Informal adult education. Blurred scopes and elusive meanings

Abstract

This article presents the historical evolution of the ideas and theories that have played a fundamental role in distinguishing between formal, non-formal, and informal adult education. The author focuses on informal education and identifies its various forms that are synthesized using a classification framework based on two dimensions: intentionality and unintentionality as well as awareness and unawareness of informal education. From the perspective of 14 years since the publication of the first version of the article, the author concludes that informal education is no longer a residual category and there has been a growing critical attitude towards its significance in the context of public lifelong learning policies. However, this has been accompanied by numerous efforts to measure
and acknowledge the impact of informal education, along with the development of a new language for describing this form of adult learning. In the introduction, the author postulates a debate among the communities interested in informal education in order to achieve a theoretical clarity that would facilitate its effective implementation in practice.