Studies of informal and incidental learning demonstrate that it takes place wherever people have a need, motivation, or opportunity for learning. Context is central to the process. Despite its unstructured nature, adult educators can assist learners by identifying conditions that hinder or enhance it and by fostering critical reflection. (Contains…

Argues that adult educators use "learning" when they mean "education" and that this confounds and demeans incidental and informal learning processes. Suggests that intended, purposeful planned learning should properly be termed education and that there is no such thing as a nonlearner. (SK)

Adults do not learn science in the same way as either children or scientists. A separate theory of adult learning of science for scientific literacy is needed as the basis for the development of methodologies. (SK)

The community is a natural setting for autonomous, democratic adult education. A framework for connecting the community and adult education has three mechanisms: community formal adult education, community nonformal adult education, and community informal adult education. (SK)

Data from Canada's New Approaches to Lifelong Learning Study confirm the pervasiveness of unpaid work and informal learning. Most employed persons engage in a variety of work-related informal learning activities. However, underemployment in terms of use of acquired skills is widespread. (Contains 29 references.) (SK)

This inductive, qualitative study investigates how learning took place among nine experienced engineers in an industrial setting after a major reorganization. A thematic analysis of the transcripts revealed that the learning was informal and that it fell into three distinct categories: learning new workflows, learning about the chemical process,…

The author elaborates on informal learning in discussing staff development for volunteers. He suggests that ways be found to integrate classroom and on-the-job learning; that staff developers help people learn more effectively; and that learning be supported through job selection, organizational support, and a system of learning relationships and…

In examining the trend toward providing academic credit for informal education through lifelong learning, the author contends that programs of this nature further the efforts of individuals to educate themselves as well as promote the idea of formal education to a larger, better prepared, and more receptive population. (WL)

A Birmingham (England) Museum and Art Gallery program helped visitors view hidden objects in artworks and understand how museum representations depict and interpret culture. More informal learning opportunities were developed as a result of the program. (SK)

Gives examples of how women in various countries have achieved proactive literacies and are empowered by their skills to take action to improve their lives. (SK)

Informal women's education must be seen within a wider context. It has outcomes for women, local community development, social policy, and adult education. (SK)

Dominant discourse about participation in adult education assumes that (1) participation is good; (2) participation equates with formal learning; (3) learners are individuals, abstracted from their social context; and (4) there are barriers to participation, not resistance. These assumptions obscure issues about informal learning, collective…

Scotland has a particular history, that moves around the unique public experiences of the Enlightenment and the Act of Union as defining moments that could have developed differently. For complex reasons, public thinking moved more and more towards the fractured moral and political conditions that we know now. But, following the work of Alasdair…

The study examined the process of informal learning in the context of family caregiving for the frail elderly in the community. Sixty ethnographic interviews were conducted with 15 family caregivers. A model of informal learning as reflection-in-action emerged from the data. Five themes of meaning and six types of informal learning were derived…

This report provides general findings from the Adult Education for Work-Related Reasons (AEWR) survey of the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES). The survey was conducted by random-digit-dial telephone interviewing of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population ages 16 and older who were not enrolled in elementary or…