Volunteer Work and Learning: Hidden Dimensions of Labour Force Training

Abstract

This chapter explores the links between learning and voluntary work, a topic that is usually absent both in the academic literature and in policy debates. Two reasons may account for the scant attention paid to this issue. First, unpaid work (such as household work and volunteer work) is seldom considered as ‘real’ work, and therefore the literature on labour force training tends to focus on paid labour, often within the formal sector of the economy. Second, most of the learning connected to volunteer work falls into the category of informal learning, a field that only recently has captured the attention of educational researchers, who traditionally have focussed their efforts on the formal education system. In the late nineties, however, this situation began to change, as the interest of researchers in both areas grew