Disrupting fatalism:: what can community-based learning and development do?

This contribution draws on a talk I gave at Edinburgh University on 16th May 2025 that was reviewing the role of the Alexander Report on its 50th anniversary. My talk initially drew on the two main underpinning impulses of the Report: to challenge poverty and disadvantage through participation in education and to promote human flourishing. For example, the report argued: ‘We have acted on our belief that education enables man [sic] to increase his understanding of his own nature, to develop to the full his potentialities and to participate in the shaping of his own future’ (Scottish Education Department,1975: 35).&nbsp

The changing political significance of social class in Scotland

The meaning of social class in Scotland has been shifting because of two large economic changes, and because of the expansion of higher education. Numerically the more important is a new class of graduates who work in the service sector of the economy. Alongside that segment is a smaller but growing group who feel economically insecure – sometimes described by class theorists as the ‘precariat’. These trends are seen in many economically developed societies, including in the rest of the UK. But the meaning of the changes is distinctive in Scotland because they interact with the political question of how Scotland is governed. Unlike in other nations, including England, liberal graduates are increasingly in favour of national independence. Also, unlike elsewhere, the precariat are increasingly not conservative while favouring the liberal project of independence. Class remains a useful general concept for understanding social change, but its meaning has to take account of each country’s specific political circumstances

Six Conversations We’re Scared to Have

My initial impression was that “Six Conversations We’re Scared to Have” is yet another selfhelp book in world that already feels saturated with endless advice on how to improve yourself. When I saw that it was written by Deborah Frances-White, the author of the Guilty Feminist podcast, I was intrigued. As a casual listener of the Guilty Feminist podcast, I have enjoyed how it manages to reflect with humour and compassion on the contradictions and complexity of trying to live a feminist life while being conditioned by and existing in a patriarchal society.&nbsp

The Needs of Teachers of Adult Community Education: Six Narratives

The current study described the experiences, challenges, and needs of first time adult community education teachers in the USA.  Although the adult education literature often emphasizes the context of learners and their instructional settings, less is known and has been studied about how first-time teachers prepare to teach. Engaging six adult community education first-time teachers who ranged in age from 39 to 74, reflective journaling was used to identify their experiences before, during, and after their teaching experience. Using open-coding, five consistent themes were identified: initial self-doubt, recognition of adult learners\u27 experiences, the importance of flexibility, reliance on interactive and hands-on strategies, and the mutual growth between teachers and their students. The teachers also noted that their credibility came less from their expertise and more from their adaptability, humility, and classroom management that fostered respect and engagement. Implications from these findings include the possibility of improving the experience for teachers by strengthening the onboarding process and providing professional development opportunities for adult community education teachers

Tidal Thinking for artist-researcher collaboration:: beachcombing located memories and place values

Oceans are fundamental to life on Earth, yet they face escalating pressures that demand solutions across society. Addressing these challenges requires approaches that span disciplines and ways of knowing. Bridging art and research offers great possibilities but comes with its own distinct challenges. Inspired by Oceanic movement and our coastal experiences, particularly SCUBA diving, we consider connections between arts and research through rhythm and sense of place. Marine places further benefit from approaches suited to their fluidity, such as ‘Oceanic thinking’ and embodied maritime practices. Based on conversations between the authors (artist and researcher) which became the supporting text for an exhibition, we propose ‘tidal thinking’ as an approach which resonates with our art and research practices. Tidal thinking emphasises dynamic cycles, creating liminal terrains, exposing learnings, and carrying us through tension and release. This cycle has supported our collaborative work, including a participatory mapping and sketching activity outlined below: ‘beachcombing located memories’. To evoke beachcombing, this activity echoes tidal cycles with sketching, scattering, combing, and sharing located images to elicit personal associations with coastal spaces towards shared reflection. Inspired by marine processes and artefacts, we offer tidal thinking as both a conceptual and practical tool to support educators, artists, and researchers in developing transdisciplinary collaborations that contribute to viable and just Ocean futures

