introduction about informal education

Understanding Informal Education: Definition, Examples, and Importance

Discover what informal education is, its characteristics, examples of informal learning environments, and its significance in personal and professional development.

Informal education refers to the learning that occurs outside of a formal school setting. Unlike formal education, which is structured and typically occurs in a classroom setting with a defined curriculum, informal education encompasses a broad range of learning experiences that are spontaneous, experiential, and self-directed. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of informal education:

1. Definition

Informal education can be defined as any kind of learning that happens without a formal curriculum or organized structure. This can include learning through daily experiences, interactions with others, and participation in community activities.

2. Characteristics of Informal Education

• Unstructured: There is no specific curriculum or set timetable.
• Self-Directed: Learners take initiative in their own learning process.
• Contextual: Learning often occurs in social or cultural contexts, making it relevant to real-life situations.
• Flexible: Informal education adapts to the needs and interests of learners.

3. Examples of Informal Education

• Community Workshops: Classes or workshops offered by community centers or local organizations.
• Online Learning: Engaging with online platforms such as webinars, tutorials, and educational videos.
• Peer Learning: Learning through collaboration and discussion with friends or colleagues.
• Life Experiences: Acquiring knowledge from everyday experiences, travel, and cultural exchanges.

4. Importance of Informal Education

Informal education plays a crucial role in personal and professional development. It allows individuals to:

• Explore interests and passions without the constraints of formal education.
• Develop critical thinking skills through real-world problem solving.
• Enhance social skills and build networks through community engagement.
• Adapt and learn continuously in an ever-changing environment.

In summary, informal education is a significant component of lifelong learning. It provides opportunities for individuals to learn in a flexible and relevant way, encouraging personal growth and self-improvement throughout life.

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The Different Types of Informal Education

• By Emily Summers
• December 16, 2019

In our last set of articles, we discussed the different levels of formal education and the different types of education . When we talk about informal education, however, we can’t really talk about it in the same method because it doesn’t have the structure formal education has. Because unlike formal education that has clear-cut levels and standards, informal education is not as easy to see from an educational standpoint.

Formal vs. Informal

Before we can discuss what informal education is, we need to briefly explain what formal education is . It’s basically the standard classroom setting provided by people specifically trained to teach a certain subject. And unlike informal education, formal education is divided into stages depending on how much information a student is likely to understand.

Formal education starts from the age of six (it can differ in other countries) and begins with basic skills like learning how to read and write, and it can go all the way to post-secondary education and post-graduate studies.

Informal education, on the other hand, does not have the structure and levels that formal schools have. It’s more natural and spontaneous, meaning the information you learn through this form of education comes from learning from experience. This range from visiting places like museums, libraries, and other educational facilities that aren’t traditional schools, or simply by looking at scenarios that allow a person to learn important information.

For example, formal education can teach you about fire and physics and, in more advanced classes, thermodynamics. But informal education is when you see a person burning their hand when they touch a pot handle without a potholder and you learn that the heat from the stove transferred to the pot handle, so you should be careful when you handle your cooking ware.

That’s not to confuse formal and informal with a third type of education: non-formal. Non-formal learning doesn’t always have the structure of formal education but isn’t as spontaneous as informal education. Examples include after-school organizations, non-credit education courses, seminars, and conferences.

Characteristics of Informal Education

Unlike formal education where learning is timed and scheduled, informal learning is much more spontaneous. It is possible for people of all backgrounds to undergo informal education even before they enter preschool as long as they are currently learning from everything around them.

Informal learning has no guidelines, curriculums, or standards. While lessons like teaching your child how to brush your teeth have some acceptable standards, there’s no right or wrong way to go about teaching your child which part of your teeth to brush first. And because there is no curriculum or standardized tests, it is difficult to quantify or put into test how well a learner understands – it’s either they understand or they don’t.

Because informal learning isn’t mandatory, people who learn have to want to learn how to do so. If you teach a child how to tie a shoelace, if they aren’t interested to learn how to do it on their own, it can be difficult to get them to remember how to do it.

Informal learning can come from a licensed teacher if they teach you something outside of the curriculum, but under informal education, anyone can be a teacher regardless of credentials or whether or not they have a teaching license. In fact, it’s most likely that your first informal teachers are your parents and the people you lived with growing up.

And unlike formal education which stops at a certain age or until you graduate or decide to leave an educational institution, it is possible for you to continue learning informally. Even fully-grown middle-aged adults can continue to benefit from informal learning as long as they are willing to learn for their own benefit. For example, an older person learning how to use a touchscreen phone from a younger person is a type of informal learning setting. Or a person who asks for directions is another type of informal education.

Does Informal Education Have the Same Bearing as Formal Education?

Unfortunately, it does not. Going through formal education to become a doctor (pre-med bachelor’s degree, medical school, residency, licensure) takes years and is not the same as watching a few seasons of The Good Doctor and Grey’s Anatomy or spending a day talking to a doctor. While you do get to pick up a few cool facts about medicine and how the industry operates, you will not be allowed to practice medicine because you do not have a license – you can even be arrested for impersonating a doctor.

That’s not to say, however, that informal education is completely useless. While informal education does not qualify as experience or education in most places of employment, it can count in some situations.

For example, if a child grows up watching their parent who works as an auto mechanic and grows up helping their parent, reading books, and watching shows and videos about car maintenance, they can be qualified to work in an auto mechanic shop themselves if the owner sees they are experienced enough.

Also, some important lessons and skills in life are actually taught outside the classroom. For example, it’s much more practical to teach a child how to tie their shoelaces within five minutes rather than a structured classroom setting.

Informal learning can be very helpful to those always open and willing to learn. While it may not be considered valid learning by some, there are some things you can learn better in the real world rather than studying it within the four walls of a classroom. That’s not to invalidate formal learning entirely, but it shows how both formal and informal learning go hand in hand to create an educated person who learns both inside the classroom and whatever scenario they’re in. Plato’s philosophy on education was that it was a lifelong process that happened regardless of the location but instead came from a persons’ curiosity and desire to learn.

About the Author

Emily summers.

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Formal vs informal education: differences, similarities, and how to use both, share this article.

When thinking about what route you want to take to learn or teach something new, you’re going to quickly realize just how many options are out there. Especially when you’re looking at options online, in-person, available via mobile applications, through reading textbooks, or any variety of learning that’s available – it feels overwhelming.

One way to help narrow down your search is to look at informal versus formal education. Understanding this distinction in learning approaches provides an overarching way to break down how you want to learn. From there, you’ll be able to look for specific options that can give you the lessons you need – or you could create your own hybrid training program that has the best of both approaches! 

Skip ahead:

What is formal education?

