Learning Outside the Academy International Research Perspectives on Lifelong Learning

This book weaves together different strands of research in the area of Lifelong Learning that concentrates particularly on learning in alternative settings and ways, such experiential learning, informal and community learning. Drawing upon international research, the book examines how these strands of research can contribute to each other.
The contributions to this book are based on material presented at a conference at the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, UK, and they focus on research into key issues of policy and practice in Lifelong Learning. Establishing a wider framework for debate about the meaning and significance of lifelong learning, this timely and thought-provoking book will provide practitioners in the field with a relevant and current discussion on some very important ideas about non-formal education.

This book weaves together different strands of research in the area of lifelong learning that concentrates particularly on learning in alternative settings and ways, such experiential learning andinformal and community learning. Drawing upon international research, the bookexamines how these strands of research can contribute to each other. The contributions to this book are based on material presented at a conference at the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, UK, and they focus on research into key issues of policy and practice in lifelong learning. Establishing a wider framework for debate about the meaning and significance of lifelong learning, this timely and thought-provoking book provides practitioners in the field with a relevant andcurrent discussion on some very important ideas about non-formal education.

Introduction: Tangled up in learning Part One: Theory, Methods, Concepts1.Informal learning: the challenge for research 2.Theorizing pedagogy within social action contexts: a case study of a South African trade union 3. Inside out of experiential learning: fluid bodies, co-emergent minds 4.European policies on ‘non-formal’ learning: a genealogical review Part Two: Learning Processes 5.Combining work and learning: the disturbing challenge of practice 6. Pedagogic learning in the pedagogic workplace 7. Recognition of tacit skills and knowledge in work re-entry: modelling of learning processes and outcomes 8. Learning in non-formal settings and the development of ‘really useful’ knowledge 9. Knowledge and learning in social movements: issues and opportunities for adult community education Part Three: Learning Outcomes 10. Learning in action: lessons from poor women in the South 11. Re-reading the texts of RPL: what recontextualizing principles are coded into the selection of curriculum resources? 12. Learning in the new work order 13. Lifelong learning: reaching regions where other learning doesn't reach14. Researching outside the academy: emerging themes

Richard Edwards is Professor of Education at the University of Stirling and is on the Management Group of the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning.