7th May 2021 – Fostering Community, Democracy & Dialogue Through Adult Lifelong Education: Celebrating Resources of Hope
This was the first event in 2021 that followed the theme within the difficulties introduced during COVID:
Resources for Hope
Events in 2021 provided an opportunity to learn about existing practices, meet and think about different forms of democratic adult education and imagine new forms of critical engagement. 50 adult educators, from across the UK, Italy, Bulgaria and Canada, joined together to listen to presentations and discuss key questions and emerging themes in small and large groups. During, and after, this first event series participants highlighted the power of learning about existing practices and ways of re-shaping new forms of adult lifelong education with an explicit social purpose.
This event provided an opportunity to:
- Meet and think about different forms of democratic adult education.
- Learn about existing practices.
- Imagine new forms of critical engagement
The event has been split into 6 videos, which can be found below.
Ongoing Journeys – The WEA’s Innovative Collaboration with Artist and Photographer Rich Wiles
Rose Farrar, from WEA West Yorkshire, began by showcasing an innovative collaboration with Rich Wiles, an artist and photographer. The power of the videophoto stories of the lives of refugees, near Hull, was a starting point for dispelling stereotypes, myths and misconceptions. What was especially important in this work was the idea that everyone has things to teach as well as learn; and how conviviality can be created in sharing food and storytelling.
The presentation highlights self-directed online learning experience based on Rich’s interactive video-photo story of the lives of refugees who have now settled in Drighlington, near Hull. From these human stories, the course poses questions, challenges and shares resources that develop empathy and foster community understanding and dialogue. Through connecting with people telling their own stories of seeking asylum and refuge, and hearing of their challenges, their resilience, their loss and their hope our course aims to dispel stereotypes, myths and misconceptions. The course stimulates interest and raise awareness of the wider history, context, politics and causes of migration. Everyone who enrols on the course will also be invited to extend their thoughts, feelings and reflections through participation in a creative writing online course where they can share their own stories of journeys taken, underway and planned.
Brokering Britian, Educating Citizens – ESOL and Citizenship
Rob Peutrell and Mel Cooke discussed the voices of students and lecturers and asked how the politics of ESOL relates to different forms of citizenship. They highlighted struggles between dis-citizenship, and having capacities stripped away, and acts of citizenship and contesting exclusions and claiming new rights.
Rob and Mel have edited the book, Brokering Britain, Educating Citizens: Exploring ESOL issues and principles, and this presentation draws upon this published work to explore English language education for migrants (ESOL) as a site of citizenship learning. ESOL is an important part of the adult education scene, and the tensions in its practices, purposes and relationships will be familiar to adult educators in other sectors. These tensions reflect the status and position of ESOL students, as well as prevailing attitudes towards migration and multilingualism. In the UK, English language competence – and therefore ESOL – has been promoted as a means to and marker of common citizenship, whilst multilingualism is seen as a barrier to it. They argue that teachers act as ‘brokers’, mediating between mandated ideas of citizenship and ideas that emerge bottom-up within ESOL classrooms. Therefore, far from being simply teachers of English, ESOL teachers are ideological actors who may implement, adapt, critique or avoid mandated ideas of citizenship; sometimes encouraging, sometimes diminishing students’ own citizenship knowledge and experience. The edited book collection challenged notions of ESOL students as outsiders and citizenship as exclusively state-centric. Rob and Mel conclude by proposing four pedagogic principles – ethnographic, political, socio-linguistic and participatory – if ESOL is to adequately assist its students to become active, activist citizens, regardless of formal citizenship status. Finally, if the idea of citizenship can illuminate and enhance ESOL practice, they show how the experience of ESOL classrooms in return sheds light on ideas of citizenship.
Rob Peutrell worked in further education as an ESOL and Learning Support lecturer for 30 years. He was a founder member of the Nottingham and Notts. Refugee Forum. Melanie Cooke is a lecturer in ESOL Education at King’s College, London. She is convenor of the Hub for Education & Language Diversity (HELD) and collaborator with English for Action.
‘Now we are here we must learn English…’ – The impact of ‘Real English in Action’ on social interaction and community cohesion.
Nalita James asked how diverse forms of ESOL, in Leicester, related to different communities of place and multiple senses of belonging.
Poor English skills can have a negative impact on community cohesion. People who do not speak English are more likely to only mix with people who share the same language and culture. This presentation draws on the findings from a project which aimed to provide residents of Leicester, who have a low level of English, with a functional ESOL programme that supported them to use and develop their language skills in real life situations. The presentation reports on how by participating in this programme, which was run at the local adult education college, the residents not only developed their language skills but through ‘Real English in Action’ got to know the city and took part in a variety of activities in a safe environment. Raising the English language abilities of the residents within the ethnic minority communities assisted their wider communication and participation. The presentation highlights the clear link between English language fluency and social inclusion, as well as individual empowerment through the fulfilment of the residents’ aspirations and community cohesion.
Dr Nalita James is Associate Professor in Education at the University of Leicester. Her research and teaching focus broadly on sociological issues of inequality in education. In particular, she is interested in access to, and experiences of continuing education. She has written widely on theory and research in adult education and lifelong learning. Nalita has just stepped down as Chair of SCUTREA and is currently co-chair of the Taylor and Francis journal, Studies in the Education of Adults. She is currently working on a Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government-funded project looking at the impact of community based ESOL on social integration in Leicester.
‘Mind the Gap’ – A Closer Look at the Formal Education to Work Transition.
