In this blog repost from Red Pepper, Nick Mahony and Frances Northrop examine efforts to empower communities via the Pride in Place initiative. They argue that this will test commitments to devolving power and empowering communities, as difficulties are emerging around financial control and autonomy for local communities. Pride in Place is a flagship government regeneration programme pledging
This is a write up of Sharon and Iain’s provocation that was delivered at Fircroft’s Summer Symposium on the 3rd of July 2026. This provocation allowed for discussion on the decline of adult education and the importance of creating dialogic learning spaces. Sharon and Iain’s work within the Research Circle over the past 5-6 years
Since Spring 2021, we have convened a research circle on ‘Building community, democracy and dialogue through adult lifelong education’ and organised a series of events to challenge dominant perspectives on lifelong learning. The Circle is made up of around 10 active members, drawn from backgrounds in adult, further and higher education, the voluntary and community sector and trade union education in different regions of the UK. We all have a deep commitment to social purpose education and our objective has been the sharing of experience and critical engagement, designed to explore and generate new and existing forms of practice in the generation of hope. Our activities form part of the continuing work of The Centenary Commission on Adult Education in the UK.
The first of the Centenary Commission Research Circle’s conferences on ‘Building community, democracy & dialogue through adult lifelong education‘ was held on 7 May, focussing on the theme of ‘Community, democracy and dialogue through adult lifelong education: Celebrating Resources of Hope’.
Organised by Sharon Clancy, Iain Jones, and other members of the research circle on fostering community, democracy and dialogue, it was the first in a series of three events which provide opportunities to learn about existing practices, and to meet and think about different forms of democratic adult education and imagine new forms of critical engagement.
Sharon Clancy is Assistant Professor in Educational Leadership and Management. From 2016 to 2019 she was Senior Research Fellow in adult education/lifelong learning on the ENLIVEN project at the University of Nottingham. She completed her PhD in 2017, examining a historic adult residential college in its political and societal context. Her writing focuses on education, class and culture, alongside cognitive and social justice issues.
A voluntary sector leader before entering academia, Sharon was CEO of Mansfield Council for Voluntary Services for 2000 to 2007. She is currently Chair of the Raymond Williams Foundation and a trustee of ARVAC (Association for Research in the Voluntary and Community sector). She was Head of Community Partnerships at the University of Nottingham (2007-13), acting as the university’s strategic lead on public and community engagement with research.
Dr Jim Crowther has been involved as a practitioner, researcher and academic in adult and community education since 1980. His PhD focussed on adult learning in and through popular protests. He is the co-ordinator of an international popular education network (PEN) for academics and researchers in higher education.
His main research interest is in the contribution of adult education to furthering democracy and social justice, which he has written about extensively in reference to popular education, adult literacy and the politics of lifelong learning, active citizenship and social inclusion. I have also undertaken research on the educational use of information and communication technologies, and social media, in struggles for environmental justice.
100 years after the 1919 Report on Adult education, speakers were brought together around the proud history of adult education in Scotland to make collective plans for a radical future.
