Livingstone (2002), reporting on the NALL Survey, indicates that informal learning is extensive throughout the general population and that adults tend to engage in informal learning in areas related to major life responsibilities:
In addition, adults engage in informal learning related to general interests such as health, fitness and well-being, environmental issues, finances, hobby and leisure interests, public issues, the use of computers, and sports and recreation.
What is missing from the literature on participation is a cost benefit analysis for individual learners, for organizations that sponsor work-related education and training, and for society in general. Another missing component is an investigation of the barriers an adult might encounter in carrying on informal learning activities.
The recent literature on barriers to participation in learning opportunities is interesting in that so little of it addresses the concerns of men as a distinct group. Barriers are studied for women and for marginalized groups in society: the unemployed poor, the working poor, those with poor literacy skills, immigrants and refugees, persons without good English or French language skills, older adults, persons with sensory (hearing and vision), mobility and learning disabilities. In studies about these marginalized groups, data are rarely reported for men and women as separate groups. The reader is left with the assumption that immigrant men and immigrant women, for example experience the same barriers although this seems unlikely. Stalker (1997) suggests that the concepts described in Cross' model are not gender neutral, particularly those related to situational and attitudinal barriers. The absence of men from the literature on barriers is not immediately noticeable – our awareness of an absence is never as acute as our awareness of a presence – but is one that needs to be explored further through critical inquiry.
Fagan (1991) argues that it is not enough to understand barriers to participation separately and independently. A more complete understanding of participation and non-participation must be based on an examination of the interactions among the various types of barriers. This type of analysis is missing from the literature as is any discussion of the relevancy of each barrier to the tasks of the successive tasks of seeking out information on available learning opportunities, gaining admission to and registering in a learning activity, and participating in that learning activity through to a successful conclusion. Schlossberg (1984) identifies these transitions as moving in, moving through, and moving on; and considers how individuals might require different resources in each.
Concerns about childcare, for example, would change as the individual moves through successive transitions. In the moving in stage, the parent needs to find and register the child in a suitable and affordable childcare service and then find the funds to pay for it. Next both child and parent need to go through a transition period in which both become adjusted to the new situation. Then, while the parent is moving through the learning activity, he or she may need to find alternative childcare services to deal with a sick child. And throughout the process the parent/learner must keep up with studies and attendance in the midst of potential chaos in the family.