鈥淚 will get my education - if it is in home, school, or any place.鈥�
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Why
Mission: The purposes of the SIG are a) to further research in informal learning environments (such as science centers, museums, aquariums, zoos, nature centers, libraries, and other places) and b) to promote a community of practice interested in establishing and maintaining informal learning environments conducive to a better understanding of teaching and learning.
Informal learning is closely tied to all aspects of our life, from everyday pleasure and well-being to career development and life-long learning
What
Formal and informal can mean many things to many people. For some, informal learning may mean learning that happens outside of school. For others, the term 鈥渋nformal鈥� could refer to the amount of structure in a learning program. Our SIG tends to define informal learning as everyday experiences or designed settings where people encounter, negotiate, and produce knowledge across daily life or that foster learning outside of formal schooling including but not limited to:听
We take a broad view of the field and leave it up to the researcher to decide whether their work is in an informal environment, as long as they make it clear as to why they feel this particular research is related to our mission and advancing the field. At its best, informal learning includes everyone. But we recognize that historically that has not been the case. In recognition of that, we encourage research that asks questions about and challenges historical norms of education and research in our field.听
As an illustration of the types of research, some session titles and abstracts from recent years are at the bottom of this page.
How
Informal learning environments are very diverse, and the constellation of cognitive, social, and emotional dimensions of human experience they incorporate requires diverse frameworks and approaches to research. While all the standard qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method methodologies are common in our field, by necessity informal environments often lend themselves to new and novel approaches. We encourage research exploring them.
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ILER Reception Group Photo from 熊猫视频2023 (Chicago)
听Who
Our members identify as researchers, practitioners, educators and many other professions. They work in science centers, museums, aquariums, zoos, nature centers, academic institutions, afterschool programs, government and NGOs, community centers, and many other settings (including independently). If you consider your work to be about informal learning, you are welcome.
Where
A sample of recent sessions accepted or created by the ILER SIG
The sessions below highlight high-scoring submissions from past conferences that stood out for their originality, contribution, and alignment with both the conference theme and the SIG鈥檚 mission. Although direct alignment with the conference theme is not required, proposals that thoughtfully engage with it are especially encouraged. .
This study examines how the lived experiences of informal science educators, shaped by race, gender, class, immigration, and family history, inform their activist identities and teaching practices. Drawing on critical positional praxis and storied identity frameworks, we analyze life-history interviews and ethnographic observations from a justice-focused nonprofit. Findings reveal that these educators challenge the notion of neutrality in science through politicized care, dissent, and mentorship rooted in personal and collective struggle. We argue that science educators鈥� experiences are crucial to their teaching methods, shaping their identities and practices. These evolving commitments redefine science as a transformative force, expanding its intended audience and potential. Informal science environments promote ethical, community-focused teaching that challenges exclusion and redefines who science serves.
熊猫视频Theme 2026: Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures: Constructing a New Vision for Education Research
This paper explores what we learn when we attune for care in an informal STEM learning environment. Aesthetic care that is nice, and/or rooted in a savior complex, is antithetical to our conceptualization of care. Building on the work of educators who enact politicized care, we reposition youth as carebrokers to account for youth鈥檚 invisibilized labor and bids for rightful presence. We trace care practices through micro moments of justice and provide analysis that showcases emergent conceptualizations of care as spatial, interactional, and multidirectional among youth and adults. By centering care we not only enhance academic success but also foster a more inclusive and supportive educational experience for all students in STEM classrooms and in the field of science.
熊猫视频Theme 2025: Research, Remedy, and Repair: Toward Just Education Renewal
Through the lens of Chicana Feminist Epistemology and Community Cultural Wealth, we employ the use of Platicas as a methodology to collaborate with Latina caregivers in a central Texas school district to help us reimagine our design of family STEM nights. We observe distinct forms of cultural capital from Latinas as they enact a facilitator role in STEM learning, and through their stories they shed a light on oppressive barriers in informal spaces that prevent them from participating to their fullest.
How can youth and adults collectively learn about and resist the toxic pollution that acts as a daily, gradual brutality? How might an intergenerational informal learning program catalyze communities to 鈥渞eflect, disseminate, and act鈥� toward environmental justice (Morales-Doyle & Frausto, 2021)? This paper reports on the initial stages of a participatory design project established to enable affected communities to become storytellers with large-scale data both to surface and combat environmental racism, with a focus on air quality. For the purposes of this paper, we focus on the program鈥檚 initial session and train our analysis on community members鈥� experiences with air quality, over time, particularly in terms of issues they must navigate or forms of advocacy they must enact.
