Jim Crowther

‘In and against’ lifelong learning: flexibility and the corrosion of character

This paper argues against the dominant discourse of lifelong learning. It is primarily a mode of social control that acts as a new disciplinary technology to make people more compliant and adaptable for work in the era of flexible capitalism. Whilst the main reference point is trends in the UK, the argument has a wider resonance. Lifelong learning diminishes the public sphere, undermines educational activity, introduces new mechanisms of self‐surveillance and reinforces the view that failure to succeed is a personal responsibility. It is ultimately a ‘deficit discourse’, which locates the responsibility of economic and political failure at the level of the individual, rather than at the level of systemic problems.

Collaborative partnerships in community education

This paper reports on a study into collaborative partnerships between community educators and the variety of partners with whom they work. It suggests that, despite a policy imperative promoting partnership working, collaboration is only one of many solutions to the problem of delivering effective services and argues that there are a number of circumstances when it is best avoided. It contends that partnerships need to build a meta-strategy that is designed to allow all relevant interests to explore possible ways forward whilst, at the same time (a) advancing their own mission, and (b) building up the capacity (trust, understanding, synergy) to engage in effective and sustained collaborative working. Finally, it is concluded that the power relations in collaborative partnerships are critical and partners must take account of the exclusionary and inclusionary practices often built on deficit ideologies that these generate.

Adult literacy, learning identities and pedagogic practice

This article discusses the relationship between persistence in adult literacy and numeracy programs, changes in the participants’ attitudes to engaging in learning and pedagogic practices using data from eight Scottish literacy education organizations. It argues that literacy learning can act as a resource that enables vulnerable adults to change their dispositions to learning, achieve their goals and make a transition towards their imagined futures. Pedagogic practices that operate from an approach that emphasized learners’ strengths, rather than their deficits, and critically interrogated learners’ experiences used as a resource for learning were the most successful in enabling this transition. Holistic provision that creates a supportive community of practice was found to be the most effective in bringing about the positive changes that learners identified they wished to make in their lives.

Families at a Disadvantage: class, culture and literacies

Abstract This paper addresses the issue of diverse literacies, and the problems of privileging a dominant form of literacy at the expense of those from non‐mainstream cultures. It uses data from a family literacy project to illustrate how the actual literacy practices of working‐class families and communities can be incorporated into learning programmes. It argues that whilst familiarity with the dominant forms of spoken and written language is a vital ingredient in adults’ and childrens communicative functioning, it should not be the unchallenged objective of education. Instead opportunities to legitimate the vernacular literacies of the home and community should be sought. In so doing deficit views of families at a disadvantage can be replaced by views that positively value the home culture to the benefit of both the home and the school.

Participation in adult and community education: a discourse of diminishing returns

The terms in which the dominant discourse of participation is framed systematically reinforces one particular view about the relationship between life and learning. It is one in which participation in learning is professionally and institutionally controlled and, consequently, defined largely in vocational, instrumental and individual terms. A significant absence in the dominant discourse is an understanding of participation which draws on the experience of the radical tradition in adult education. In a context where there is potential for greater participation in social and civic politics, as evidenced by the growth of social movements, reconnecting with radical ideas about participation in education can lead to rethinking the ‘problem of participation’ and its implications. We need to understand not only how the discourse of participation has generated knowledge but also excludes and limits what is known. A thorough critique is necessary and overdue and one that is critical of the ‘regime of truth’ which has been seeded, cultivated and harvested through the dominant professional discourse.

Theorising Education and Learning in Social Movements: Environmental Justice campaigns in Scotland and India

Abstract There is a need for a theoretical understanding of education and learning in social movements which takes into consideration the diverse ways in which learning occurs as well as the social, economic and ecological conditions in which movements emerge. These material conditions set opportunities and constraints for the generation and distribution of knowledge which subsequently reflects social interests resulting from these conditions. Theory, which aims to explain learning in this context, must recognise that in social movements there occurs collective as well as individual learning and sustained, formalised education, as well as informal and spontaneous learning. Social movements also make use of lay and specialist knowledge, often selected and combined in innovative ways to ensure that ‘really useful knowledge’ is put at the service of emancipatory projects. This has significant implications for educators who see their work as contributing to social justice. The comparatively neglected work of Ettore Gelpi provides an important foundation for a dialectical understanding between these material conditions and lifelong education in social movements. Moreover, this dialectic can be understood to occur at multiple levels: between micro-level learning; meso-level frame construction and macro-level culture-ideology. Empirical work in environmental justice movements in Scotland and India provides illustrations of these levels of learning.

Social movement learning: a contemporary re-examination

Welcome to this bumper special issue on social movement learning which, we believe, makes a timely and important contribution to the literature on the subject by exploring and articulating the links between adult learning and movements for progressive change. From the Arab Spring, to the democracy demonstrations in Spain, the new student movement in Chile and student and public sector mobilisation against welfare cuts in the UK, there are emerging signs and stories of public disquiet and unrest, new citizen action and social movement activity, which are questioning the hegemony of ‘there is no alternative’. Not surprisingly interest in social movements, their formation, growth and ways of working, is growing within the academic world and research can help inform the practice and activities of these movements. The study of social movements has never attracted such a level of interest since the late 1960s and the mid 1980s. Unlike the academic writing that emerged during this period however, the contemporary academic social movement scene is experiencing a growing number of scholars, from the ‘majority world’ and the Global North who are looking at the learning dimensions of social movements (see http://www.interfacejournal.net/). Many of these are ‘engaged scholars’ who are linked to local, regional or global movements themselves. Social movement learning, which has to some extent always been part of the radical tradition of adult education, is now attracting new and more sophisticated analyses, new research and new forms of expression and academic engagement. This special issue of Studies features what we believe is a stimulating mix of established scholars and newer voices. It features genuine diversity in terms of the range of social movement represented, the theoretical resources and interests which are drawn on, the research approaches and methods that have been utilised and the geographical scope of movements, their constituencies, and the aims they seek to achieve. It may seem patently obvious that movements move people, but the important point is that they do so in concerted ways, and the knowledge they create, and the

Reconnecting Intellect and Feeling

Remarkable events are often those that go by unremarked. One of these is the lack of public debate about the democratic impact of the economic crisis of 2011–12. In Greece, a new government was formed without a popular mandate led by a socalled ‘technocratic’ leader (in reality a former European banker) vouching an austerity programme to appease the markets; a similar process happened shortly afterwards in Italy, although the reputation of its feckless and self-serving leader Berlusconi resulted in few regrets at his removal.

Learning environmental justice and adult education in a Scottish community campaign against fish farming

Community campaigns against local sources of pollution and environmental degradation form the building blocks of movements for environmental justice. They also constitute important locations for people to learn about the environment and obtain outlooks, knowledge and skills with which to tackle pollution and address sustainable alternatives. The learning which occurs is usually informal and involves collective learning for action. A challenge to formal educators is to be able to support such learning. This account is of the learning which has been achieved during a community campaign against fish farming in the community of Scoraig in Wester Ross, north-west Scotland. We identify a complex diversity of learning within the community, involving information-gathering and critical analysis, between those active in the campaign and those supportive but less active, and in interaction between formal and informal education.

Adult literacy and democratic renewal in the new Scotland

power which is recognisable is also negotiable, since it can be confronted and…forced to take differences into account. (Melucci, 1988, p 250)