9626
Different context: same praxis?
Helen MF Jones, University College of St Martin, Lancaster
Adult education has seen a move away from broadly based education for transformation towards a more vocational model of work. This has been thoroughly documented, sometimes with enthusiasm but more often with regret at the reduction and weakening of valuable and valued endeavours. However, in a different context there are opportunities for work which combines both transformative education and the vocational. In this paper I intend not only to explore this potential area of ‘common territory’ but also to examine the question of the rôle of reflective practice and its promotion within the current educational environment.
It is over three years since Jane Thompson lamented the rise of a preoccupation with ‘strategic plans and targeting techniques ... franchising and credit transfers ... delivered with the kind of tenacity devoid of passion that characterises automatons released from business training schemes’[1]. Workers in further education have found the potential for initiating certain forms of work with community groups has been reduced. In particular, the Further and Higher Education Act’s arbitrary division of ‘Schedule 2 subjects’ (funded through the Further Education Funding Council) and ‘non-Schedule 2’ work has shifted work away from informal, community based education[2]. It could also be suggested that the change in the educational environment has had a particular impact within the ‘old’ universities where adult continuing education departments are situated. However, within higher education and despite the proliferation of strategic plans and targeting techniques, it can be argued that many of the ‘old’ values are alive and thriving. Within a few of the ‘old’ universities, many of the ‘new’ universities and other higher education institutions there are staff for whom terms such as ‘transformative praxis’, ‘education for liberation’, ‘empowerment’ and even ‘equal opportunities’ are the foundation of daily work, albeit in a different context. These staff are engaged in designing and delivering courses for students who are training for qualifications, in particular diplomas in higher education (Dip HEs) and degrees in youth and community work and in related areas such as community development. Degrees and Dip HEs in youth and community work include accreditation from the National Youth Agency (NYA). The NYA endorses courses which include the professional qualification. However, there is currently no central agency accrediting courses in community development so the precise nature of such courses ranges from institution to institution[3].
Before considering course content, it is worth identifying who the target groups for these institutions are. In the past, many university adult continuing education (ACE) departments prioritised the needs of working class men, possibly at the expense of other groups such as women[4]. More recently, work has been undertaken with community activists, members of Black communities, women - in other words with people who were involved with their communities in the broadest sense. Sometimes this work has taken the form of practitioner research such as the projects in Leeds documented by Ward and Taylor[5].
People who are involved with their communities are also a key target group for youth and community work courses. Mature students form the majority of many institutions’ intake to youth and community work courses despite the financial difficulties they will almost inevitably endure due to the end of the mature students’ allowance, the decreasing value of the grants paid and, in many cases, family and other responsibilities. In fact, many colleges will only accept students over the age of 21 on such courses. The increase in access opportunities, from the establishment of dedicated access courses to the devising of sophisticated systems for the accreditation of prior experience and learning (APEL), has enabled mature students to enter degree courses where their previous experience is not only valued but is actually a prerequisite. Figures published by the NYA showed that, although qualified male workers outnumbered women, women represented 55% of the entrants to accredited courses in 1988. Efforts were also being made to recruit more Black people[6]. Government policies, especially with regard to the provision of grants, have reduced the possibility of many of the targeted students to study full-time but, in response, part-time opportunities have been increased.
It is apparent that the youth and community work courses are concentrating on targeting the same groups of people as ACE departments have made the focus of their work. However, does the shared territory stretch further? The aim of students engaged in studying for qualifications in youth and community work includes working towards the empowerment of people at a community level. Thus, I would argue that the staff who are teaching on such courses are engaged in educating people whose future lies in education for transformation, often as employees of voluntary or statutory organisations. In many cases they will engage in the very work which people who work in a range of both further and higher education contexts now may find difficult to pursue. It could be identified as education for transformation - but once removed since this is the education for the future informal educators. Rather than providing education for education’s sake, such courses have the accreditation which enables people to find jobs and also have academic credibility. Indeed, I would argue that the dichotomy over the extent to which we, as educators, should be dealing with social and political transformation as opposed to individual advancement via higher education is resolved. Moreover, the pedagogical methodologies contribute further since where student centred practices are employed, course assessment frequently includes a diverse range of methods, such as group projects and presentations. Thus the customary higher education focus on the individual student’s production of essays and exam papers is superseded by a concentration on group assessments; on the fusion of collective advancement and personal transformation.
The ‘solution’ of the individual advancement/social transformation dichotomy generates several further questions. First, to what extent do the values underpinning training in community work, and, in particular, in community development skills, correspond with those of an education for transformation model of adult education? Secondly, given the centrality of the development of reflective practice/praxis to community work training, how do staff foster its development in students? And thirdly, since the nurturing of reflective practice in students brings our own praxis into focus, how have the ever-changing contexts in which staff in higher education institutions now work affected the possibility of building a clear, unequivocal vision on which to found such work?
It could be suggested that many of the most cherished elements of ACE are to be found in the curriculum and in the values underpinning such courses. They appear not only to share a similar value base but also to build their work on the writings of the same theorists such as, for example, Freire and Gramsci. This is particularly apparent in the training of youth and community workers in the skills and knowledge required for community work. The subject includes both practical strategies for undertaking such work and also an understanding of the theoretical basis of such interventions. The values underpinning training in community work are congruent with those underpinning one particular model of (community-based) adult education, as is apparent from consideration of their stated aims. Various bodies have set out their fundamental values and definitions of community work. Those devised by the Association of Community Workers include a useful indication of their working methods:
Community workers should work in ways which
- honestly confront issues of belief and ideology
- start at the point where people themselves identify issues and problems and help them create change in the context of the beliefs above
- always assist people to develop their own leadership and ability to speak for themselves
- respect the contribution made by all people with whom they work, and oppose power relationships[7].
