Abstract
Informal home education occurs without much that is generally considered essential for formal education—including curriculum, learning plans, assessments, age related targets or planned and deliberate teaching. Our research into families conducting this kind of education enables us to consider learning away from such imposed structures and to explore how children go about learning for themselves within the context of their own socio-cultural setting. In this paper we consider what and how children learn when no educational agenda is arranged for them and we link this manner of learning to the Deweyan ideas of learning as transactional and learning-in-context. We also use our empirical evidence to explore the notion of ZPD with regard to informal learning and to consider how children, without specific guidance, go about charting a course of learning through the ZPD. We consider the quality of informal learning particularly with regard to the educational aim of developing reflective and critical thinking, showing how these are integral to informal learning. We suggest that a much wider conception of what learning is and how it happens is needed, away from the confines of formal educational structures.
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Notes
Our interest here lies not with judging the desirability of competing values, ethics and world views as they may be handed on to children within families. Whilst these matters may be considered integral to serious debates about mainstream education they stand on different ground in home education, abutting as they do with questions of civil liberties and the integrity of family life. In any case, this lies outside the scope of this paper in which we concentrate on the acquisition of knowledge, of certain capabilities and understandings.
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Thomas, A., Pattison, H. Informal Home Education: Philosophical Aspirations put into Practice. Stud Philos Educ 32, 141–154 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-012-9299-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-012-9299-2