Informal Adult Learning and Everyday Literacy Practices

Abstract

This study investigated the types of informal learning activities that adults with low literacy skills engage in outside of formal literacy programs and how these activities relate to their literacy practices. Key informants for the study included 10 adults identified at International Adult Literacy Survey levels 1 and 2. Using ethnographic methods, data were collected over three months from several sources. Three major themes emerged: life roles, the situated learning environments, and the practice of everyday literacy activities. Adults with limited literacy perform important life roles in much the same way as more literate adults do. These life roles, which precipitated informal learning, consisted of combinations of parent, supportive partner, family member, volunteer, and employee. A second pattern was the environment in which informal learning was situated. The three environments—home, community, and workplace—were the significant milieus where adults engaged in learning as a result of their life roles. A third theme was the range of everyday literacy activities practiced by adults through informal learning. There was a clear indication that oral communication skills were most often practiced as a result of engaging in an informal learning project, event, or episode at home, in the community, or at work. A discussion focuses on the implications of the findings for literacy research, practice, and policy development.