Much of our life is passed in the company of others. As well as our loved ones, we routinely encounter a cast of people whom we know, including workmates, friends, neighbours, business associates, shop assistants, bartenders, club members and the postman or woman. As we go through life, so we acquire new relationships and lose old ones; and the meanings of relationships can often change over time. This book examines the ways in which our everyday relationships, and the patterns that they assume, affect our capacity to learn across the lifespan.

Some people, of course, have a wider range of relationships than others, and some have closer relationships than others. Whatever the nature of our relationships, though, all of us use them on a regular basis. They help us secure goods and services; they provide opportunities to chat about common interests and hear the latest gossip; they underpin our sense of who we are; and – we hope – they give us affection, as well as giving us an object for affection. Conversely, people who are isolated are likely to suffer from their lack of connections. It is not just that, to state the obvious, most people think that loneliness feels unpleasant. Isolation also means that there is no one to turn to when the going gets tough, no one to borrow things from, no one to let you know what is going on – nor anyone for whom you can provide similar services in return.

This book is centrally concerned with the way that our relationships are also a resource, and serve as a form of capital. In particular, it looks at the way that this social capital can influence the way in which people acquire new skills, information and ideas throughout their lifespan, and in turn create new skills, meanings and knowledge. Both social capital and lifelong learning have attracted considerable analytical attention in recent years. This chapter seeks to explore both sets of ideas, and examine the relationship between them. It does so in the context of the idea of the learning society, along with related notions such as the learning region, the learning city and the learning organisation.