Neoliberalism and Urban Regeneration: London\u27s Communities Finding a Voice and Fighting Back

This is a book of and for its time.  It is both a warning and a call to arms.  From the excellent introduction by Marjorie Mayo to the final chapter, we are left in no doubt about the context that faces us all one way or another.  This is one of its many merits.  We are living in an unprecedented global era and this account of campaigning groups over a decade or more has no illusions about both the limitations and the necessity of collective community action.    &nbsp

Introduction to a seminar on the State of the Field in Community Learning and Development on Friday 13th June 2024, University of Edinburgh.

Today’s seminar comes out of the concerns the organisers of this event have about the narrow framing of the current independent review of Community Learning & Development. For example, the overview of the review states: Community Learning and Development (CLD) is a professional practice within education with delivery stretching across all stages of lifelong learning…The purpose of CLD is to provide early intervention and prevention to those experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, inequality of opportunity within the education and skills system. (Scottish Government, No Date)  As a result of this perceived narrowing of the scope of CLD work, four of us working on CLD programmes in Scottish universities wrote an open letter (Galloway et al, 2024) to express our concerns and invite support from the field of practice. Our concerns are summarised by this extract from the letter: We argue that the learning and development components of CLD cannot be separated without losing the ethos and values of the profession in relation to social justice. We also note that within the terms of reference, ‘educational’ refers explicitly to learning and skills for employment, neglecting longstanding broader social justice aims for lifelong, life wide education as recognised formally by the Scottish Government

Meta-skills: exciting opportunity or neo-liberal retread?

The term Meta-skills has become prominent in education in the last decade and, in Scotland, has increasingly been seen at the forefront of policy agendas. Based on the idea of Metacognition, and so claiming to derive from evidence of Psychology and Cognitive Science, the Meta-skills concept seems to offer an exciting and quintessentially 21st century opportunity.  Or does it? Is the idea coherent and evidence-based? Indeed, is it new or merely a rebranding of those key/core/transferable/soft skills that have been contested since the 1980s?  Does it represent a further neo-liberal strategy to vocationalise education, prioritising making learners ‘ready for the market’? This paper asks what are Meta-skills and what do they have to offer (or threaten) to those working in adult education

Hamish Henderson and Cultural Activism

This article is based on The Hamish Henderson Memorial Lecture given in the Scottish Storytelling Centre on 9th November 2024.  I start with some general thoughts on what is culture, and cultural activism. Then I examine the cultural activism of Hamish Henderson (1919-2002) poet, songwriter, soldier and scholar. He was a world-renowned folklorist, a pioneering lecturer in the School of Scottish Studies, founded in Edinburgh University In 1951, and a leader in the folk song revival of the 1950s and 1960s. His activism was influenced by the ideas of Antonio Gramsci, Italian Marxist philosopher and writer (1891-1937) imprisoned and tortured by the fascist Italian state. Gramsci was also a very important influence on the Liberation movement in Latin American in the 1960s and 70s. I will discuss how the influence of Paolo Freire came to be embedded in the practice of the Adult Learning Project (ALP) in Edinburgh and share some examples of liberating cultural action which demonstrate the values and beliefs ALP shared with Henderson, Gramsci and Freire

Community Education, Populism and Deliberative Democracy

Politics have been transformed by populism in this past decade resulting in political culture becoming increasingly polarised and angry. This article aims to better understand populism by drawing on a range of perspectives in fields such as political sociology, psychology and psychoanalysis. The article accounts for populism’s rise by exploring factors such as financial crises, changing demographics, especially in relation to education, and the transformative impact of social media on political culture. The article also considers the role of emotive reasoning in shaping populism and political persuasion more broadly. Drawing on ideas associated with Jurgen Habermas, the article argues that deliberative democracy, when applied to learning environments in community education, provides a way of making politics less polarised and angry and more deliberative and dialogical.&nbsp