What is informal education, similarities between formal and informal education, differences between formal and informal education, how formal and informal education complement each other.

Formal education is training that has a specific curriculum. It’s clear what will be taught, in what way the content will be delivered, and how the student’s learning will be measured (eg. tests, presentations, research articles, etc). 

Most formal education is done through an institution such as a school, university, or even a tutor. However, there are also a lot of e-learning marketplaces like   Udemy or   Khan Academy which offer many types of courses with specific learning objectives. Regardless of where you go to earn your formal education, it can be delivered to you through one lesson or course, or can even extend out to an entire undergraduate or graduate degree, for example. 

There are also a lot of supplemental resources available in formal education such as textbooks, keynote presentations, hands-on labs, and practice exams. 

Informal education is, in some ways, the opposite of formal education. Most often, informal education isn’t even planned in advance. A lot of lessons are pulled from everyday life, such as when you hear a story from a family member or co-worker that you later apply to your own life. As such, there’s not really any use of reading materials, guides, or exams as there would be in formal learning paths.

Because of its unstructured and sometimes unpredictable nature, you may not always guarantee exactly what you’re going to learn. It can sometimes be faster to take in new information in informal settings, but in other cases it can be longer. The speed of your learning is more heavily dependent on who is teaching you (as they’re not actually a professional educator) and your readiness and willingness to learn in the moment. 

Despite seeming so different, there’s actually a few things that both informal and formal education approaches have in common. These are essential takeaways from any kind of learning activity, and they’re especially important to keep in mind here, too. 

Drive to learn

As silly as it sounds, one of the biggest similarities between formal and informal education is that the student has a drive to learn! You might either be looking to have new knowledge or even just try to expand on knowledge that you’ve earned from a prior learning experience. Either way, this person must be ready to be curious, to understand new concepts, and to ask questions when they’re confused. 

Lessons learned

Regardless of how you learn, you’re still going to learn. Lessons can be taught in a lot of different ways, and some people need more structure to digest the information while others need a hands-on, in-practice approach. No matter how you go about learning, you’re still going to have similar takeaways at the end of the day. This is especially true if you’ve specifically set out to learn something in particular, and you’ve asked people who you know are going to be experts in the field. In this case, getting a lesson from a university class might give you the same information as your next door neighbor who’s had a career in that area their whole life.  

Formal and informal education settings have a lot of differences, which can help you with making the right decision for what you’re looking to learn next. Let’s dive into a few of these differences here! 

Learning environment

Put simply, formal education is mostly done within a classroom setting and informal education is done during your day-to-day life activities. Today, a lot of classes for formal lessons are hosted online as well as in-person, so there’s a lot of flexibility in how you can access this type of education. 

On the other hand, there’s no go-to place to get all of your informal learning needs. Instead, it might take some practice asking around, doing solo research, or observing your environment to get the same kind of lessons. In that way, informal education is great for people who like to “learn by doing.”

Learning structure

Courses offered in formal learning paths allow students to know exactly what they’re going to learn. Professors strategically plan course topics to build off each other, often so that more basic concepts are learned first before diving into advanced topics. There’s more predictability for knowing how the course will work with your learning style as well.

However, informal learning doesn’t guarantee what you’re going to learn, or how . You might even stumble upon a new lesson unintentionally! And even if you’re actively seeking a specific answer, you might get part of the information from one source and the rest of the information from somewhere else. Because of this, you might frequently learn the more advanced topics first before the fundamentals – and it won’t make sense right away until you’ve had that other piece of the lesson come into your learning path. As complicated as this sounds, it can be good for people who like diving head-first into things.

Predictability for course length

With formal education paths, you can choose to take longer or shorter courses, and the course length will always be clearly stated before you even start the course. This is great for knowing how in-depth you want to go when learning about a given topic. 

Informal education, on the other hand, isn’t predictable for time. You might learn something in five minutes or you might find you’re spending a lot of your personal time researching around to find the answer. Because you don’t have anyone who’s already done the research and is offering to teach you the content within a set period, the amount of time for you to find and understand the same information can vary greatly. 

Types of skill development

Because of how different the learning approaches are in each type of education, the skills that are actually learned are different. For formal education, students tend to get more theoretical knowledge around a specialized area. But in informal education, students have the opportunity to practice hands-on work which can give practical experience and build strong interpersonal skills like communication, negotiation, team work, and active listening. This is great for activating knowledge that you’ve earned in a prior learning experience! 

Often, informal training is a lot less expensive than formal training programs. The reason is because informal learning can also happen throughout your day-to-day life experiences such as what you learn from a friend’s story about handling a difficult situation at work. Informal education also relies on readily available information such as what library books, online search engines, and your network of connections have in store already! 

On the other hand, formal education usually requires coordinating experts or professors to teach the content, a space to host the lesson, and sometimes even reading materials like textbooks.

There’s no rule that says you only need to rely on either formal or information education when learning something new. In fact, creating a hybrid mix of both approaches might even accelerate your learning! The best way to do this is by getting practical experience while partaking in a formal learning experience. 

For example, if you’re taking a class about How to Use Social Media for Marketing , this is the formal element that provides a good foundation of theoretical knowledge on how to use social media. At the same time, you can play around in your social media tools to see how different settings work or how different content types perform. You can also ask any social media experts in your network about their opinions on what works best or what trends are currently top performing. This is your informal learning experience that will give you hands-on insights about what really works. Then, while you’re following along your course, you’ll know more about what the theory is explaining, and you’ll have some of your own practical knowledge to reflect on!

Formal and informal education are two very different approaches to learning. One method may be better suited for your preferences or type of content that you’re learning about. Both types can provide great benefits and ultimately, both will help you get the answer you need. The true value comes from combining both approaches to apply theoretical knowledge in real life situations! If you’re looking to dive into some formal learning, you can check out some of these great (and free!) courses !

With 6+ years of experience leading brands in the tech & security industry, Alexandria loves to write about making the day-to-day more efficient. In her free time, she enjoys biking and traveling to find hidden gems around the world!

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Study guides for every class, that actually explain what's on your next test, informal education, from class:.

Informal education encompasses learning that occurs outside the formal academic system, through everyday activities, experiences, and social interactions. It is not structured by standard curricula or formal teaching methods but is an ongoing process that contributes significantly to an individual's knowledge and understanding of the world.

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The continuous, voluntary pursuit of knowledge for personal or professional reasons throughout an individual’s life.

Non : formal Education - Organized educational activities that take place outside the formal academic system, designed for specific learners' needs.

The process through which individuals learn and internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of their society or culture, contributing to their personal development and social identity

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the encyclopaedia of pedagogy and informal education

Using informal education – Chapter 1: using informal education

contents : informal education and other educational forms · characteristics of informal education · formal and informal · the problem of curricula · content, direction and process · identity, personality and role · conclusion · return to main contents

Introduction.

