This paper falls into two parts--a Western interpretation and an Eastern critique of the same process. The first part provides an interpretation of how we learn to become culturally embedded individuals. The paper notes the learning processes in the formation of the cultural and national self. We, in the West, have traditionally assumed that the…

The following article examines the issues of open, distance and technology-based informal learning and non-formal education for individual and community development. It argues that these two modes of education, which are estimated to constitute 70-90% of lifelong learning, are insufficiently represented in the literature of open and distance…