The informal sector dominates India's economic life, so issues of skills development are particularly important. On the basis of a survey of 49 street food vendors in the Indian cities of New Delhi and Coimbatore, the authors of this article demonstrate that informal learning is a particularly significant form of vocational education and training.…

Vygotsky (1987) stated that the restructured form of everyday concepts learned at home and in the community interact with scientific concepts introduced in formal school settings, leading to a higher level of scientific thinking for school-aged children. But, what does this mean for the scientific learning of infants and toddlers? What kinds of…

This paper draws on the results of an ethnographic project carried out with five groups of secondary students. During one academic year, our research team accompanied youth in an inquiry into learning practices in and outside school. Here their observations and contributions are brought together to problematize the relationship between formal and…

This article is situated in a body of research focusing on learning in and out of school, often referred to as studies of formal and informal learning. Drawing on the dialogic approach, the article warns against simplistic and dichotomous definitions of what counts as formal and informal learning. Instead, it calls for the importance of…

This book focuses on the design and architecture of ubiquitous learning environments, associated technologies, various learning scenarios supported by these environments, and different contexts that arise in environments where the seamless immersion of formal and informal activities and interactions has the potential to contribute to the learning…

Networked learning and learning networks are commonplace concepts in most contemporary discourse on learning in the 21st century. This special issue provides a collection of studies that address the need for a growing body of empirical work to extent the limited understanding of the use and benefits of networks in relation to learning and…

Teaching is and always has been a year-round job. Even when educators are not working during the summer months, they are always planning for the year ahead. This has not changed in the 21st century. In fact, teachers might work harder now than ever. While summer is the perfect time for teachers to relax and recharge their batteries, it also…

This paper discusses how the particular features of mobile learning can be harnessed to provide new informal learning opportunities in relation to context aware and location based learning. The MASELTOV project is developing representations of an incidental learning framework to enable software developers and researchers to both design and analyse…

This article examines text-based locations ("textrooms") as a third strand of the extracurriculum of composition. Through a diachronic analysis, I examine the nineteenth-century periodical "Godey's Lady's Book" and three twenty-first-century blogs as coauthored classrooms or powerful sites of women's informal writing education.

M-Learning holds great potential for supporting the positive educational outcomes of underserved Indigenous communities in the Canadian North, and even in urban centers, that are at risk of exclusion from affordable, high-quality learning experiences. The technical advantages of having mobile technology to deliver educational curricula and assess…

In light of the challenges facing science educators and special education teachers in Singapore, this study entails design-based research to develop participatory learning environments. Drawing upon Vygotskian perspectives, this case study was situated in an informal workshop around the theme of "day and night" working for Special Needs…

This paper reports on the rehabilitation of ex-offenders through non-formal education. It examines how non-formal education has addressed the ex-offenders' adaptive and transformative needs. Using an interpretive paradigm and qualitative approach, individual interviews were conducted with five ex-offenders who were chosen through purposive and…

This article is the first to describe the discoursal construction of an adolescent community of practice (CoP) in a non-school setting. CoPs can provide optimal learning environments. The adolescent community centered around science journalism and positioned itself dichotomously in relationship to school literacy practices. The analysis focuses on…

This conceptual article underscores the importance of critical engagement in and through education with a view to enhancing education for democracy (EfD). As a centerpiece to illustrating this connection, we refer to our research project, which engages international actors through an analysis of the perceptions, experiences and perspectives of…

This response considers the strengths of Carr and Thesee's 2017 paper in "Democracy & Education" and explores further areas of research related to education for democracy or citizenship education. [For "Seeking Democracy Inside and Outside of Education," see EJ1162605.]