From socially excluded communities to learning communities: an examination and critique of a partnership to promote lifelong learning for social inclusion in an inner-city community.
Rob Mark
Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Introduction
This paper examines community learning in a socially excluded area of South Belfast which is the focus of a regeneration initiative. It highlights the gap which often exists between agencies, providers and local communities and argues for more local involvement of residents in management and decision making, and in promoting new types of learning through learning partnerships.
Moving towards learning communities and partnershipsfor local development
Internationalism, the global economy and the need to promote enhanced competitiveness have become the major focus of governments all around the world in recent years. At the same time, the need to promote initiatives in local communities for social, economic and cultural action is also recognised as central for development , even if the best way of doing this is disputed. Speaking about the importance of ensuring local involvement, Duke, Osborne & Wilson (2005:2) note:
many people have increasingly come to identify with their local community, seeing local relationships as an important foundation for economic, social and cultural action.
The acknowledgement of the role which ‘community engagement’ can play in regeneration has led to an increased awareness by the British government of the need to involve local communities in refining and delivering social policy initiatives aimed at aligning social inclusion alongside competitive economic development. ‘Community building’, ‘enhancing social capital’ and ‘developing learning communities and regions,’ are all catch-phrases which are used alongside attempts to link economic and social objectives to community regeneration projects. Duke et al; (2005:2) note that ‘partnerships’ have been an important vehicle for such interventions, involving various mixes of public and private sector, and community-based non-profit organisations.
The range of concepts that can be applied is fraught with difficulties. Terms such as learning communities, local economies and societies have all been used with different emphasis and the notion of community itself is often differently understood. Inevitably questions also arise about what kind of intervention works best and the implications of partnerships for future practice. What is clear is that community engagement requires careful planning with key stakeholders and goes beyond willingness to let people have their say. Duke et al; (2006:3) note that ‘it means providing clear frameworks for decision making, for resource allocation and for exploring and consolidating relations that have substance, openness and transparency.’
In the British Government’s White Paper on Skills (DEFS: 2003), the promotion of learning communities to find new ways of making learning more accessible, especially in the most disadvantaged communities, was a central recommendation. As a result, twenty-eight learning communities were set up in England, with support from regional government partners and the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE). The aims of these partnerships were to:
develop sustainable approaches which use learning and skills development to connect adults together and to promote social cohesion, regeneration and economic development through active involvement of all parts of the community.
(Yarnit, 2006:.11).
These initiatives were a comprehensive integrated attempt to improve educational and employment outcomes, to break down traditional divides between skills and vocational education, and to promote learning for neighbourhood renewal. The initiatives also promoted links between different type of providers, including employers, the voluntary and community sector, and links between various providers of regional development. In particular, they have also promoted the direct involvement of residents in helping themselves in the most deprived communities. Initial findings suggest that local partnerships, which encourage the development of learning communities, can make a real difference.
Moving towards learning communities and partnerships in Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, the peace process has also led to much rhetoric around the need to engage excluded groups in community learning and development. A policy report on lifelong learning noted the potential contribution of learning and skills to greater prosperity and social inclusion:
Lifelong learning can make a major contribution to economic development and to healing the divisions that exist in society. It will contribute to social cohesion, help communities to respond to social and economic change, and help to address the problems of exclusion among those in our society who, for one reason or another, feel isolated or disaffected. (Department for Employment and Learning. 1999: 2).
Although the twin aims of economic and social inclusion are both acknowledged, policy in Northern Ireland has traditionally favoured the developing of skills to meet the needs of the labour market (DEL, 2004:3). The report argues that new skills offer a route to employment and long term prosperity, which in turn provides many benefits such as better health, and greater social stability and increased personal fulfilment. The investment in skills for economic advancement therefore lies at the heart of public policy.
While lifelong learning policy also notes the need for healing divisions in Northern Ireland through the promotion of peace and reconciliation, little has been said about how this might be achieved. Hamber & Kelly (2004:1) note that the term ‘reconciliation’ is not well developed and that no agreed definition exists, despite its increasingly common usage in a range of diverse contexts. They note that although peace building as a concept has become increasingly popular since the 1990’s in Ireland , there are few common understandings of the term. They offer a working definition of reconciliation involving five interwoven and related strands which includes: a shared vision of an interdependent and fair society; acknowledging and dealing with the past; building positive relationships; significant cultural and attitudinal change; and substantial social, economic and political change (Hamber & Kelly. 2004: 4).