[page 1] Informal education has been an element of practice within casework, schooling, youth work, residential care and the Probation Service for some time. It has been an important part of the activity of community organizations. Yet it has rarely been given sustained attention, though this has changed somewhat in recent years, as the contributors to this book show. Within the criminal justice area, for example, as Debbie Saddington suggests, there has been a shift towards crime prevention and reduction, increased community participation and some form of education which reflects a move from pathological to interactionist perspectives. This has produced an increased readiness in some quarters to look at informal approaches. David Burley argues that the pressure to inject more ‘relevance’ into secondary school provision has led to a growing interest in informal approaches. Forms of work, complementary to the formal, have emerged which allow teachers to establish different relationships with their students. Within residential work the shift to community care and changes in the way people with severe learning difficulties are viewed has had a similar impact, as Don Blackburn and Mal Blackburn report. Finally, in youth work dissatisfaction with the largely rhetorical notion of social education has led to a reawakening of interest in informal education. With such changes taking place it is important to examine how informal education is actually understood and practised within different arenas and to explore some of the central questions and issues that arise for practitioners.

Informal education and other educational forms

Informal education tends to be defined by its relationship to formal education. While this is important, it is too easy to characterize [page 2] informal education negatively as the bit left over. It is better to identify the positive attributes and compare these with more formal approaches. This allows us to assess the claims made for the ‘improving qualities’ of informal education rather than merely presenting it as a blanket alternative to, say, casework or classroom work.

In the chapters which follow a number of elements are emphasized. There is the focus on the everyday. On the one hand Don Blackburn and Mal Blackburn explore the process of dealing with, and learning from, the apparently trivial tasks of day-to-day living. On the other, Glynis Francis examines the possibilities of connecting with fundamental aspects of people’s lives. She also stresses the crucial importance of social relations in informal education. Debbie Saddington talks about its largely relaxed atmosphere and the way in which it connects with, and feeds off, other tasks such as those associated with community groups. Elizabeth Afua Sinclair underlines the centrality of addressing and working with the culture of the learners. Anne Foreman highlights the personality and role of the practitioner. Both David Burley and Pauline Gertig examine the way in which informal education may be approached from more formal contexts. John Ellis brings out the conversational, story­telling dimension. Above all he, along with the other contributors, stresses the need to ensure that learning is seen as the responsibility of the learner. Much of the educator’s task is concerned with enabling people to take that responsibility.

All this indicates that there is something distinctive about informal education. It is a useful starting point to consider it as a set of ideas and processes which pay particular attention to, and make use of, the fabric of daily life. Workers have their professional identity significantly moulded by that fabric. Familiar relationships and institutions provide much of the material and context for intervention. At the same time practitioners also draw upon those traditions of thinking and acting which we define as education. They do so in a way which allows processes and institutions to develop which make sense in, and of, the context in which they are applied. These do not necessarily conform to the regular or prescribed forms of the educational system. One way of catching part of the flavour of the approach is to describe it as ‘using the familiar critically in order to further learning’.

We can see in this the importance of informal education for practitioners At one level there is the potential of informality: the concern to connect with familiar cultural forms, the flexibility of [page 3] response, and the desire to make interventions which make sense in people’s lives all hold promise, as the contributors to this book demonstrate. At another level there are the possibilities of education, which are particularly attractive to those practitioners who feel constrained by what they perceive as ‘policing’ or ‘conditioning’ forms of practice.

At this point several things need saying. What we are describing here is primarily an approach to educating: a form of pedagogy. As such, informal education emphasizes certain values and concerns: the worth placed on the person of the learner, the importance of critical thinking, and the need to examine the taken for granted. At the same time, informal education need not imply particular content, other than that arising directly from the processes adopted and the values they express. This is an important point to grasp. Informal education is a special set of processes which involves the adoption of certain broad ways of thinking and acting so that people can engage with what is going on. It cannot be simplistically defined by a set of curricular aims.

Further, it is not an approach to educating confined to those who define themselves first and foremost as educators. It goes beyond a simple concern with setting or organizational sponsorship. In this we differ from those writers who focus on situations and often use a threefold typology, referring to formal, informal and non-formal settings or environments.

Formal situations are bureaucratic, non—formal are organised but not necessarily in a bureaucratic environment and informal situations are ones where there are no pre—specified, although there are always covert, procedures of interaction. (Jarvis 1987: 70)

Here the school and the classroom may be seen as offering the paradigm for a formal setting. Within it people play clear roles within a bureaucratic or ‘official’ organization. Non—formal education may thus be defined as:

any organized educational activity outside the established formal system — whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity — that is intended to serve identifiable learning clienteles and learning objectives. (Coombs and Ahmed 1973, quoted in Fordham et al 1979: 210-11)

Informal situations are defined as occurring in social interaction between family members, friends, acquaintances and so on.

[page 4] We find this particular focus on, and view of, the setting unhelpful and suspect. It is difficult to see what it adds to our understanding and, indeed, it can confuse ( Smith 1988 : 127—8). Most definitions of the formal and non-formal appear to apply to professional interventions, to educators sponsored by bureaucratic organizations. However, non-professionals often facilitate learning in both formal and ‘non—formal’ educational situations. We can also see professionals engaging with informal environments as Jarvis conceives them. It is our contention that the question of sponsorship should be separated from that of setting: we can think of informal and formal settings in which professionalized or non-professionalizcd interventions may occur.

Giving too much attention to setting may mean we miss the point. Practitioners who are engaged in what they call ‘informal education’ are largely concerned with processes and interactions: they are interested in the way in which different dimensions combine and connect to make a distinctive form of pedagogy. By focusing on the setting we might not only miss the significance of pedagogy also of the practitioner. There certainly has been a tendency within some discussions of informal primary education, and within youth work, to almost apologize for the interventions that practitioners make. In some way the process is seen as having to be natural and spontaneous. Planned interventions by practitioners are considered something of an aberration, to be apologized for. This is not a view we hold.

Informal education is clearly something different from paying attention to the so—called ‘hidden curriculum’. The latter may be taken to mean those things which students learn, ‘because of the way in which the work of the school is planned and organized but which are not in themselves overtly included in the planning or even in the consciousness of those responsible for the school arrangements’ (Kelly 1982: 8). Such a concept need not be restricted to the school. The organization and planning of residential work, social work, youth work and community work also convey similarly powerful messages. Having recognized this, practitioners may then use the informal education approach in order to create an environment in which certain things enter the ‘overt curriculum’. However, they could equally use more formal means.

