Family learning: what parents think

All families are potentially supportive and rich learning environments for all family members. Family learning has increasingly become a popular subject for research, and its public profile has been raised through Family Learning Weekends, Adult Learners Week and initiatives such as Sure Start. However, if policies and strategies are to continue to improve the effectiveness of family learning, then they must be well informed by research. Family Learning presents the findings from focus group discussions carried out with parents participating in organised family learning literacy and numeracy programmes, as well as parents not involved in formal family learning. Their comments relate to definitions of family learning, motivations and barriers to learning, advantages and disadvantages of family learning to themselves, children and others, how family learning courses can be successful, and how to encourage others to participate in family learning. Based on these comments, recommendations are made relating to the marketing and design of family learning courses and the training and qualities of tutors.