Schooling systems across the world invest considerable resources in promoting teachers’ professional development. Traditionally, these initiatives overwhelmingly fell within the rubric of “formal learning” – institutionally sponsored and formally structured lectures, courses, workshops, seminars, conferences, etc. However,  more recent attention has turned to understanding the nature and effects of “informal” and “on the job” learning – “learning from experience that takes place outside formally structured, institutionally sponsored, class-room based activity” (Watkins and Marsick 1992, 288). Numerous studies now suggest that this latter mode of acquiring knowledge and skills accounts for a high percentage of teachers’ overall learning (Lohman 2000; Livingstone 1999; Marsick and Volpe 1999), and increasingly researchers are exploring the ways in which the structures of schools and schooling intersect, positively and negatively, with the capacity of teachers to engage in informal learning (Williams 2004; Hoekstra et al 2007).

Over the past decade, a research collective based in Toronto has been active in exploring the ways in which Canadian teachers, working in elementary and secondary schools in Canada and abroad, understand and engage in their own informal and formal learning.  This overall study grew out of a number of conceptual issues, themes and questions – unpacking the complex intersections between teachers’ work, knowledge, professional/ism, and the nature and extent of their autonomy and control over their own work.  In addition, of particular interest to us has been the exploration of possible connections between overall neoliberal-inspired schooling reforms, and the ways in which teachers are being repositioned as “entrepreneurial subjects” within an increasingly individualized working relationship (Ozga 2005). Thus, we have drawn on a broad range of theoretical approaches, ranging from work process theory (Easthope & Easthope 2000; Smyth et. al. 2000) to new conceptions of a work culture based on “performativity” - as Ball (2003, 218) notes, “a new mode of state regulation that makes it possible to govern in an ‘advanced liberal’ way. It requires individual practitioners to organize themselves as a response to targets, indicators and evaluations. To set aside personal beliefs and commitments and live an existence of calculation.”

Ball, Stephen (2003) The Teacher’s Soul and the Terrors of Performativity. Journal of Education Policy 18(2): 215-228. Easthope, Chris and Gary Easthope (2000) Intensification, Extension and Complexity of Teachers’ Workload. British Journal of Sociology of Education 21/1: 43-58. Hoekstra A, Beijaard D, Brekelmans M & Korthagen F (2007) Experienced teachers' informal learning from classroom teaching. Teachers and Teaching. 13(2): 191–208. Livingstone DW (1999) Exploring the icebergs of adult learning: Findings of the first Canadian survey of informal learning practices. Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education. 13(2): 49–72. Lohman M (2000) Informal learning in the workplace: A case study of public school teachers. Adult Education Quarterly. 50(2): 83-101. Marsick VJ & Volpe M (1999) The Nature and Need for Informal Learning. Advances in Developing Human Resources. 1(3): 1-9. Ozga, Jenny (2005) In the Public Interest? Research, Knowledge Transfer and Education Policy. Edinburgh: The Centre for Educational Sociology. Smyth, J., Dow, A., Hattam, R., Reid, A., & Shacklock, G. (Eds.) (2000) Teachers’ work in a globalizing economy. London: Falmer Press. Watkins, K.E. and Marsick, V.J (1992) Towards a theory of informal and incidental learning in organizations. International Journal of Lifelong Learning, 11(4): 257-300. Williams A (2004) Informal learning in the workplace: A case study of new teachers. Educational Studies. 29(2): 207–219.