We must recognize that informal education and community education are often confused. It is difficult to argue a concrete case for differences between the two ideas as community education is a Will-o-the-wisp which defies comparative analysis. There are obvious [page 5] difficulties in attempting to define it (see, for example, Martin 1987; Fletcher 1987; and Clark 1987) and it is often used to include all forms of educational (and many non-educational) intervention. It is pointless to attempt to clarify such rhetoric. However, we do need to note that informal educators have been subject to a number of the same intellectual and political influences as many of those who call themselves community educators. For example, Lovett (1988) singles out the writings of Bernstein, Illich and Freire . Bernstein (1971), he suggests, reinforced the belief that language and culture were major barriers in attracting working class people to education:

Consequently, more attention was paid to working-class and popular culture. Freire confirmed this approach with his concept of cultural invasion and the importance of using everyday life and experience as cultural material in an educational dialogue about concrete issues and problems, linking reflection and action in a continuing praxis. (Lovett 1988: 145-6)

Illich (1973) focused on the de-institutionalization of education. The need was to think anew in terms of learning networks which utilized ‘a variety of educational resources, formal and informal, including the skills and talents of people themselves’ (Lovett 1988: 146).

We should note the way in which the notion of informality has been used within primary schooling in Britain. As Alexander (1988: 148) has commented:

Certain words have acquired a peculiar potency in primary education, and few more so than ‘informal’. Never properly defined, yet ever suggestive of ideas and practices which were indisputably right, ‘informal’ was the flagship of the semantic armada of 1960s Primaryspeak . . . spontaneity, flexibility, naturalness, growth, needs, interests, freedom . . . self—expression, discovery and many more.

Important thinkers can be invoked as contributing to the significance of the informal — Rousseau , Pestalozzi , Froebel and Dewey to name but a few (see, for example, Blyth 1988: 7-24). However, since the 1960s the terms of educational debate have altered somewhat and ideas have had to be reformed or redressed in the rhetoric of the moment. It is now less common to hear informal approaches to primary education being advanced as a blanket alternative to formal [page 6] ones. When we look at usage within discussions of primary schooling, the most consistent form now appears to be the noun informality’, rather than the adjective ‘informal’: instead of informal education, we might examine informality in pedagogy, in curriculum, in organization, in evaluation and in personal style (Blyth 1988). What is being examined is a tendency. This development is helpful. Much that has been described as informal primary education would not fit the definition of informal education advanced here: it would either be seen as formal, but containing significant elements of flexibility and openness, or as an informal interlude in a formal programme (more of this later). More recently, and helpfully, certain strands of what was known as informal primary education, for example, person—centredness and a process—orientation, have been reworked within the organizing notion of the ‘organic curriculum’ (Hunter and Scheirer 1988).

There is often an automatic assumption that informal education means working with small groups. For practitioners who have been used to individualized interventions or structured large groups such as classes, one of the distinctive experiences of informal education may be the use of group work. This is certainly a key medium but it is not the only one. Practitioners may equally be committed to working with individuals, whether directly or through the production of materials and so on; they may also have to intervene in large formal settings such as public meetings and in complex contexts such as youth clubs.

Characteristics of informal education

A number of elements appear to combine in a distinctive form which can be labelled informal education. Here we want to note seven which are drawn from Smith (1988: 126—33) and are illustrated with reference to material in the rest of this book.

To begin with, we can see that informal education can take place in a variety of physical and social settings: there is no regular or prescribed form. Many locales will be primarily for other, non-educational, purposes. For example, in welfare rights work, people are, first and foremost, concerned with finding a way out of some concrete financial problem. Anne Foreman examines the processes in a youth club where the primary focus may be on the pursuit of leisure activities. However, as David Burley demonstrates, informal education can also take place in contexts associated with schooling, like school clubs, visits and residential trips.

[page 7] The nature of the setting has an impact upon what can be done —and not just at a physical level. Educators (and participants) need to explore how a setting is experienced and how this influences who takes part and how they function. They also have to appreciate the ways in which the setting may relate to the needs of the ‘client group’. These considerations can be seen clearly at work in Glynis Francis’s discussion of working with community groups. The classic tension is between the work required by a particular activity, such as planning a play scheme or organizing a handball club, and what the group or individual can learn from the process. The primary task for the group or individual is the achievement of some concrete activity or object, rather than learning. Not only can this lead to frustration on the part of educators, it also requires the making of some fine judgements and sensitive interventions. Educators are not there to hijack what groups are trying to do. Yet their interventions have to be primarily directed towards promoting understanding rather than the success of the particular project in hand.

While much of the learning that occurs may initially appear to be incidental, it is not necessarily accidental. We are concerned here with purposeful and conscious actions. The specific goals may not be clear at any one time either to the educator or to the learner. Yet the process is deliberate, in that the people concerned are seeking to acquire knowledge, skills and/or attitudes, even if the goals are not specific (Brookfield 1983: 15). What educators do is contribute to the development of the context and conditions which allow the desired ‘internal’ change we know as learning to occur. When we look at much youth work practice, for example, it can be seen that the learning cited as evidence of youth workers’ educational activities is often, in fact, accidental: the context for learning is frequently not the focus for intervention. The particular activity involved cannot, therefore, be labelled education.

The timescales involved are likely to be highly variable and are often influenced by the dynamics of the institution(s) in which the work is taking place. Practitioners can become dependent upon a range of factors over which they have little control, such as pub opening hours, or the times when people go to the shops. There are also questions of pace and of the relative open-endedness of much informal practice. As Debbie Saddington comments, the process is often slow, with all sorts of apparent cul-de-sacs and diversions. However, when we examine the scale of what is often attempted, and what it actually means for the lives of those worked with, a feeling of slow progress is hardly surprising. This can be heightened [page 8] by the lack of access to appropriate means for testing progress. In other words, it is only when someone has to act that the extent of learning becomes clear. If that opportunity does not arise, or if educators are not clear about what they are looking for, then a sense of drift can set in. It is often the case that there is no clear end to the work. One thing can lead to another, as the examples in Anne Foreman’s chapter demonstrate.

One aspect of informal education noted by many here is the extent to which participants have control over the content of learning. The term ‘negotiated learning’ is used several times to describe the process. The idea of a contract between the educator and the participants is also underlined. Don Blackburn and Mal Blackburn suggest that such negotiability should apply to both content and method. However, most contributors go beyond negotiability and suggest that participation must also be voluntary and is often self-generated. This poses a fundamental question. To what extent is it possible to describe a process as informal if participation is forced —as is the case of many in probation day centres, residential settings and schools?