熊猫视频Theme 2024: Dismantling Racial Injustice and Constructing Educational Possibilities: A Call to Action
This symposium focuses on ecosystem approaches to studying youth-centered learning and engagement. We present three papers demonstrating this approach in action; a fourth paper describes theoretical frameworks from the ecological sciences that can be applied to assessing the quality and equity of learning ecosystems. These studies, analyzing low-income, culturally diverse, and rural communities, show how youth used varied in- and out-of-school learning resources to meet their everyday needs and interests. Resources were not equitably perceived, available or accessed by all youth. An external discussant with expertise in ecosystem research and practice will offer critique and commentary to generate a conversation about whether such approaches and analyses offer an effective framework for improving equitable access for all.
This proposed session centers the work of scholars studying the literacy practices of children and families within the library, and the activities and programs librarians and staff utilize to support and cultivate those practices. Throughout the U.S. and beyond, libraries have long sought to support the literacy practices of their youngest patrons. As time and technology has progressed, so too have educational programs in the library for young children. However, libraries, like other institutions, have significant gaps between ideals and practices for equity. This session will take a closer look at the library programs and practices that seek to bring the ideals for equity and justice closer to reality in two large metropolitan library systems.
This roundtable session explores innovative approaches to education and learning in informal environments, emphasizing themes of equity, engagement, and the development of skills across diverse contexts. The papers collectively examine how tailored interventions, inclusive practices, and transformative learning environments can address systemic inequities and enhance educational outcomes. Central to the discussion are strategies for fostering wellbeing, supporting underrepresented learners, and leveraging innovative tools like digital games and e-sports to promote engagement and skill development. The session also highlights the importance of educator preparation and professional development in enabling meaningful change. Together, these studies offer insights into creating informal learning environments that empower both learners and educators, paving the way for more inclusive and impactful educational practices.
This roundtable will explore how informal education settings like museums tackle complex and novel topics through unique approaches to exhibit design and framing. By examining the use of zines at the Punk Rock Museum, climate change discussions at natural history museums, and the integration of civic education in historical exhibits, this session delves into how exhibits can foster deep learning and meaningful engagement. Presenters will discuss the role of facilitation, visitor autonomy, and innovative framing in creating transformative learning experiences, encouraging participants to share strategies for handling challenging and under-explored subjects in informal learning environments.
Drawing upon AERA鈥檚 2023 call for research proposals that 鈥渞evisit consequential research with a focus upon equity, justice and opportunity鈥� and 鈥渆ngage dialogically with communities鈥� this working group roundtable brings together researchers studying the impacts of out-of-school programs for youth who are exploring alternatives to the 鈥榩ipeline鈥� conception which has traditionally informed research and policy on STEM pathways. Critics of the 鈥榩ipeline鈥� conception in STEM contend that the metaphor does not capture cultural or contextual features of marginalized students and groups, nor the systemic barriers to retention and full participation throughout different stages of education and career. This session examines research working with alternatives to the pipeline conception that represent inclusive, youth-centered means of understanding long-term participation in STEM.
熊猫视频Theme 2023: Interrogating Consequential Education Research in Pursuit of Truth
Museums have a strong history as sites of informal education research, theory, and practice (Stoddard, 2018). However, new and ongoing concerns and questions about how museums operate and who is and isn鈥檛 served drive the need for new research avenues. In this structured poster session, early-career museum researchers share current work that addresses critical questions in the field including organizational change for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), creating space for critical learning, meeting the opportunities and challenges of big data and AI, and museum learning within larger educational ecosystems. Paired with intentional reflection on personal and theoretical pasts that inspire present work, we invite the authors and attendees to join in social dreaming about the future of museum education and research.
By their nature, informal learning environments are often noisier (both literally and figuratively) than laboratory or classroom environments. And researchers have less control over the research process itself. The main outcome of this session will be a glance at the wide manifestations null results can take in our field and how to design for, interpret and communicate them. It includes a mix of review/theoretical discussions meant to guide the future and empirical results meant to provide real-world examples.