The DonegallPass community
The Contested Cities Urban Universities initiative (CCUU) was a partnership project between the Belfast Local Strategic Partnership and the School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering at Queen’s University, funded by the European Peace 2 Programme for Northern Ireland. As part of this initiative, a team of researchers drawn from different Schools within the university, was involved in an action research project with the aim of identifying the changing profile of the community, the drivers of change, and gives an assessment of the role and effectiveness of current responses to community issues. As part of this project, the author examined the development of community learning which included an examination of the interface between community learning, regeneration and reconciliation and some of the findings are discussed here. This paper examines the social make up of the area and assesses what progress has been made in tackling social exclusion and contributing to regeneration and reconciliation. The project was co-ordinated by the School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering.
The South Belfast Donegall Pass Community is a small socially and religiously segregated community and is situated about two kilometres from the main Queen’s University campus. According to the 2001 population census, the total population of DonegallPass is around 1,080 people. This is made up of 57% one-person households (of which 42% are pensioners) who are mainly Protestant (78%), and there is a growing ethnic minority population, (approximately 5% of the population and mainly Chinese in origin). There are 609 households, with 49% economically inactive, a 6.1% unemployment rate and 25% who receive incapacity benefit. Almost half of those who are unemployed (45%), are long term unemployed and 55% of the population do not have a 16 years + qualification. The numbers of people without qualifications also increases with age (18% over 45 and 19% of those over pensionable age). The fact that so many have ‘no qualification’ suggests that education is not highly valued and that adverse school experiences coupled with low levels of motivation contribute to very few adults having any real desire to participate in education.
DonegallPass and its engagement with learning.
A series of meetings was set up with a cross-section of local people, including community workers and representatives from the local community, church groups and ethnic minority forums. One of the aims of these meetings was to establish what community learning activities were already available and to what extent these were providing for local people’s needs. The interviews also sought to find out how things might be improved in the future. The meetings were organised by the project research assistants who gathered data from questions prepared by the researchers. The following are some findings on community learning in the area and how it is viewed as contributing to the overall objectives of social inclusion and reconciliation.
While Donegall Pass is located close to a number of providers of formal education (including a further education college, a university and a primary school), the courses provided in the formal sector were not seen as appealing to local people. Courses at colleges tended to be work-based in orientation. The ‘Pass’ area is also located within the catchment area of other providers such as the Worker’s Education Association and the Ulster People’s College. While these organisations each provide a wide array of educational programmes aimed at encouraging adults with few qualifications to access education, there was little evidence of any direct involvement or impact on community learning in the ‘Pass’ area. Other organisations which might be said to be contributing to ‘informal community learning’ included local churches and the Orange Order, both of which reported a number of local people attending activities. Some of the primary schools in the locality have also attempted to engage with adults. The local Primary School had attempted to get parents involved with the school through a local initiative. This programme was financed by the South Belfast Partnership Board and was a partnership between the Board, the local primary school and local community representatives. It involved identifying needs and building trust with local groups through a consultation process. It led to the setting up of ‘capacity building activities’ for parents and children which included a range of out –of-school activities included courses in ‘Developing Your IT Skills’, ‘Read to Succeed’, ‘Helping Children with Maths’,and ‘Parents as Co-educators.’ The activities gave parents skills to assist children with their home work and at the same time provided new skills for parents. Most of those participating were women and child-care support was provided, thus enabling those with young children to attend. On completion of the courses some participants went on to enrol in other educational programmes and some became local volunteers assisting with local community activities.There were also attempts to set up other types of courses for the community in areas such as information technology, community leadership and lobbying skills. These programmes were said to have had only limited success, enrolling only a few participants.