It is possible here to make a distinction between the general requirement, for example, of attending a day centre and participation in different activities. While people may have to be in the centre, they may well have a choice as to whether they take part in certain pursuits. Although those voluntary activities may be conditioned by their context there is at least some room for informal practice. This will not be without difficulties, as Blackburn and Blackburn’s discussion of the preparing and serving of food in residential settings shows. It may be that residents, perhaps as part of a group decision, have to take a share in these activities. However, being required to help with the cooking is quite separate from any educational work about how residents may feel about this requirement. The acid test is whether people freely choose to engage in such reflection.

With the voluntary nature of informal education goes a ‘romantic’ view of the relationship between educators and learners. It is without a doubt significant that people can choose whether to engage in the process or not. Similarly, the nature of the relationship may be affected by the fact that much of the activity is mounted ‘on the participant’s ground’ (see below). However, this should not be taken as meaning that power differentials disappear or that the roles of enabler and learner are somehow collapsed into one. The statement ‘we are all learners here’ may well be true at one, highly generalized, level; but it also confuses the real situation. As we have seen, the [page 9] primary task of educators is to ‘manage’ the external conditions that facilitate the internal change called learning (Brookfield 1986: 46). This distinguishes them from the learners, who are primarily concerned with the internal act of learning. Where learners take on educational responsibilities, where they set their own learning goals, locate resources, devise learning strategies and are responsible for evaluating the progress made towards the attainment of those goals they have become educators: they are engaged in self-education self-directed education (Brookfield 1986: 47). This may well be a goal for some informal educators. However, confused usage of the word ‘learning’ should not be allowed to cloud fundament differences.

Many of the following chapters focus on the dialogical nature of informal education and on the mutual respect involved. It is not simply that informal educators engage in conversations but that they give careful attention to words, the ideas that they express and the actions that follow. ‘Dialogue should be considered as a form of action aimed at the transformation of our normal communication patterns combined with continuing reflective evaluation of that action’ (Allman 1987: 221). Allman goes on (222) to make a useful distinction between discussion and dialogue.

Discussion focuses primarily on allowing each person to express or communicate and thus clarify in their own minds what they think. By contrast, dialogue involves an exploration of why we think what we do and how this thinking has arisen historically.

In other words, it is an invitation to critical thinking: to identify and challenge assumptions and explore and imagine alternatives (Brookfield 1987: 15). Beyond that it is an opening to action. It is here that the scale of the task that many informal educators are engaged in becomes clear. What is involved is often nothing less than transforming perspectives: the process by which people ‘come to recognize their cultural induced dependency roles and relationships and the reasons for them and take action to overcome them’ (Mezirow 1983: 125). As John Ellis later comments, such a change is necessary to avoid new ideas being colonized by the old viewpoint. A central aspect of dialogue in this respect is an emphasis upon collaborative forms of working. This entails:

a conscious challenge to and transformation of the relations and rituals of our normal form of group communication, discussion, wherein, though socially gathered, people operate as separate [page 10] individuals verbally expressing, sometimes exchanging, what they already know. (Allman 1988: 97)

One of the important features of this process is that it is often initiated by an external circumstance or stimulus. ‘Only rarely does a change in thinking patterns happen because of a person’s self-willed decision to become more critically reflective’ (Brookfield 1987: 24). Such events, and the dialogue that is necessary to make sense of them, can be, and often needs to be, handled within formal structures. Yet the location, orientation and relative ability of informal educators to use such events means they have a special contribution to make.

Dialogue is not value-free. It involves a certain view of the world and of women’s and men’s place within it. As Freire notes (1985: 43), ‘All educational practice implies a theoretical stance on the educator’s part. This stance in turn implies — sometimes more, sometimes less explicitly — an interpretation of man and the world’. We have to accept, and make a commitment to, the philosophy that infuses this notion. This can be seen at work in the process. The educator focuses upon the thinking and actions of the other person. The task is to enable that other to make sense and build theory. This is not done by trying to impose a way of thinking but by asking questions and making statements which enable the other to clarify and problematize his or her own thinking. The same process will often occur when working in groups where there can be a group focus on one individual’s thought and action, with the other group members working to help that person clarify and refine his or her understanding. In so doing they also enhance their own learning and enlarge their abilities to participate in dialogue. At other times educators will be alone in the group in their concern to clarify and problematize the thinking of another.

A respect for persons is a precondition for productive dialogue: degrading circumstances and treatment must be opposed. ‘The snobbery and patronizing attitudes of the privileged, and the feelings of deference which they foster— the status hierarchy by which people are appreciated not for their personal qualities but for their social position’ (Baker 1987: 4) must also be rejected. A respect for truth and for justice, a commitment to collaborative working and a belief in reflectiveness and theory making are all necessary. Crucially, this last belief must connect with action: there has to be some promise of the dialogue resulting in changed or better informed behaviour.

[page 11] Informal educators must have an active appreciation of, and engagement with, the social systems through which people operate and the cultural forms they use. As Brew put it ‘one should use the language of the people’ (1946:40). Rather than creating an institution largely separated from, or beyond the day-to-day context in which people operate, informal educators will attempt to work with or within forms and structures familiar to, and owned by, the participants (Smith 1988: 130). Debbie Saddington, Anne Foreman and John Ellis, for example, look at clubs as sites for informal education and Don Blackburn and Mal Blackburn examine some of the daily rhythms of residential life. One of the important features of this process is that educators pay careful attention to the way in which notions of informality are understood by the people they work with. A particular educator’s understanding of ‘informality’, may not be shared by other participants. A concern for staying with the developing understandings of the participants is central to informal education and this can take on a particular meaning where practitioners are operating across class, ethnic and gender divides.

The identity of informal educators is bound up with a commitment to a dialogue with the social systems and cultures through which learners operate. This involves constantly looking for the learning which can be generated within everyday life. The result can be an enhanced appreciation of the main areas of ‘need’, the generation of more relevant educational forms and the possibility of better informed work, as John Ellis suggests. It should also allow an awareness of crucial political and cultural questions such as those raised by Elizabeth Afua Sinclair . Above all, it should give a measure of protection against the cultural imperialism of some forms of education. The whole purpose of informal education is to develop forms of thinking and acting that fit the situations that people find themselves in. In the end this can only be done by the participants, which makes their analysis and view of the world a central reference point.

