Analyzing the Discourse of Lifelong Learning Cities Based on Foucault’s Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lifelong Learning as a Practice of Freedom and the Development of Higher-Order Thinking

This study analyzes the discourse of lifelong learning cities based on Michel Foucault’s late philosophy, particularly the “Hermeneutics of the Subject.” Lifelong learning city policies function not merely as educational infrastructure but as discursive apparatuses that construct specific forms of subjectivity—such as self-directed learners, self-developing individuals, and flexible laborers—within the regime of governmentality. Drawing upon Foucault’s concepts of subjectivation, care of the self, and parrhesia, the study critically explores the ethical possibilities and limitations of such subject constructions. It argues that while lifelong learning discourses internalize neoliberal techniques of self-governance and normalization, they also contain the potential for ethical subject reconfiguration and practices of freedom. By uncovering the micro-physics of power embedded in learning discourses and proposing a model for critical and reflective learners, the study seeks to reposition lifelong learning cities as spaces of ethical practice and democratic transformation rather than mere policy tools.