This article explores informal adult education for change in Mexico through the conceptual lens of social movement learning and public pedagogy. It adopts a multiple case design featuring two advocacy networks, two civil society organisations, and two self-help authors. It analyses how they position themselves as change agents addressing issues of…

Self-help literature has become an important domain of adult learning in North America. Self-help books offer readers advice on how to take charge of their lives and achieve goals such as prosperity, love, happiness, wellness, and self-actualization. Despite the popularity of self-help books, there has been little research about them from scholars…

Through presenting empirical research exploring the connections between popular culture and informal learning, we argue that, as predicted by concepts such as self-directed learning and transformational learning, the experience of transition has a meaningful impact on adult learning. Specifically, transitions encourage adults to engage in learning…

Self-help groups (SHGs) have emerged as an effective mechanism of empowerment and development of women as well as being on efficient mode of promoting group action and technology dissemination. Initiatives were undertaken at the Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET), Ludhiana to facilitate the formation of women's…

Analyzed the biographies of twenty acknowledged experts without formal training beyond high school in search of commonalities that might suggest ways people become effectively self-directed in learning and accomplishment. Patterns of education and personality characteristics are discussed. (Author/CC)

A study examined costs and benefits perceived by 26 self-help group leaders who helped rural Kansas communities in extending the use, awareness, and effectiveness of self-help groups. Findings that satisfaction in helping was the major benefit and time constraints the major cost were used to tailor leadership roles. Self-help group activity…

A qualitative study examined how formal and informal social and cultural learning for political action was incorporated into two women's organizations in Colombia: the Association of Daycare Mothers and the Community Mothers. Research was guided by the historic hermeneutic method, which identifies experience through the narrative testimonies of…

This working paper lays groundwork for a Network for New Approaches to Lifelong Learning study on informal learning by people displaced from the labor market or chronically unemployed, in the context of community organizations. Section 1 examines the context and two particularly significant features--wider changes in the nature of work and related…

Because a growing proportion of the world's working population is in the informal sector (in work areas generally outside the sphere of state protection), planners of vocational training for adults must pay closer attention to those concepts of teaching and learning that have relevance for the informal sector, and they must develop strategies for…

A study examined key dimensions of the pattern of learning and enterprise culture change relating to provision of training and learning services for small businesses in Australia. Barriers to training were both demand- and supply-side factors. Research showed the significance of informal learning that occurs in workplaces of small firms but was…

This book, which focuses on how personality, societal values and politics have influenced the mission of adult education, contains 34 papers originally presented at a 2000 conference on the history of adult education. Following a Foreword (Poggeler) and Preface (Nemeth) the papers are: "The Globalization of Adult Education and the One World…