Introducing the Research Circle – Fostering Democracy, Debate and Dialogue
Below is an introduction to the research circle, and the links on the left provide access to recordings and information on past and upcoming research circle events.
If you have any questions about the research circle, please get in touch and I would be happy to help.
Introduction and Background to the Research Circle
The Research circle on fostering and building community, democracy and dialogue first met in September 2020. It grew out of the work of the Centenary Commission on Adult Education and, in particular, the key chapter in the Centenary Commission on Adult Education’s 2019 report that focused on the importance of community-based and ‘popular’ adult education.
Since its inception, the circle has engaged with diverse ideas, as well as identified and created resources of hope. It has sought to ask: how does adult education link with and foster our democracy? Why are our shared histories, memories, and instances of managing previous struggles all-important? The writers of the 1919 Adult Education Committee’s Final Report faced these questions head on – they recognised that our democracy and spaces for dialogue, debate and dissent need to be defended and constantly fought for. This has, arguably, never been truer than at the current juncture in the UK, in countering a sense of despair and impotence, particularly in the communities hardest hit by the exigencies of the past four decades and the long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Research Circle planning group is made up of around 5 people, drawn from diverse backgrounds in adult, further and higher education, the voluntary and community sector and trade union education. Research circles offer a form of collaborative practice and dialogue between higher education, community practitioners and partners in adult lifelong education. Building on the work of Harnsten (1994) the circle has: identified problems that receive no or limited attention, including, specifically, who and what shapes the world of education; how it is controlled and whose voices are heard; and how we might liberate conventional structures of lifelong learning. The Circle has offered space to reflect on such issues and begun to examine how to develop new forms of knowledge in dialogue with the needs and interests of diverse communities. A theme emerging out of our dialogues is ‘what do we mean by democracy and can we still reason with each other?’ We concluded that what lies at the heart of a living democracy are safe protected spaces with clear ground-rules where we can listen respectfully in dialogue with the other – sometimes another radically opposed to our own perspectives – in the knowledge that others might learn to listen respectfully in dialogue if and when we take the lead. In hearing ideas different from our own we enter the mindset and imaginations of others and, in turn, make visible our own ideas and insights for critically questioning the taken-for-granted at all levels.
Three sets of online events have taken place in successive years. All of the recordings of our events are (very kindly) uploaded by Bob Foster, RWF Administrator, onto the Raymond Williams Foundation YouTube channel and this has proved to be an important archive resource for us
Related Links
- Research Circle YouTube Videos within the Raymond Williams Youtube Channel.
- Research circle information within the Centenary Commission Website.
- PDF document providing summary information on the Research Circle.