Funded by the SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) and composed of more than 50 researchers and collaborators, the Research Network on new Approaches to Lifelong Learning (NALL) produced a wealth of empirical data, both qualitative and quantitative, on the subject of lifelong learning. The Annotated Bibliography of Studies Based on Data from the Research Network on New Approaches to Lifelong Learning edited by  D.W. Livingstone contains a summary of the project findings. [ PDF ]

NALL's basic objectives are to document current relations between informal learning and formal/nonformal education, identify major social barriers to integrating informal learning with formal/nonformal programs and certification, and support new program initiatives that promise to overcome such barriers.

Related Web Pages

Work and Lifelong Learning Research Network

 
BACKGROUND SUMMARY: Education and training involves much more than the organized schooling and continuing or adult education activities that go on within formal educational institutions. Informal learning refers to all other deliberate forms of self-directed or collective learning. Some people have noted that informal learning is the submerged part of the learning iceberg in modern knowledge-based societies. An international research tradition initiated in the 1970s by our member Allen Tough established that self-directed informal learning projects are indeed very extensive.

However, in spite of the universal recognition of the importance of education and training, we still have very limited understanding of the relations between the formal educational participation of people and their engagement in deliberate informal learning; therefore, we are not effectively linking informal learning with organized education and training programs.

Dr. David W. Livingstone - Network Leader
Professor and Head of the Centre for the Study of Education and Work,
Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education,
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/UT)