Learning as a bridge between individual spheres of life : Analyse of a European political discourse and some Belgian concrete implications

(eng) During the nineties, global notions – like learning society, knowledge economy, lifelong learning – considering learning as a key feature of economic and working life appear in the European policy documents. At the same time, the French Community of Belgium is developing a system called “validation des compétences” for the recognition of vocational competences. Commissions are preparing the tests for ten target professions. Trade unions, employers' organisations, sectoral federations and five education and training providers are represented. For about one half year, we are observing the work of these commissions by a near-ethnologist method. Most of them, particularly those belonging to the non commercial sector, are dealing with the boundary between working life and family or leisure life so far as they consider the validation of attitudes. The project of qualifying workers by informal learning results in tensions between the actors concerned by the designing of profession-profile.