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Peer-reviewed article

The Apparent Decline of Informal Learning

December 1, 1999 | Public Programs

This paper begins by questioning the narrow definition of learning used in much present writing concerning lifelong learning, which tends to focus on the purported economic and societal benefits of prolonging and widening participation in formal education and training programmes. In contrast, much valuable and non-trivial learning already goes on, and has always gone on, outside formal programmes of instruction. This is true both at work and at leisure. Using evidence from a study of patterns of participation in adult learning in South Wales from 1900, the paper argues that if such informal learning continues to be ignored by proponents of a learning society, as it has been by the authors of the recent green papers, for example, then the result may be an unnecessary exclusiveness in definitions of a learning society, and an unjustifiable reliance on certification as a measure of learning.

TEAM MEMBERS

  • Cardiff University
    Author
  • Stephen Gorard
    Author
  • Ralph Fevre
    Author
  • Gareth Rees
    Author
  • Citation

    ISSN : 0305-4985
    DOI : 10.1080/030549899103919
    Publication Name: Oxford Review of Education
    Volume: 25
    Number: 4
    Page Number: 437
    Resource Type: Research Products
    Discipline: Education and learning science | General STEM
    Audience: General Public | Educators/Teachers | Museum/ISE Professionals
    Environment Type: Public Programs

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