Partnerships with local community groups – a new direction for adult education?
Amanda Vickers,
University of Leeds, England.
Introduction
The ‘provider’ model of adult education features a one-way flow of benefit from the institution to people in the community. Publicly funded classes are provided, effort expended to make them accessible, and potential learners either access them or fail to participate in them. Working class adults from deprived communities, such as former West Yorkshire mining communities, mostly decline to participate in them.
This research-based paper explores the implications of a different, flattened model of relationship, one where community groups are equal partners with adult education facilitators, and formal structures such as classes, subjects, the syllabus and expert tutors are dispensed with. Whether this equable approach reflects a genuinely ‘new’ direction for adult education, or more of a reversal to the roots of community development in the social action groups of the 1960s and 70s, is a matter for debate.
Radical adult educators at the time aligned themselves with groups who were, for example, protesting against unjust housing policies. They lent their own intellect to the collective task of learning how to meet the groups’ strongly felt needs. When such independent activity became ‘incorporated’ into formal adult education through the mechanism of funding, its political edge was perceived to be against the interests of the state. By the end of the century there was little scope or political will for funding such activities, except broadly under headings such as ‘social inclusion’ and ‘widening participation’.
Tom Lovett’s analysis of the institutionalised ‘provider’ model that largely replaced radical community development, although written thirty years ago, reveals a similar system and accompanying preoccupation with the low participation rates of working class adults:
although adult education offers a range of subjects, they are almost always encompassed within a uniform, standardised system that presents no major problem for the organisation and the values it represents. Any mismatch in such a system, between the services offered by the institution and the students from another ‘culture’, results either in a reformulation of the needs of the latter or criticism of their perverse refusal to take what is offered. (Lovett, 1975:129)
Of course the past decades have witnessed great change in how adult education is delivered. The UK ‘widening participation’ agenda is concerned with providing easily accessible classes, offering instruction in any of an array of subjects, and delivered by approachable and knowledgeable expert tutors. The Wakefield District provision receives excellent inspection reports. It still does not attract many working class adults. It is still ‘provision’. Adult education is still institutionalised:
Even when the needs of [the working class population] are identified, the formal education system, by its very nature, translates these into preconceived, traditional, subject-centred courses rather than meaningful learning experiences that are personal and relevant to the adults being served. (Lovett, 1975:27)
The research from which this paper has emerged involved the researcher in participant observation of the adult members of a community development group, Felton Village Community Group (FVCG), over eighteen months in 2005/6. Felton is one of around forty former mining ‘villages’ that together with five towns, comprise the Wakefield District of West Yorkshire. Felton exhibits the impoverished physical infrastructure and social deprivation associated with post-industrial communities throughout Europe.
All the group members had never attended an adult education class, and did not intend to do so. They were however, engaged in learning through their involvement in the Group’s activities. Their learning experiences were personal and communal, relevant to their lives, and frequently transformational.
The ‘curriculum’ of FVCG is formed by engagement with the issues associated with living in Felton. As well as working from a sense of place, the community development group is also a ‘community of interest’, composed of people with a personal or professional interest in supporting the development of this former mining village. Most of those with a professional interest are local authority officers, although not from the adult education service.
The research project included initial in-depth interviews, and participant observation through attendance at monthly group meetings. Data was collected in the form of interview transcripts, field notes, and a focus group towards the end of the research project. Whilst the researcher was not in the role of learning facilitator, the task of assessing and ‘measuring’ the extent of the group’s learning was demonstrated through the study.
A case of transformative learning for the group leaders
For the FVCG’s leadership, consisting of four or five male, former mining officials, the experience of close and productive working with local authority officers, councillors, MPs, and outsider-professionals provided an enabling environment for transformative learning. Their previous frame of reference, which could be labelled ‘perception of relationship with institutions representing authority’ had been acquired against a long-term background of protracted struggle as miners and mining officials, with first the private coal-owners, then the Coal Board.
Their initial expectation was that their efforts would be resisted as long as possible in the interests of the more powerful party:
More banging us heads on a brick wall were what we expected, but it was [a different councillor] doing the surgery. We’d gone along to see if there was anything could be done about cars being driven over the field and to get the club done up, we’d been before about same, with nothing being done…(RC)
Their surprise at the apparently total reversal of their previously held frame of reference, is apparent from this account:
Well it was like a fairy had come and give us three wishes weren’t it, as money wise, and when we got this place up and running, it was John Trickett MP and Chief of Police opened it up (RC)
That a group transformation had taken place regarding the factor ‘perception of relationship with institutions representing authority’ is evidenced by the group leadership’s changed attitudes. Their new frame of reference includes beliefs that it is possible to gain respect, build trust, and work closely with people who had been considered adversaries. They experience at first hand political and financial support that has hardly had to be fought for. Their own effectiveness is augmented by the networks and resources they now have access to, their sense of agency increases with each instance of effective co-operation and they work hard to maximise the benefits of their new-found power.
There is every sign that their transformed perspective is permanent, and has become embedded in their thoughts and actions:
since we started up …the number of people that’s been through doors on professional side of it, some you thought were here just to get their leisure time in, but there’s been a lot of positive people and who’ve been very helpful like, er, Mark, I just can’t remember all their names and they’ve made an hell of a contribution to it haven’t they (PG)
Their experience of definitive positive messages from authority figures and institutions is never naively accepted at face value however. They retain a critical sense about the motivations of ‘the other’, and have acquired an ability to discern whether a particular outsider-professional is genuinely on their side.
