24th April 2026 – Looking backwards and forwards: Beyond nostalgia and re-imagining in/visible adult education?
The event, in April, combined presentations by Dr Sharon Clancy, on her Leverhulme funded research, ‘Lost spaces, Untold Stories: The Vanishing World of Experimental Adult Education’ and a contribution by Linda Shaw and Dani Bool on ‘The Co-operative College, Manchester and wider adult education landscapes’.
Contributors:
Dr Sharon Clancy ‘Lost spaces, Untold Stories: The Vanishing World of Experimental Adult Education?’
Sharon’s research, since October 2025 and running to October 2026, has been exploring the meanings and memories associated with former places and spaces of adult education in the UK, including residential adult education. By ‘lost spaces’ Sharon is looking at and mapping both physical as well as conceptual and teaching spaces, including those identified as residential colleges and others that stood outside this tradition over the course of the last 100 years. Many of these spaces were used for pioneering adult education purposes in the past but are no longer in existence or have been repurposed. Nonetheless, such spaces provide a focus for the memories, experiences and voices of those who benefited from them, and many sites have stimulated educational developments beyond their life span. These elements are what Sharon is exploring in her research.
The research is also seeking to understand the forces – ideological, political, educational, pedagogical and managerial – that have led to their demise or reshaping and what this tells us about contemporary understandings of adult education for social purpose and its value to democracy. Sharon’s intention is to create both a living history archive and a book – based on interviews with former staff and students, documentary analysis and written testimony from archival records.
Sharon’s presentation identifies some of her key findings at this halfway point in her project.
Sharon Clancy is Associate Professor in Education at the University of Nottingham. 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 from 2000 to 2007.
Linda Shaw and Dani Bool – The Co-operative College, Manchester and wider adult education landscapes
The Co-operative College was first established in Manchester in 1919 – founded by the Co-operative Movement to offer specialist learning to members and employees of co-operative societies who were primarily from working class backgrounds. It pioneered new forms of learning including correspondence courses and visits to co-operatives establishing a reputation as a centre of excellence for training, learning, consultancy and research for students from across the UK and globally. From 1946, a longstanding relationship with the Colonial Office brought students from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean to the College.
Linda and Dani review the wider history of the college and how its educational practices aimed to meld both technical and liberal education in a way that was very uncommon amongst other providers – if not unique. Their talk introduces the aims and progress of Seeds of Change – a two-year National Lottery Heritage Fund project dedicated to cataloguing, conserving, and increasing access to the Co-operative College Collection held by the National Co-operative Archive.
The collections are of particular significance for the development of education within the co-operative movement and provide excellent coverage for the range of courses offered by the College to co-op societies, individual members and auxiliary groups such as the Co-operative Women’s Guild. These collections highlight the history of the movement, education of co-operative principles and role in social and international development through the 20th century.
Linda has worked in adult education for most of her working life including time with the WEA, the Open University, the University of Manchester and the Co-operative College. Originally an historian, she also worked in international development and ethical trade. Most recently she has been working on the history of co-operative education and last year published a co-authored book on the history of the Co-operative College.
Dani is Project Archivist for Seeds of Change. Now ten months into the project, she is leading work to fully document the collection, identify material for digitisation and conservation, develop outreach events, gather oral histories, and begin shaping a public exhibition.