Lastly, and contrary to much received opinion, informal education is not only concerned with the pattern of learning usually known as ‘experiential’. There is a sense, as Dewey suggests, in which all genuine learning comes about through experience. However, that ‘does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educational. Experience and education cannot be directly equated to each other’ (1938: 25). Problems appear as soon as we begin to ask what we mean by ‘experience’. Some writers have tended to use experience in a concrete rather than cognitive sense. As [page 12] a result it is possible to argue that there are at least two broad, but separate, patterns of learning: the experiential and the information— assimilational (see, for example, Coleman 1976). The classic expression of the former is Kolb’s learning cycle. This begins with concrete experience, proceeds to observation and reflection, then to generalization and abstract conceptualization, then to active experimentation which in turn produces concrete experience. The whole cycle then repeats itself (Kolb 1976). This circular process can then be compared with the supposedly linear process of information assimilation. This begins with the educator transmitting information through some symbolic medium such as a lecture. Some of that information is then received by the learner, assimilated, organized, made into a general principle, applied and action taken. These patterns, as outlined, have different strengths and weaknesses. One pattern may be more usefully applied to a particular situation than the other (Coleman 1976).

Informal education may, as Glynis Francis and Anne Foreman suggest, put people’s experiences at the centre. It may also be person-centred. However, this does not mean that informal educators forego information giving as a technique. In fact, in a number of the accounts that follow (see, for example, Gertig ) we see informal educators at certain points offering information rather than attending to concrete experiences. A community worker working with a tenants’ group may be asked to provide information about the local authority or about, say, the Housing Action Trust programme. This assists and informs dialogue.

We may conclude that informal educators are not tied to the use of one pattern or style of learning. The adoption by some of so called ‘experiential learning’ as a central element is perhaps best seen as an aspect of informal educators’ search for a professional identity. This parallels the eagerness of some adult educators to construct an empirically verifiable theory of adult learning.

If we could discover certain empirically verifiable differences in learning styles between children (as a generic category) and adults (as a generic category), then we could lay claim to a substantive area for research that would be unchallengeably the property of educators and trainers of adults. Such a claim would provide us with a professional identity. It would ease the sense of insecurity and defensiveness that frequently assails educators and trainers of adults in all settings when faced with the accusation that they are practising a non-discipline . . . Such a revelation is unlikely to [page 13] transpire for some considerable time, and it may be that the most empirically attestable claim that can be made on behalf of adult learning styles concerns their range and diversity. (Brookfield 1986: 33)

Informal educators who fail to be sensitive to the possible range of learning styles are also likely to be paying insufficient attention to the cultures with which they are working.

The formal and the informal

Some contrasts with formal education are clear. Formal education will tend to take place in a ‘sole-use’ setting; have a more explicit and codified curriculum; show different forms of time structuring; participation may or may not be voluntary; processes may or may not be dialogical; and there may not be an active appreciation of people’s cultures and social networks (Smith 1988: 132). The institutions and practices associated with the paradigms of organization —the school, college and classroom — will tend to mould the identity of formal educators. However, as Ellis demonstrates, there are marked pitfalls to thinking of informal and formal education as mutually exclusive. They are more akin to traditions of thinking: a programme of informal work may well have formal interludes and the formal programme may gradually change its character. The latter is clearly shown in the work Pauline Gertig describes in relation to carers. The former can be seen where, for example, the practitioner works with individuals in order that they may reflect upon their experiences and begin to build theories. Similarly, formal programmes, as Elizabeth Afua Sinclair shows, can be structured so as to encourage the development of informal learning networks and contain within them a parallel concern to enable dialogue.

It is in this area that the limits of purely informal approaches become clear. Where people are seeking to make sense of their experiences and insights it is quite likely that more formal means will be needed. As John Ellis points out, informal approaches have their shortcomings for dealing with complex questions. Earlier we used the example of the group which focuses upon the learning of one member. That group has to work out and agree certain rules and procedures in order to function. Those sessions where the group consciously uses these ‘rules’ are to some extent formalized. They may entail some explicit agreements concerning objectives, setting and procedures. It is in this sense that we have talked of informal education having formal interludes.

[page 14] Educators can find that as soon as they appear the situation alters and the group or individual starts functioning in a different mode. Some practitioners, uncomfortable with the sporadic and ‘unfinished’ nature of informal work, seek comfort in order and activity; their intervention, perhaps unconsciously, is directed at formalizing the informal. At certain times formalization is appropriate. There will be periods when educators will be involved in more structured work with groups and individuals. As needs change so will the form of intervention. Indeed, it may no longer be appropriate for informal educators to devote much time to working with certain people. Workers commonly find themselves, as Glynis Francis comments, helping people to identify or construct courses and study programmes that meet their own learning needs — A process sometimes described as ‘hatching and despatching’. Whether we define an activity as formal or informal is largely a question of balance and time. For work to remain informal the formal was to remain an ‘interlude’.

The movement between the formal and informal may not simply take place within education: it may for example, be a movement from education to more structured forms of casework. The social worker may choose to use different forms of intervention in order to approach varying areas of concern. The central point here is that if practitioners operate in only one mode they are likely to be less than effective. There is a need to examine the process of blending the informal and formal and to pay attention to the means by which practitioners switch between modes. This creates many problems.

The problem of curricula

We have already noted that a detailed curriculum is one of the things that demarcates formal from informal education. At the same time a number of schemes have sought to introduce curriculum elements into informal practice often in order to control it. David Burley notes the use of informal education within schools in connection with the profiling of students. Within youth work, as Anne Foreman remarks, there has been a growing emphasis on curriculum by key agencies such as the National Youth Bureau and HM Inspectorate. Don Blackburn and Mal Blackburn discuss the use of Individual Programme Plans (IPPs) by some residential agencies. The central question here is the extent to which the introduction of curriculum thinking alters the educational form. There are dangers in inserting a notion formed in one context into another.

[page 15] The IPP approach is a useful example of what can happen. It has often included an assessment framework, based upon behavioural objectives. As Blackburn and Blackburn comment, although people with learning difficulties may be involved in a choice of goals when constructing an IPP, the choice is effectively limited by the menu of skills provided in the assessment. A strong focus on curriculum content can easily lead to a type of prescription that undercuts the opportunity for dialogue. The same problem faces those informal educators who, while not having a thorough set of curriculum objectives, do have a specific remit: They may be sent out with, say, a brief to tackle alcohol abuse among young people. The expectations of their managers may conflict with the fact that their interactions with young people are not easily contained within the suggested framework. Pauline Gertig shows how practitioners with precisely detailed objectives often move away from these as their relationship with a group or individual deepens. In other words, there is a shift in emphasis from the objectives of educators, to participants’ concerns and interests: a sign that dialogue is possibly occurring.

The adoption of curriculum thinking by some informal educators appears to have largely arisen from a desire to be clear about content. Yet there are crucial difficulties with the notion of curriculum in this context (Smith 1988: 136-9). These centre around the extent to which it is possible to have a clear idea, in advance (and even during the process), of the activities and topics that a particular piece of work will include. At any one time, outcomes may not be highly specific; similarly, the nature of the activities to be used often cannot be predicted. We may be able to say something about how the informal educator will work. However, knowing in advance about broad processes and ethos is not the same as having a knowledge of the programme. We must therefore conclude that approaches to the curriculum which focus on objectives and detailed programmes cannot be accommodated within informal education.

