NON-FORMAL EDUCATION- A LOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE TERM
NON-FORMAL EDUCATION- A LOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE TERM

Summary/Abstract: This article reflects a logical analysis of the non-formal education term, starting by distinction between learning, as natural result of the human interactions with the environment, and education, as intentional learning which is shaping by someone for another one. Reflections are centred on the linguistic, cognitive and ontological components delimitation of this term which is considered a compound-negative term because it reflects a lack of properties (as lack of organisation and form). The analysis indicates that non formal education is also a species of education that is means it must have some organisation and form, even if this takes shape during the educational process. These opposite situations show a logical contradiction within its internal terms (between non formal and education terms) that makes the expression logically incorrect. The analysis also highlights the tendency to define the characteristics of non formal education by negative sense, by not saying what it is, but what it is not. This is another logical error because definition, as a logic operation, not allows the use of the negative terms; non formal education has specific features, which must be described in positives terms. All these observations are used as grounds for replacing non-formal education term with participatory education term, proposed by Alan Rogers in the book ”Non-Formal Education-Flexible Schooling or Participatory Education?”, of 2004.

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