ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the classical problem of transfer of learning as it presents itself in the modern context of issues like lifelong learning and the learning society. About a century ago, progressive learning researchers in North America observed that the results of learning in one type of setting were often not accessible when the learner moved to another setting. In the official language the external conditions in connection with different environments of learning are usually referred to by the concepts of formal, informal and non-formal learning. In learning psychology several and very different learning typologies have been proposed ever since the classical behaviouristic differentiating between simple and operant conditioning. Returning to the original central issue of the transfer problem about how school and educational learning can be made more applicable outside the learning institutions, the key conclusion to all the considerations seems to point towards the balance between assimilative and accommodative learning.
