Session Information
06 SES 10, At the Interface – Building New Relations Between Formal and Informal Learning (part 1)
Symposium, Continued in 06 SES 11
Contribution
The twentieth century was characterised by a global explosion in mass formal education in which a schooled society has come to be accepted as a universal common good with equivalences to human rights and social justice (Baker, forthcoming; UN 2009). Over the last decade, however, both the relevance of mass formal education to a changed socio-technical and socio-economic environment, and its moral purpose as instrument of social justice, have been subject to increasing critique (Egan, 2009; Claxton, 2008; Hargreaves, 2009). In order to remedy the perceived deficiencies of mass ‘industrial’ education, there have been calls to look to models of informal learning, whether in the ‘learning communities’ of workplaces and families or the new socio-technical spaces of the internet, as a source of alternative educational strategies (Gee, 2003; Leadbeater, 2008). At its most extreme, such arguments see a resurgence of debates over the future of the school and a renewal of calls for a technologically-mediated de-schooling movement (see, for example, Miller et al, 2008).
This double symposia avoids the more spectacular debates over the future of the educational institution that tend to dominate and obscure these discussions and which often lead to false oppositions being established between formal and informal learning (Colley et al, 2003). Instead the symposium explores the diverse strategies that are currently emerging in countries from the US, to Norway, the UK, Sweden and Denmark, to create new educational approaches at the interface between formal and informal learning. All contributors draw broadly from a range of socio-cultural perspectives providing a common thread whilst the nature of the international contributions creates opportunities for generating new insights, applicable in many national contexts. It addresses the tensions that emerge at this interface in terms of power and knowledge; it explores how early enthusiasm for some informal learning practices is giving way to considered appropriation of distinct elements; it examines how the highly diverse theoretical frameworks that are required to examine learning across multiple settings are beginning to be reconciled in new over-arching concepts such as ‘learning lives’.
In particular, the first symposium presents a range of international perspectives on the changing nature of schooling, giving careful consideration to the changing nature of formal education and in particular the role of the teacher in school settings. The authors attempt to move beyond simple views of formal/informal learning, contributing to the developing understanding of the complexity of the learning landscape. Erstad provides examples of school based projects in Norway which have already attempted to appropriate ‘informal’ learning practices through the development of new formalised practices in classrooms. Bevemyr/Björk-Willén provide a perspective on the informal practices of pre-schoolers using computer games. Lewin/Greenhow/Crook and Naylor/Facer explore the development of young people’s digital culture and how these processes and practices are affecting formalised curricula. Both papers focus on which practices can be legitimised at the boundary between formal and informal learning and what support structures are required to maximise the opportunities for learning.
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