Richard Hazledine reported on young adults, in Nottingham, who are furthest from work. Their mistrust and lack of confidence, because of what has been done ‘to them’, embodied the danger of scarring. This was a starting point for his community work and re-thinking practices.
In 2014 Groundwork Greater Nottingham secured a five year Big Lottery funding stream to develop a youth employability programme to support young adults furthest from the labour market. The project was known locally as ‘Young & Successful’ and was developed within a ‘test and learn’ ethos to explore what worked to help move young people closer to the labour market. Over the period of 2014-2018 over 1,000 young people were supported to engage with the project across the D2N2 area (Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire).
Throughout this time an on-going evaluation was undertaken to help inform the development of an effective service model to support the progression of young adults who were Not in Education Employment or Training (NEET). What emerged through this journey was the requirement for a holistic employment support initiative that enabled young adults to transition from an education to work environment. The service model which subsequently emerged through this journey encouraged young adults to actively shape their own journey and contribute their lived experience of unemployment to shape the wider development of service provision. This in turn helped to inform the development of a service model which provided all young people with the opportunity to be connected to a wider sense of community, democracy and dialogue as they desired.
This presentation reveals six underpinning features of the service model, details of the wider evaluation, and its implications for young adults navigating through the challenges of unemployment.
Richard is an independent evaluation and development professional with a passion to support the sustainability and growth of publicly funded projects across third sector. Through his business, ConnectMore Solutions, Richard provides specialist evaluation and business development support centred on the thematic areas of employability, financial inclusion and health & wellbeing. He currently holds an Honorary Associate Professor role within the School of Education at the University of Nottingham.
Stringing Together a Community of Belonging
Elaine J. Laberge joined us from the west coast of Canada and argued why the Shoestring Initiative was formed. Communities of mentorship, advocacy, intercultural connectedness, and belonging are being created for students with lived experiences of persistent poverty at Canadian universities. In this artistic presentation, Elaine shares how this movement profoundly shapes how we can reimagine Canadian higher education as sites of equity and social justice for people whose lives are shaped by persistent poverty by stringing together a community of belonging.
Canada is a curious case. It’s a nation seen as egalitarian and democratic on the international stage. Domestically there’s another story: Rampant discrimination on every front where issues are treated as “social characteristic silos” (Laberge, 2018) and dealt with in a knee-jerk fashion. In adult education, this discrimination extends to the exclusion of folks from a poverty-class “heritage” (Binns, 2019). Even if we make it to university, we face colonial institutions that perpetuate class elitism. We’re expected to assimilate to the middle-class higher education culture, erase their ancestral and kinship knowledges, hide our supposed shameful familial origins in the social underclass class closet, and hustle to survive in isolation. Canadian universities refuse to even whisper the taboo words “social class” let alone address systemic class discrimination in EDI/DEI policies. This is all in the context of educators’ understanding of the importance of education in mitigating poverty across generations. But a group of audacious students have come together to form the first-of-its-kind grassroots solidarity movement at a Canadian university: the Shoestring Initiative. It was formed to create communities of mentorship, advocacy, intercultural connectedness, and belonging for students with lived experiences of persistent poverty at Canadian universities.
Elaine is a doctoral candidate at the University of Victoria (British Columbia) and the founder of the Shoestring Initiative. Her research brings together the “underclass sisterhood of solidarity” to explore how to push the privileged pillars in Canadian universities. Elaine is a poet, storyteller, and designer of engaging research knowledge mobilization and much of her work can be found on her website.
Raymond Williams and Social Purpose in Adult Education
The final presentation, by Jeremy Gass and Jayne Ireland, related the work of Raymond Williams on social purpose in adult education to contemporary practices – and to each of the other presentations. Williams’ 1961 Open Letter to WEA tutors defined his own purpose as a teacher ‘as the creation of an educated and participatory democracy’. Jeremy and Jayne argued that the foundations for a democratic curriculum could be developed by learning democratically, learning for democracy and learning about democracy.
Jeremy and Jayne’s presentation is in two parts. In the first, Jeremy reflects briefly on how, since 1992 economic purpose, and especially the development of skills, has been privileged in public policy at the expense of social purpose, despite there being as great a need now for an educated & participating democracy as ever. He then considers what curriculum might be needed to bring about Williams’s goal. Starting with Williams’s interest in ‘public expression’, he will suggest three elements of democratic learning – learning democratically, learning for democracy and learning about democracy.
In the second part, Jayne refers to the Welsh Government’s policy of Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in the wider context of a funding regime in which skills development predominates. She gives examples of democratic learning in practice despite the marginalisation of adult education for social purpose within public policy. Addysg Oedolion Cymru / Adult Learning Wales (AOC / ALW) is a membership organisation that provides the first example, where learners as individuals or in Branches may take part in the organisation’s democratic structure. Jayne highlights how Branch members choose when, where and what they wish to learn. Discussion covers the part Branches play in building and sustaining community, especially during the pandemic. Her second democratic learning example is from the ‘Women Making a Difference’ course held in Cardiff, during which participants were asked to propose and vote on an issue to campaign about.
Jeremy Gass is a member of AOC/ALW & had various roles with WEA South Wales. Jayne Ireland manages AOC/ALW’s team in South East Wales. AOC/ALW is the largest Adult Community Learning provider in Wales. It is an independent voluntary adult education movement, committed to widening participation, promoting active citizenship and skills development.