Abstract
We explore the “question of context” as a discursive practice in adult learning literature to reveal how the act of identifying learning contexts within complementary (and at times confusing) discourses of adult learning affects our means to understand and organize learning. We specifically focus on the way cognitive and situated conceptualizations of learning are utilized, challenged, and reconfigured in social and in/nonformal learning discourses to give meaning to the relationship between context and learning. We conclude with implications for rethinking the “static” understanding of context in adult education research and practice to expand our contemporary views of learning-in-context.
Keywords
adult learning theory, learning contexts
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Niewolny, K. L.,
&
Wilson, A. L.
(2011).
Are all Contexts Learning Contexts? Rethinking the Relationship between Learning and Context in Adult Learning Theory.
Adult Education Research Conference.
https://newprairiepress.org/aerc/2011/papers/74
Are all Contexts Learning Contexts? Rethinking the Relationship between Learning and Context in Adult Learning Theory
We explore the “question of context” as a discursive practice in adult learning literature to reveal how the act of identifying learning contexts within complementary (and at times confusing) discourses of adult learning affects our means to understand and organize learning. We specifically focus on the way cognitive and situated conceptualizations of learning are utilized, challenged, and reconfigured in social and in/nonformal learning discourses to give meaning to the relationship between context and learning. We conclude with implications for rethinking the “static” understanding of context in adult education research and practice to expand our contemporary views of learning-in-context.
