Understanding Children's Informal Learning: Appreciating Everyday Learners

Learning and personal development are integral to being a person, and learning and teaching are integral to life as a social being. Understanding Children’s Informal Learning presents children’s informal learning out-of-school and explores how this knowledge can enhance teaching and learning practice in the classroom.

The authors focus on the richness of children’s everyday learning, and in what ways children, teachers and schools can work to bring more of the everyday learning strengths that all children have into the interactional framework of the classroom. Offering practical applications for teachers and other education professionals, the chapters work to ensure children’s voices are heard and actively influence understandings of learning, so that out-of-school learning is legitimised as a critical constituent of in-school learning.

Addressing the need to provide a strong ‘student voice’ component and strategies to support children’s learning both in-school and out-of-school, Understanding Children’s Informal Learning furthers comprehensive education research, policy, and practice.

Roseanna Bourke is Professor of Learning and Assessment in the Institute of Education at Massey University, New Zealand. She is a registered teacher and educational psychologist with an interest in the areas of learning and assessment, children’s rights, student voice, informal and everyday learning, and the impact of institutionalised practices on student learning.

John O’Neill is Professor of Teacher Education in the Institute of Education at Massey University, New Zealand. His research interests include the relationship between education policy and teachers’ professional work and learning, children’s rights, and teaching and learning in everyday settings.

Judith Loveridge is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She is particularly interested in the intersection between social and cultural processes and individuals’ learning and development, and ethical research with children and young people.