Against such ‘curriculum as product’ approaches may be set those which focus on process. Stenhouse defines a curriculum as an ‘attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice’ (1975: 4). Involving both content and method, at a minimum it should ‘provide a basis for planning a course, studying it empirically and considering the grounds of its justification’ (ibid: 5). Such approaches put deliberation, judgement and meaning making at the centre. They:

[page 16]place the emphasis upon action or practice, rather than upon some product. Furthermore a practical interest initiates the sort of action which is taken as a consequence of deliberation and a striving to understand or make meaning of the situation on the part of the practitioner rather than action taken as a consequence of a directive or in keeping with some pre-specified objective. (Grundy 1987: 65)

While there are still problems regarding prescription many of the elements discussed under the heading of curriculum by those interested in process and practice resonate with the concerns of informal educators. Yet this is to extend the domain of the curriculum. As Barrow comments, there are problems with this. ‘By this stage the field of curriculum has become enormous. In fact it is more or less coextensive with the domain of educational studies, of which it is usually presumed to be an offshoot’ (Barrow 1984: 6). If we take a fairly narrow definition of curriculum then it quickly becomes clear that it cannot accommodate the sort of ideas and processes discussed in this book. For example, Barrow defines a curriculum as ‘a programme of activities (by teachers and pupils) designed so that pupils will attain so far as possible certain educational and other schooling ends or objectives’ (1984: 11). It is this understanding of curriculum which broadly informs many of the attempts to introduce the concept into the work of informal educators. Such a product orientation is incompatible with our model.

On the other hand major problems remain if we take a broader understanding of curriculum, even setting aside the conceptual difficulties in extending usage. Many of those investigating process-orientated curricula are doing so in a particular context — that of the formal educational institution. Concepts like ‘course’ remain central to their model. For example, in discussing their concept of the ‘organic curriculum’, Hunter and Scheirer describe it as (1988: 95):

a multifaceted, multilevel amalgam of process, subject, problem (or issue) and experience made available to the children . . . The school will have a list of objectives which, while remaining flexible to match the differing needs of individuals, will help the teachers in arriving at appropriate expectations of children’s achievements.

Again, we can see here ideas which are alien to the sort of informal education discussed in this book. Informal educational processes do not sit happily with notions such as ‘subject’. The objectives of informal educators are more to do with the delivery of a service rather [page 17] than outcomes for individuals. While it is still possible to talk of learning objectives such objectives are the property of the learner rather than the educator. The more detailed such objectives become the more likely it will be that formal forms of intervention are required.

It seems probable that the application of the term ‘curriculum’ marks off the formal from the informal educator. This is not a conclusion that all our contributors would agree with. Anne Foreman still uses the concept. However, it should be noted that many of the activities she discusses in relation to the ‘youth work curriculum’ are in fact formal. She also makes use of the idea of ‘programme’, a notion which has a long history of usage within youth work and which, when used with caution, could be used alongside process-orientated work. However, those wanting to bring meaning-making and process fully into focus have to look for other words to describe their thinking and practice.

Content, direction and process

John Ellis argues that an all-embracing vagueness will not do. There is a deep need for practitioners to be clear on purpose, on the reason why something is done, created or exists. Many of the writers here talk about the direction of specific pieces of work. Such thinking is necessary for making decisions about practice. The idea of direction is a useful starting point. It is far broader than the idea of curriculum objectives and carries with it the possibility that the specific topic for study and reflection may vary. Looked at in more detail, we can see that this involves having a personal but shared idea of the ‘good’: some notion of what makes for human flourishing or well-being (see Brown 1986: 130—63). In other words, our orientation as educators will be informed by having what Dewey describes as an intelligent sense of human interests (1916: 230).

The second element of direction is a disposition towards ‘good’ rather than ‘correct’ action. This frame of mind:

would encourage a person acting in a certain situation to break a rule or convention if he/she judged that to act in accordance with it would not promote ‘the good’, either generally, or of the person involved in specific situations. (Grundy 1987: 62)

At this point we can see a number of ideas coalescing. Informal educators have to ‘think on their feet’. Not having predefined [page 18] learning objectives they reason their way through to what might be appropriate. They are guided in this by their understanding of what makes for the ‘good’, and a disposition towards good rather than correct action. They can draw upon a repertoire of experiences, theories and ideas to help them make sense of what is happening. In this way they engage in dialogue.

Such dialogue takes place in specific circumstances which will also affect what is happening. The social workers in Pauline Gertig’s chapter will be known to have some expertise concerning dementia, carers and the resources available to them. The people they are working with have an interest in that expertise. They also have a wealth of experience and knowledge of their own to contribute. We can see how the dialogue that occurs is likely to be orientated towards particular areas. Out of this interaction, action is generated. However, this is not action for action’s sake. It is activity based on a thorough understanding of the situation. From this it can be seen that a necessary element in informal educators’ practice is the encouragement and enabling of people to think critically about the situations that face them so that they may take action. Informal educators do not appear with a list of curriculum objectives: the areas for learning arise out of dialogue, the direction being shaped by the situation, an evolving reading of what makes for the good and a disposition towards it. To this must also be added the educator’s interest in critical thinking and action. This process is summarized in Figure 1.1 ; the different elements are discussed at greater length in Chapter 10 .

We can see how the notion of direction fits into the dialogical process. Much of the work described in the following chapters is aimed at encouraging and developing critical thinking and the disposition and ability to act. This is further infused by a concern to develop a fully social understanding. To quote Freire again (1972: 58):

The pursuit of full humanity. . . cannot be carried out in isolation or in individualism, but only in fellowship and solidarity. . . No one can be authentically human while he prevents others from being so.

These purposes may well be mediated through specific concerns. Nevertheless, the central question that underpins the purpose of any informal education in respect of welfare rights, caring or any of the examples explored here, is to what extent practitioners’ interventions are directed towards critical reflectiveness and action.

[page 20] To be effective, educators must remain informed by an understanding of the direction of their work and how this may have been amended by their dialogue with learners. It is similarly vital that participants reflect upon and clarify what they want from the enterprise and what they have gained.

This leads us on to the question of evaluation. As Grundy and others have argued in respect of process-based approaches to the curriculum, evaluation is an integral and not a separate part of the whole educative process. The central principle underlying evaluation in much that is written about the process within welfare (see, for example, Feek 1988) is the need to make an assessment of how closely the product matches the objectives in the guiding plan. It is the product which is the focus of evaluation. In the case of informal education, evaluation means ‘making judgments about the extent to which the processes and practices undertaken through the learning experience furthered the “good” of all participants’ (Grundy 1987: 77). In other words, the focus is on the process, how people experience it and what is revealed. This requires the construction of rather different criteria or indicators of success. A key area here is the nature of the dialogue that occurred and, as might be expected, the extent to which the discourse was critical.