Of course, like ‘adult education’ and ‘community education’, community work may be seen as a continuum. Three useful definitions have been given by Tom Lovett. First, he identified ‘community organisation’ which may be defined as ‘maintaining and improving levels of social welfare’. Secondly he distinguished ‘community development’, a more community-based and more political process where the worker would be involved in assisting people to improve their own communities by undertaking collective activity. Lovett suggested that community development included a strong educational dimension. Thirdly he defined ‘community action’ where, rather than assisting people to cope with the circumstances in which they and their communities found themselves, the worker would be involved in encouraging the fundamental questioning of the underlying ‘system’ and seeking change at a societal level[8]. Given the fact that students training for vocational qualifications are intending to become the paid workers within statutory and voluntary agencies, it is most realistic to focus their training on methods of community development which will involve them in being agents of change within communities.
In order to found the study of community development on theory, tutors look to Gramsci and Freire in particular. Their significance to community work has been stated recently by Popple whoobserved, ‘if community workers truly want to assist people to liberate and empower themselves, they can gain much from reading and reflecting upon the work of Freire and Gramsci’[9]. Adding that ‘they are both inspirational in their message that change is possible if one is clear about one’s goals and strategies’, he went on to recommend that research be undertaken which ‘assists in the evolution of a community work theory and practice’. This is not to suggest that community work has not been based on theory hitherto but rather that it is time to respond to contemporary situations and to strengthen theoretical foundations.
Although community work is only one component of the training of the youth and community worker, the development of reflective practice (praxis) is a prerequisite for all aspects of the successful completion of the qualification. The NYA requires students to spend 40% of their course engaged in field-work practice in youth work or community work agencies. It is this dimension of the course which provides the ‘action’; the actual practising of the activity. On placement, students are advised, to quote from one college’s handbook, ‘you are submerged in an intensive environment ... surrounded by living practice examples and ... by workers already in the professional field ... you will be expected to reflect on your practice in grounded ways through analysing your actual daily experiences’[10]. Moreover, the development of professional praxis is fostered by the integration of periods of college-based study (offering a particular opportunity for reflection following and preceding action/practice) and placements in relevant agencies (providing the opportunity for action/practice following and preceding reflection).
Whilst in college, students’ understanding of the rôle of theory and its relationship to practice/action is nurtured by college staff, for example through the use of case studies and rôle plays based around students’ own placement experiences. During placements, competent agency supervisors encourage students to link the work they are doing to the theories they have learned in college as well as providing models of good professional reflexive practice.
Whilst the model of praxis provided by agency staff during students’ placements is one component of student learning, it is, of course, equally important to consider the rôle of college staff. What is the nature of the part they play? The pressures engendered by the increasing current of managerialism within the organisational environment of higher education may be seen as undermining the potential for reflection amongst staff. Stress on maximising contact hours, on engaging in consultancies and other endeavours which bring in funds, on producing publications which contribute to a department’s ratings, on strategic planning and targeting techniques and on an increasing range of administrative and pastoral activities has left less opportunity for reflection. If a contract allots ‘research and scholarly activity’ less than 5% of a lecturer’s time, it is clearly not regarded as a significant aspect of one’s professional performance.
However, if observing others’ praxis promotes students’ learning, higher education staff have a responsibility to provide a good model. And if a mature and effective professional praxis is the consequence of the balance between practice/action and reflection, then the reduction of the potential for reflection is liable to damage the quality of the praxis of staff working with students whose own professional development is an ultimate aim.
Methods of promoting and maximising student learning have been the subject of research, as have ways of increasing student learning on placement. However, the staff who teach youth and community work face unique tensions in teaching students the philosophy underpinning - and methods of engaging in - informal education and empowerment within an environment which is intrinsically formal. It could be suggested that there is a contradiction in actively demonstrating one’s praxis when this involves reflection in addition to action. Nonetheless, it is an essential dimension of creating an environment which promotes learning. Whilst students in the college context may be seen as being primarily at a reflexive stage in the circle of praxis, the staff who are engaged in teaching them are engaged in practice/action and, moreover, are working within a context which could be accused of failing to promote reflection. Obviously this is a fundamental contradiction. What is to be done?
When teaching skills and theory to youth and community work students, it could be argued that the maintenance of academic objectivity (the very existence of which has, of course, been challenged) is not only difficult but also actually undesirable and unhelpful. If lecturers overtly include themselves in their teaching and demonstrate how they’ve located their own practice in theory, then students are more likely to be able to move towards doing the same. This could include demonstrating how one can relate theories to one’s own experiences through the use of personal case studies or instances. It could also involve explaining the rationale behind activities and theoretical input. For example, the guidelines I devised for a recent piece of research conducted by students identified the various skills which they would use in its completion and highlighted the way in which these were relevant to them as youth and community workers.
It is apparent that values, the demise of which has been mourned in other contexts, are thriving in a different and expanding range of settings; surely a cause for celebration by anyone for whom education for transformation, empowerment and reflective practice form the educational sine qua non. Any lament should be at the paucity of opportunities for people whose underlying philosophy is similar to meet together. As we await the impact of political change within the UK and the impact of a new millennium, new networks could be built to unite those whose work is founded on the same ideals. The context is different but the praxis is built on the same beliefs.
[1] Thompson, J (1993) Learning, Llberation and maturity. In Adults Learning, 4, 9, p. 244.
[2] Jones, H MF (199