Invisible Education Post-65

Reconstituting everyday lives and learning

Woman preparing to go swimming at Firestone Bay, Plymouth

Invisible Education Post-65

Reconstituting everyday lives and learning

Title: Invisible Education Post-65: reconstituting everyday lives and learning

Funded by: The Leverhulme Trust

Funding amount: £150,000

Location: UK-wide

Dates: 1 April 2025 – 1 April 2027

University of Plymouth PI/Co-I: Professor Jocey Quinn (PI); Dr Claudia Blandon (Co-I)

Summary

Invisible education is the learning that happens in everyday life – it is invisible because it is often ignored and devalued, and it is education because it is powerful and formative.

With ageing populations living longer, life post-65 needs to be re-thought, but research has shown that discussions about ageing tend to ignore learning. In the UK, these explorations are important because the 2021 UK Census showed that 18.6% of the total population were aged 65 years or older.

This project takes a posthuman approach and explores how invisible education is produced through entanglements in all forms of life, including water, stone, plants, animals and machines.

Aims

The study seeks to explore what people are learning in everyday life post-65, both intentionally and incidentally. It aims to develop a nuanced picture of invisible education post-65 and a new posthuman theorisation of life post-65.

The project has a UK reach, conducting fieldwork in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It seeks to conduct 100 interviews and 10 interactive activities with participants across these regions. Interactive activities are important because, through group discussions and activities, participants play an active role in designing methods and analysing data.

Expected impact

The study seeks to highlight the vital role of everyday learning in old age. It aims to demonstrate that positioning those over 65 as learning subjects is crucial for rewriting the script of age.

The project ‘Invisible Education Post 65’ is innovative because:

It has an original focus on invisible education post-65
It has a broad geographical reach and it is targeting diverse participants
It is informed by posthuman theory.

What we have done so far

We have conducted 86 interviews and 7 interactive activities in counties in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

We are grateful to all our local collaborators (organisations, groups and individuals) and participants who have made this research feasible.

Claudia Blandon with collaborative partner

Emerging findings

The study's initial findings have been published in 'Navigating ageing by the sea: what everyday learning adds to the critical debate on ageing in place'.

Key takeaways:

This study is innovative in its methodological approach, the diverse sample used, and its focus on learning as an important aspect that enables people to age authentically in a coastal rural area.
It is original in specifically linking ageing authentically with everyday learning: recognising such learning as a mode of adaptation and a denotation of flourishing.
Findings critique current human-centred narratives of frailty and ageing well and propose posthuman conceptualisations of ageing, and wellbeing.
It contributes to debates about flourishing in old age as it provides tools to think beyond individualistic wellbeing, establishing older people as imbricated in multiple aspects of the world around them. By recognising that systemic social, cultural and environmental barriers and inequalities have been created by a belief in the autonomous human, different from and superior to all forms of matter, it is able to suggest what practical changes would be needed to create true flourishing for older people.

Read the full article at ScienceDirect

Follow our blog to learn more about our emerging findings and theoretical approach.

You can also read Professor Jocey Quinn's book on invisible education:

Quinn, J., (2023), 'Invisible Education: Posthuman Explorations of Everyday Learning', Routledge, ISBN 9781032021096

Swimmers entering the water at Devil's Point

Public engagement events

Working in collaboration with Dr Angela Piccini, the Box Plymouth (Art fund Museum of the Year 2026), local artists, researchers, and community organisations, we are taking part in the Way We Live Exhibition 2026–2027. This work is part of the larger Reimagining the Way We Live programme, developed by the University of Plymouth, Nudge Community Builders and The Box. It explores how communities, researchers, artists, and policymakers can work together to shape more liveable, inclusive, and resilient places.

Exhibition: Navigating Ageing by the Sea

We partnered with Fotonow CIC to explore notions of home, belonging, and invisible education among people over 65 living in Plymouth in the Navigating Ageing by the Sea exhibition:

Thursday 22 October – Friday 27 November 2026, 10:00–16:00
Urban Room, Roland Levinsky Building

This film and photographic portrait series explores people’s connections to Plymouth and their experiences of growing older in our coastal city. The project emerged from Invisible Education Post-65 and responds to emerging research exploring how people continue to learn, flourish, and develop meaningful relationships with place in later life. It also highlights how home extends beyond the domestic environment to include neighbourhoods, coastlines, memories, objects, and everyday encounters with the more-than-human.

Fotonow documented some of these explorations in a beautiful short film:

Watch Navigating Ageing by the Sea.

Interactive workshops

Thank you to our research participants and community members for taking part in our interactive workshops. Engaging with participants' interests, we discussed their experiences of age, everyday learning, and work. The workshops aimed to share emerging findings, and – through people's feedback – inform the project's approach as it progresses. These images show some of the artefacts participants created to show their past and present experiences of learning and working.