The interviews with community workers and representatives from the local community indicated that local people faced a number of barriers to accessing education. These included lack of entry qualifications to formal education, lack of financial support and unappealing programmes. A community worker commented:
we need to get away from just offering stuff.. the important thing is to identify with the parents themselves what there barriers are and discussing education with them in its broadest sense.
One of the problems raised by local community representatives was a tendency of organisations to design programmes without full consultation with the local community on what was required. The courses were therefore not organised and developed around the real needs of local people, were not always what local people wanted and consequently didn’t always succeed. Some of those interviewed mentioned that funding agencies had their own views and developed plans without any real local consultation. When asked about what community learning initiatives were needed, some spoke of the need to link learning to ‘real life issues’ in the area such as housing, health care, health and roads and with how to overcome feeling of frustration and powerlessness.
Yarnit (2006) describes the benefits of community learning in the ‘testbed learning communities’ report mentioned above. Community learning can encourage the development of skills for both learning and employment, bringing social and economic benefits and a reduction in the gap between disadvantaged and advantaged. While an analysis of the ‘Pass’ project shows some of these benefits accruing , the development of activities does not seem to have occurred as part of any overall plan bringing different stakeholders, including local community representatives and learners together to develop a co-ordinated approach to meeting local needs. Learning is a voluntary activity requiring active engagement of residents if it is to be meaningful. It requires a two way relationship between local funding bodies through the establishment of partnerships to ensure the development of a local learning community. In the ‘Pass’ project the local partnership board has focused on a range of issues affecting social and economic regeneration, but the potential of community learning as a contributor to regeneration had not really been central to its economic and social strategy. The partnership focussed on issues such as employment creation, environment, crime, housing, health and roads, but did not taken on board the potential to link these issues to community learning programmes. Furthermore the uncoordinated approach to community learning, where each provider developed their own provision, has meant that there was no real sharing of ideas or co-ordinated approach to planning activities among interested groups or organisations.
Is DonegallPass a learning community?
The need to establish a sustainable learning community, which encouraged engagement of local people with learning and education, had therefore not been fully realised. The need for ongoing partnerships which involve all stakeholders i.e. policy makers, regional agencies, employers, community managers, voluntary and community organisation managers and local people, is paramount to success if educational needs are to be realised and if local people are to be able to make a real contribution to social and economic advancement in their areas as well as fulfilling their own personal educational needs. The opportunity to promote a learning community where people are motivated and want to learn and progress and where people and organisations provide mutual support to help each other learn and raise the local employment skills base has not yet been realised in Donegall Pass.
A further aim of the study was to examine the potential contribution of programmes to reconciliation either through embracing new approaches to learning or through promoting improved inter-community understanding and reconciliation. It might be argued that by seeking to promote broader inclusion of excluded groups, community learning is in fact providing new routes for inclusion and as such providing a bridge towards improved inter-community relations and reconciliation in a divided society. However, if Hamber & Kelly’s(2004) understanding of reconciliation is taken into account, there is little evidence to suggest that community learning programmes are contributing to resolving longstanding problems of misunderstanding between divided communities, promoting a shared understanding and vision for society, dealing with issues of division in the past, or in building relationships through cultural and attitudinal change. Rather the opportunities provided were found to be instrumental and focussed on meeting immediate needs e.g. caring for children, learning to read and write etc; One can therefore conclude that social exclusion is very much the norm in Donegall Pass and that community learning programmes, which seeks to engage the community with the skills and knowledge for social inclusion through reconciliation, is still very much a vision for the future.
While theories and policies acknowledge that community learning has a vital role to play in supporting and strengthening regeneration, there has been little progress in putting these ideas into practice. It seems there is a real danger that the regeneration process will concentrate on the purely practical and instrumental providing a form of ‘nuts and bolts’ education which ignores the wider citizenship aspect of learning. To avoid this, community-learning programmes must have a stronger emphasis on critically exploring the history and development of local communities, linked to an examination of contemporary community issues and problems. The whole process should be seen as an part of community regeneration in all its complexities in order to improve people’s sense of identity and security. Such a process can assist people to acknowledge and appreciate cultural diversity, but also to realise and cherish their common cultural identity. And in this process, it may also be possible to find a common culture crossing religious divides and identifying common approaches for community regeneration.