informal learning - a conceptual health warning

The notion of 'informal learning' has only limited usefulness - but the processes it points to are significant. Discussion tends to:

• focus on sponsorship and setting. Crudely, learning that takes place in dedicated educational institutions such as schools is seen as formal, that which occurs beyond the school walls as ‘informal’;

• confuses learning and education (especially self-education); and

• might often be better framed as incidental learning or in terms of implicit learning/tacit knowledge.