Student Clubs as Reciprocal Learning Environments: Lifelong Learning and Teacher Professional Learning

Abstract

Lifelong learning is widely recognised as a central educational objective, yet limited attention has been paid to how its foundations develop during secondary schooling. This study examines student clubs in Greek Model and Experimental General High Schools as institutionalised non-formal learning environments. It investigates their contribution to students' lifelong learning dispositions and teachers' professional learning. A qualitative interpretive design was employed. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 27 teachers across all nine Model and Experimental General High Schools in Attica and 12 focus groups involving 72 students from seven of these schools. The findings indicate that voluntary participation, pedagogical flexibility, collaborative inquiry, authentic activity, shared responsibility and facilitative teaching support the development of students' autonomy, intrinsic motivation, learning to learn, reflection and learner agency. The same environments provide opportunities for teachers' professional learning through pedagogical experimentation, reflective practice and selective transfer of learner-centred approaches to classroom teaching. These processes appear interdependent: increased student responsibility requires changes in teachers' pedagogical roles, while teacher experimentation expands opportunities for student initiative and agency. The study proposes the Institutionalised Dual Learning Ecosystem Model (IDLEM) as a heuristic framework for interpreting this reciprocal relationship. It highlights the potential of institutionalised non-formal learning to connect lifelong learning, student agency and school-based teacher professional learning.