Learning Beyond the Classroom: Informal Education and Social Life

Dr Sara Black speaks with Professor Chris Winch about informal education and the ways we learn outside formal schooling.

Drawing on his recent book Civil Society’s Education, Chris explains how children develop language, behaviour, values, and practical skills through participation in family and community life, learning through experience, imitation, and shared activity rather than formal teaching.

The conversation also explores how social practices such as promise-keeping, loyalty, and shared norms are sustained through participation and mutual recognition, and reflects on the tension between social conditioning and human freedom.

Civil Society’s Education Reflections on the Informal Roots of Learning was published in 2025 by Bloomsbury.

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