The establishment of the concept "directed learning" (DL) was achieved by a comprehensive review of anthropological literature. DL is a form of deliberate enculturation, but it is distinguished from schooling by its informality. Further, schooling is not found in non-literate societies. The major problem in studying the structure and function of education in primitive societies is the dearth of detail available in the literature. New methods for analyzing the literature must be developed to answer: "Who educates? On what does the educational process focus? How is the information taught?" The author has devised diagrams of the boundaries of social interaction and of the deliberate instruction (DI) interaction pattern, a chart of the agents of DI instruction, a schedule of the teaching-learning situation-process, and other tools to aid his analysis. Two of the working hypotheses for future study are included: the structure of DL is determined by features of the instruction and the social setting; and, every society has individuals who act as teachers. (DJB)