A social capital approach to the analysis of continuing education: evidence from the UK Learning Society Research Programme

The paper reports from one of the projects of the Economic and Social Resea rch Council's Learning Society Research programme. The project compared ini tial and continuing education in Scotland and Northern Ireland, in both cas es relating these to performance in England. This paper presents results fr om the fieldwork in Scotland, involving focus groups and individual intervi ews in a number of economic sectors. It discusses the use of social capital as a central concept in the research, which led to a focus on the nature o f relationships between stakeholders: providers of education and training, employers, the state, the community and professional bodies.