Respecting Young People's Informal Learning: Removing Stubborn Policy Blinkers

• In Event: 46.018 - How Can Education Policy Respect Children and Young People? British Social Justice Researchers Seek New Ways to Inform Public Debate

Abstract

My engagement with the Respecting Children and Young People campaign focuses on the informal learning of marginalised young people: in homes, communities, nature and social media and through interests such as music, animals, computing, etc. In UK policy this is devalued in favour of a focus on credentials and stratified learning outcomes, underpinned by a critique of such young people as disaffected and unmotivated non-learners. Giroux (2009) suggests that youth are similarly ‘disposable’ in the USA. What would happen if policy in both the UK and USA recognised the validity of this learning and built on it rather than disrespecting and ignoring it, if it understood the reasons why love of informal learning was not extending to success at school, if it found ways to build pathways to work from these interests and abilities?
In a context of mass youth unemployment and youth support cuts in both countries who now will recognise these young people and their love of learning? I hope through the campaign to bring this issue to the attention of policy makers in UK and USA and by presenting at AERA to make collaborative links with those researching the heritage, culture and learning of young people, especially those in rural areas.
My paper particularly emerges from two research studies (see Quinn, 2013a and Quinn, 2013b). The first was a qualitative longitudinal study involving interviews with 114 young people in ‘jobs without training’. These young people, deemed to have limited interest in learning, with poor qualifications and prospects, still engaged in multiple forms of informal learning. The second study explicitly followed this up, focusing on young people in a rural area and exploring their interests and activities via focus groups and surveys. The significance of informal learning was pronounced, but again the young people could not report being actively encouraged to build upon it in schooling or work.
The jobs without training study gained policy interest in the UK including invitations to speak to government ministers. However, these policy exchanges always came up against blindspots when it came to the significance of informal learning and its value.
My paper draws on Young (2010) to argue that policy actively chooses this blinkered stance because a shadow body of unrecognised informal learners helps to shore up the status of their privileged qualified peers. To address this failing might thus be counterintuitive for current elitist education policy, but would be a fundamental move toward justice in education.

Author

• Jocey Quinn, Plymouth University