Education is the more encompassing concept, referring to the general process by which a social-group—whether an entire society, a family, or a corporation—transmits attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and skills to its members. Within these broad boundaries, we can distinguish three general types of education—informal, nonformal, and formal—according to the location of instruction, the characteristics of the teachers, the methods of instruction, and what is learned.
Informal education takes place in the context of everyday life, and the educators include family members, peers, workmates, and the mass media. Formal education or schooling, meanwhile, takes place outside the family in institutions that specialize in education, is conducted by teachers who are not students’ intimates and whose principal occupation is education, and stresses learning more through verbal and written description and guided inquiry than through observation and imitation. Finally, nonformal education—which takes such forms as on-the-job training, agricultural extension programs, and family-planning outreach programs—is more organized than informal education but has aims that are more specific and short term than those of formal education.