The main focus of this volume is to increase our understanding of the "learning turn" referring, in this book, to the frequent occurrence and usage of terms in the last few decades where the word "learning" is the premodifier, such as "learning city" and "learning organization".

Norman Longworth: Foreword List of Contributors PART I. THE LEARNING TURN: A BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION 1: Anders Örtenblad: Toward an Increased Understanding of the Learning Turn: Background and Introduction 2: Anders Örtenblad: On the Usage of the Premodifier Learning Among Scholars and Practitioners 3: Bertus van Rooy: Linguistic Modifiers and the Construction of Concept Meaning PART II. REFLECTING ON LEARNING AND ITS USE AS A PREMODIFIER 4: Marianna Papastephanou: Learnification, Premodifiers and Learning(s) 5: Anke Redecker: Recognition in a Learning World - Topics of Global Education 6: Malcolm Tight: Learning Your Place 7: Leonard Holmes: What is Learning that an Organization (or Anything Else) Can Do It? 8: Rob F. Poell: Is Learning Viewed as a Synonym of Training? PART III. EXAMINING SINGLE TERMS IN WHICH LEARNING IS THE PREMODIFIER 9: Tyson E. Lewis: "Learning Toys" as Education through Commodification 10: Norman V. Jackson: The Impossibility of the Learning Organization 11: Max Visser: Learning Climate 12: John A. Cotsomitis: The Learning Economy: What do we Mean by the Modifier Learning? 13: Frederik Hertel and Michelle Wicmandy: The Global Learning Economy 14: Hans Chr. Garmann Johnsen and Jon P. Knudsen: Can Regions Learn? 15: Bertus van Rooy and Roosmarijn Rentier: The Meanings of "Learning Organization" from the Perspective of Usage PART IV. EXAMINING MULTIPLE TERMS IN WHICH LEARNING IS THE PREMODIFIER 16: Michael Reynolds and Russ Vince: Being Alone Together: A Critical Exploration of Learning in "Learning Group" and "Learning Community" 17: Philip Cooke: "Fortune Favors the Prepared Mind": Learning Knowledge without Experience is Not so Smart 18: Anders Örtenblad: Comparing Two Similar Terms in which Learning is the Premodifier: A Study of Seven Term Couples 19: Anders Örtenblad: Belonging and Being Unique: The Dual Function of the Learning Premodifier PART V. BEYOND LEARNING: ON ITS WAY TOWARD BEING REPLACED BY OTHER COGNITION-ORIENTED PREMODIFIERS SUCH AS KNOWLEDGE AND SMART 20: Marianna Papastephanou: Interpreting the Decline in the Common Use of the Learning Premodifier 21: Anders Örtenblad: Learning City, Knowledge City, Smart City: Three Mountains in the Same Range Ken Spours: Afterword: Reflections on the Learning Premodifier and the Learning Turn

Making Sense of the Learning Turn is not an easy feat. Örtenblad and the other twenty authors bravely tackle this quest addressing the significance, value, and consequences of the "learnification". They chart and critically assess its turn-of-century heyday, minutiously examining and interrogating "learning" as a premodifier of such things as cities, regions, communities, toys, groups, and organizations while also tracing and heeding a warning on the emerging new words replacing it. The multidisciplinary breadth, critical depth, and clarity of this book are impressive making it a "go-to" reference for anyone interested in understanding the terms of "learning".

Anders Örtenblad is Professor of Working Life Science at the University of Agder, Norway. With his keen interest in learning and education, as both phenomena and concepts, he has extensively researched and authored on the idea of the learning organization, organizational learning, and management education. He has edited numerous books and journals, including The Oxford Handbook of the Learning Organization (OUP, 2019) and The Oxford Handbook of Metaphor in Organization Studies (OUP, 2024). He is a keen advocate of research as open, academic debate.

Examines a diverse selection of terms that have "learning" as the premodifier from a variety of areas including child education, adult education, lifelong learning, urbanization, economics, and organization and management studies A multidisciplinary study covering a wide range of academic disciplines Explores the frequent use of "learning" during the last decades, how it may now decline, and what could replace it as premodifier, such as "knowledge", "smart", and "creative"