Identity, personality and role

A major problem practitioners have with informal education is to do with their professional sense of themselves. For a social worker to operate in this way may entail switching from a casework orientation to an educational one. This can involve a substantial jump in terms of the ‘statutory’ basis of the work and in the circumstances under which a social worker works. As Hudson comments in respect of work with young women (1984: 48):

For teachers, their contact with teenagers is organised on the basis of their age rather than gender for most of the time, and their aim is to facilitate age—appropriate cognitive development in large numbers of young people. . . Social workers, on the other hand, are orientated to the help of the individual in trouble. Their contact is with young people who are distinguished by their differences from the normal. . . the ethos of social work is to individuate in the treatment of clients.

While this may be a somewhat simplistic representation of the different modes of thinking, we must recognize that the broad body of knowledge underpinning each profession is different (for [page 21] example, developmental psychology as against psychoanalytical theory and abnormal psychology) Difficulties occur either in the process of switching or failing to switch from one mode to the other. Thus, for example, probation officers may approach their informal educational activities with a frame of reference which seriously undermines the enterprise, or teachers may bring in too much of the classroom, priests too much of the church, and youth workers too much activity organization. This slippage is understandable. In asking practitioners to function across practice areas we are demanding a sophisticated ability to handle and contain divergent ways of thinking. The location of much informal work at the periphery of, for example, teaching and casework, has meant that such thinking and practice has not often played a significant role in sustaining the identity of practitioners in those areas. Even where the worker is primarily engaged in informal education, as is the case with many community workers and youth workers, there are problems. Although there are long traditions of informal practice in these areas not much attention has been given to constructing theory around such educational interventions: one key plank in practitioners’ identity is ill—formed. Effective practice is dependent on practitioners paying attention to the way they understand and name their craft.

Both Anne Foreman and Debbie Saddington draw attention to the significance of the practitioner’s personality in the nature of the work. In part this reflects their pattern of interests. Workers will find it easier to respond to concerns and questions about which they themselves are also curious. Given the relative freedom that many informal educators enjoy in their work, there are dangers here. It becomes possible for workers to follow their own individual interests rather than those collectively determined or expressed by the learners. Other dimensions such as educators’ class, ethnicity, gender and physical make up are also important in the way other people may perceive them, as are disposition and values. How many times have we heard comments about practitioners being ‘miserable bastards’ or ‘nice people who really listen’. We have to recognize that the dialogical and intimate nature of informal education focuses attention on the person of the practitioner: certain personal characteristics are required. These include the ability to handle the unfinished nature of practice in this area and to go at a pace defined by the others; and the readiness to allow people to take responsibility for their own learning and lives. There is also a further, structural, pressure at work here. Informal educators frequently have to work on their [page 22] own, outside institutions which carry powerful professional character stereotypes: many cannot, unlike teachers in schools, draw on certain stock figures to help establish their authority. Attention is therefore focused even more strongly upon their personality.

We have to recognize that the role we are able to take as informal educators is not only dependent upon what we want it to be but also upon what others allow it to be. A number of factors come into play here. There is the degree of autonomy allowed practitioners by their employers and their colleagues and the way they are viewed. On the whole, informal educators have a degree of discretion as to how they practise and with whom. They may be considered as operating within ‘front-line’ organizations. Tasks are initiated at the front—line level. For example, it could be argued that social workers ‘do not think of casework practice as the application of general departmental rules’ (Smith 1979: 35). That position may have changed in the last ten years but some room for manoeuvre remains. Generally there are also major obstacles to the direct supervision of most informal educators’ activities. Of course, there are exceptions to this, particularly where the actions of the educator affect colleagues. This can arise within schools, where, for instance, other staff may feel their relationship with students is somehow being compromised by the informality and use of first names that occurs within, say, the youth wing. The question of status also comes into play. Informal educators are often employed within sectors that are non-statutory or possess a low status with ‘mainstream’ practitioners. Youth workers operating within a school or residential workers in the social services are often looked down upon or deemed ‘less important’. This is bound to have implications for the way in which any specialism they may have in informal education is viewed.

Beyond this there are also questions regarding the nature of the sponsoring agency and the direction of its practice. To what extent is it possible to locate work with a collective and collaborative ethos within an agency organized around individualized intervention? The tensions discussed in relation to practitioners’ identities can also arise at an organizational level. A lack of appreciation by managers of the timescales involved, the resources necessary and the character of informal work can lead to unrealistic expectations. All this can become reflected in poor job specifications, peculiar organizational structures and inappropriate management, as Burley suggests.

We must consider the way in which practitioners are viewed by the people they are attempting to work with. The question of personality has already been discussed. Overlaying and influencing [page 23] this are people’s perceptions of the employing or sponsoring organization. Informal educators employed by social service departments in order to work with groups of parents whose children are on the ‘at risk’ register may well be viewed differently from generic neighbourhood workers employed by local community organizations. There is the possibility, as Burley notes, of some forms of informal education being used or seen as punitive and control mechanisms.

It is critical that the educator is seen as an educator. Here it is necessary for practitioners to be open about their work and to explain what they do. They may take time to do this. If a group or individual does not accept this it will be difficult for the educator to function. For example, community workers may be seen as people who give out, or influence the giving out, of grants. If they then attempt to help a group focus on how it is working their intervention may be unwelcome. The educator’s understanding of what it is to be an educator is often formed in one culture while the understanding of what is to work with an educator is often formed in another. In the same way misunderstandings can easily arise about the precise meaning of formality and informality.

In conclusion

The characteristics and themes developed in this opening chapter can be seen at work in the contributions that follow. What they demonstrate is that informal education is a vibrant and somewhat undervalued form of practice. One of its significant features is the way in which it transcends professional boundaries. If it is to be fully utilized and developed then action will be required within and across the separate professional areas. This has a number of implications for training. As Don Blackburn and Mal Blackburn ask, how do you train or learn to be an informal educator? What we hope this book will make clear is the potential of informal education as a method in welfare work.

© T. Jeffs and Mark Smith 1990

Reproduced with permission from Tony Jeffs and Mark Smith (eds.) Using Informal Education , Buckingham: Open University Press.

First published on the informal education homepage: May 2000.

For details of references go to the bibliography

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© Tony Jeffs and Mark K. Smith 1990 Reproduced with permission from Tony Jeffs and Mark Smith (eds.) Using Informal Education , Buckingham: Open University Press.

First published in the informal education archives: February 2002.