Learning to mother over coffee and cake - Naming our informal learning

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rizky

A feminist inquiry examines how mothers experience learning within an informal parent support group, asking what counts as quality education and how it should be identified. Drawing on contributions from 16 women, the study shows the group naming their experiences as significant learning episodes. It argues for informal dialogical learning in convivial, supportive settings and highlights that quantitative definitions may overlook important forms of community education.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Overview

Coffee and Cake: Methodology

Learning to mother over coffee and cake: Naming our informal learning sarah coss Abstract This article is a feminist inquiry into the learning experiences of mothers in an informal parent support group and asks: What is quality education and how do we ensure we are identifying it appropriately? Drawing on feminist research and incorporating contributions from 16 women, this article highlights how a group of women identify their experiences as signiﬁcant learning episodes. In doing this they reject other methods of learning in favour of informal, dialogical learning in convivial and supportive settings. Rather than relying on authorised knowledge (Letherby, 2003) they rely on the experiential knowledge of other mothers. Reminiscent of feminist community education this group enables the women to overcome oppression and isolation by collectively naming their world in order to understand it. The community education setting is in decline in Ireland but when we draw on quantitative methods to deﬁne, categorise and count educational groups we need to ensure we are naming, counting and including all forms of education. This paper argues that we are overlooking important groups who are engaging in quality informal community education. Keywords: Informal learning, community education, ‘really useful research’, feminist research, deﬁning quality Introduction This article seeks to explore what constitutes quality education and to inquire whether we are recognising quality education in all its forms. Drawing on my recent research uncovering the experiences of women in a parent support group I will provide an exploration of learning experiences in a non-traditional educational setting through convivial relationship and dialogue (Coss, 2016) . The women in this support group rate their learning experiences very highly yet prior to participating in my research they, like many others, might not have identiﬁed these experiences as quality educational incidents. Jarvis notes that everyday life is a strangely under researched subject, with adults often not recognising their changing and developing thoughts and behaviour as learning unless they are engaging in an active, formally acknowledged or accredited, conscious episode of learning (Jarvis, 2010, p. 63). My research explores how creating space for dialogical learning in a highly informal setting, a coffee morning, led to signiﬁcant learning experiences for the women involved. My interest in this area began when participating in research for the Central Statistics Ofﬁce. I was asked a series of questions designed to identify to what extent I had participated in Lifelong Learning in the preceding months (CSO, 2014) . The pre-set categories included formal, non-formal and informal. My enthusiastic description of how I had learned as a mother attending a local parent support group–to my mind social, dialogical, experiential and transformative learning – didn’t ﬁt into any of the prescribed boxes. Statistically I had not in fact learned anything that could be quantiﬁed in anyway except ‘other’. Overview Murray discusses the attempt to deﬁne the ﬁeld of education and learning as an attempt to control and dominate the discipline (2014, pp. 105-106). Despite this viewpoint, different learning environments are often deﬁned as formal, nonformal and informal and these deﬁnitions are recognised and utilised in many settings, for example inclusion in quantitative research by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP, 2015) and the Central Statistics Ofﬁce in Ireland (CSO, 2010) . Jarvis states that when attempting to categorise these various types of learning into examples of formal, non-formal and informal there is an inherent prejudice displayed, since the terms informal and non-formal imply that all the important learning, the quality learning, is formal – structured, accredited, provided for in recognised institutions of education, and so on – whereas th

FAQs

What research question does the article focus on?

It asks what quality education is and how to ensure it is identified appropriately across informal settings.

How do the mothers in the study understand their learning?

They rate their learning experiences highly and come to recognize them as significant educational incidents.

Why does the article emphasize informal, dialogical learning?

Because the women rely on experiential knowledge and collective dialogue in supportive settings rather than on authorized knowledge alone.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rizky