Empowerment through nonformal education helps women organize for change to meet practical and strategic needs. Stages of empowerment include awareness of the problem, ownership, interaction, personal action, and collective action. Each stage has cognitive, psychological, economic, and political dimensions. (SK)

Data from interviews with 55 elderly Yoruba blacksmiths depict the experiences and practices of traditional apprenticeships before the advent of modern schooling in Nigeria. Discusses applications of the apprenticeship model within elementary and secondary schooling as a means of providing socially necessary, community regulated, and effective…

Tells the story of a Hawaiian man who learned to navigate without instruments like the ancient Polynesian wayfinders, explaining how he acquired navigational skills from mentors and books, discussing his views on education, and describing a trip he took in a double-hulled canoe designed according to ancient Polynesian petroglyphs. (SM)

Understanding and appreciation of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) are essential for promoting sustainable agriculture development. IKS provides a cultural basis for nonformal agricultural programs that is absent in technology transfer approaches. (SK)

The community is a natural setting for autonomous, democratic adult education. A framework for connecting the community and adult education has three mechanisms: community formal adult education, community nonformal adult education, and community informal adult education. (SK)

The traditional relationship and participation of Indian people with the American landscape has influenced their perceptions of themselves and of reality. The Pueblo "theology of place" is illustrated in their agricultural practices and accompanying ceremonial cycles. Modern Indian education must heal the split between spiritual and…

Reviews three books that examine the ongoing transformation of environmental education from a narrow science-focused framework toward new goals of public consciousness raising, social change, and environmental activism. (SV)

Reviews the characteristics of non-formal education as expressed in various academic-theoretical definitions, presents the links in this field to distance learning, and recommends future directions for exploring distance learning in non-formal education. Discusses the use of information and communication technology and considers problems with…

Argues that the present crisis of basic education for young people in Africa reveals problems that are more fundamental than enrollments, inputs, and costs. Maintains that non-conventional approaches to learning, associated with non-formal and distance education, have important but distinct contributions to make to the reform of mainstream…

Assessment of informal and nonformal learning requires resolution of three questions: how to define competencies, how to measure them, and how to ensure the legitimacy of the measure. Assessment and certification procedures must be well defined and robust, with quality assurance methods accepted by all stakeholders. (Contains 22 references.) (SK)

Analysis of Portuguese adult education policies from 1974-1999 showed that an early-70s radical period ended with establishment of capitalist neoliberal policies. There is a strong dichotomy between formal adult education and nonformal education offered by community organizations. Popular education is marginalized and the state's role in civil…

Data from Canada's New Approaches to Lifelong Learning Study confirm the pervasiveness of unpaid work and informal learning. Most employed persons engage in a variety of work-related informal learning activities. However, underemployment in terms of use of acquired skills is widespread. (Contains 29 references.) (SK)

Most often associated with international development programs, local nonformal education, which is practiced in cultural (museums), historical (memorials, battlefields), natural (parks), and commercial (craft, home improvement clinics) settings, has received little substantive attention in the United States. In response, this case study explored…

The author brings together the question posed in Kathryn Ecclestone's article in last month's "Adults Learning--"Where's the vision?"--and the letter from Wayne Bennett, General Manager of Dillington House, about the threat to residential colleges. The author brings out some of the connections between them and issues surrounding adult community…

This paper examines the life-wide dimensions of lifelong learning. Although the benefits of a life-wide approach to learning are well recognised, there appears to be little explicit attention given to the concept of life-wide learning in Australia. It is argued that recent pronouncements by the Australian Government about the challenges of an…