Reflection is not a mechanical process, nor is it a purely creative exercise in the construction of new ideas; it is a practice which expresses our power to reconstitute social life by the way we participate in communication, decision-making and social action. (Boud et al,1985:149)
The old ‘them-us’ frame of reference appears to have been dispensed with, or at least provisionally discarded. But just one, though serious, instance of being let down by ‘an institution representing authority’, is enough to cast its own dilemma into the new pro-authority mindset:
The 18th January we was all gutted all of us wasn’t we. We all came down thinking great it’s all going to be on board, positive, walked in here saw the person that was giving us all the bumf never even turned up and as soon as the young gentleman spoke that was it we just knew we weren’t going to get it….(PG)
Discussions within the group following the disappointment demonstrated some instances of where the experience had strengthened the ‘old’ them-us perspective:
at least we know now where we stand. This has been wanted by the whole village, right from start, we done everything right for it, got that toilet put in, done this, done all them letters, and now it’s just….they can’t even turn up to say no to our face (PG)
Other group members were able to draw fine distinctions as to which individuals and organisations could be trusted to act in their interests, and which couldn’t. This phenomenon itself showed how ‘authority’ was no longer regarded as a homogenous entity, but had complexity that was becoming understood.
A case of transformative learning for an individual
The following situation was observed, against a track record of almost total non-participation from a female long-standing group member:
The lady who had been ignored by the men the previous meeting made a point about farcical bureaucracy surrounding her medication. Although her point was an almost purely personal gripe, other women in the room didn’t allow the men to suppress her this time. They said ‘wait a minute’ as various men tried to cut across her. Her narrative got an unprecedented level of airtime, and led to the action that the group would write a letter of complaint to the local surgery, on behalf of their group member. The lady in question could hardly believe this result, and was visibly moved. (Field-notes: July 2003)
This small event was transformative for this person. The letter to the local surgery, signed on behalf of the whole group, led to a review of her case by the local GP surgery. From this point onwards the group member contributed frequently, with increasing relevance to the matters under discussion.
She was selected to represent the group at sub-regional meetings, and was able to report back to the group on matters that might affect them. She remained idiosyncratic and apt to lapse into irrelevance, but was tolerated with affection. She became happier and more at ease, and was able to tackle some of the issues affecting her personal life. A main benefit for her was social acceptance by the other women. That the community group leaders had initially to be challenged in order to achieve this transformation demonstrates the multi-faceted nature of community power relations, with divisions and potential divisions along many lines.
Participation in the community development project had the effect of transforming some members’ whole orientation to learning. Their satisfaction and occasionally their excitement, at learning so much in a short time, were clear learning
outcomes. There were observed instances of their managing to deal with previously intractable problems, coping with challenges such as public speaking, reading complex documents, making assertive phone calls, and writing effectively. This learning only required tactful and non patronising recognition for the adults to see themselves as dynamic learners, agents, effective and powerful people.
A new role for Adult Education?
From the testimony of the adults interviewed as part of this research project, the sense that genuine interests were not adequately served through formal schooling, and that ‘real life’ was taking place elsewhere is strong, particularly for women reporting on their experience as schoolgirls. In adult life, their ‘real life’ with all its problem-solving and close involvement with others continues to be more compelling than formal classes. For them, learning is an unacknowledged part of the process of serving their own and their communities’ interests.
Why community development contexts should potentially be rich sites of learning can be addressed by reference to Knowles’ second premise of andragogy:
Adults have a self-concept of being responsible for their own decisions, for their own lives. Once they have arrived at that self-concept, they develop a deep psychological need to be seen by others and treated by others as capable of self-direction. They resent and resist situations in which they feel others are imposing their wills on them. (Knowles, 2005:65)
If such contexts are so valuable, why are they not presently valued? According to Tight (1999), non-vocational forms of education, such as adult education for personal and social development, do not have much of a place in terms of present political imperatives:
… almost regardless of the state of the British economy, non-vocational forms of education, training and learning are seldom discussed in national policy terms and receive little funding. In short, they are poorly valued by comparison with vocational education and training; and not just by government and employers, but by many individuals as well.
The challenges presently facing adult education may require that it reassess its traditional tactics and rethink where it could and should play a role. Politically, the challenge will be to present facilitation of community groups as non-threatening, something that should be easier now that most community groups have an element of local authority sponsorship.
Challenges of implementation
Community-based adult education that works from the precept of recognising and supporting adult learning wherever it occurs naturally is continuing to emerge and doesn’t readily translate to any existing conceptual scheme. It is perhaps similar to the typology that Brookfield describes as adult education in the community:
The distinct features of such practice are that the learners retain control over the direction and execution of their learning, and that assistance is offered only after a period of immersion by the educator in community group activities. (Hamilton, 1992:28)
Because it is a relatively untried form of adult education, administrative structures of educational institutions are not geared up to partnering the non-formal sector. Implementation would therefore require significant management of change, even if only particular non-traditional learner groups were targeted with the approach.
How would members of a community development group ‘enrol’ to have their learning assessed and monitored? How would the facilitator role differ from that of tutor? How would the facilitator conclude that sufficient learning had been undertaken to then cease their involvement? How could internal quality of learning experience be assured? How would this work be funded?