to all kinds and levels of formal and non-formal institutions where organized learning takes place and give the term “content fill” in the second place only when the context is specified.

In knowledge societies, education has formally become available to everybody; in fact though educational inequality has not been eliminated and educational reforms are not based on the principle of participation (see also cultural capital) (MdBR)

References:
Mørch, Sven & du Bois-Reymond, Manuela (2006 i.p.) Learning in times of modernisation. In M. du Bois-Reymond & L. Chisholm (eds.): Modernisation of Youth Transitions in Europe. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bloomer, M. & Hodkinson, Phil (2000) Learning Careers: continuity and change in young people's dispositions to learning. British Educational Research Journal, vol 26, No.5, 528-97.
Diepstraten, I., du Bois-Reymond, Manuela, & Vinken, Henk (2006 i.p.) Trendsetting Learning Biographies: concepts of navigating through late modern life. Journal of Youth Studies, Nr. 3.

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