With funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, a novel project has taken place over the last two years under the title ‘Using Popular Education in Anti-Poverty and Environmental Justice Organising: Bridging Constituencies, Building Movements, and Crossing Disciplines’. The aim was not just to take a popular education approach to promoting social change but also to make learning about popular education a central part of the process

Kane, L.

English

Kane, Liam

Concept

  Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  1 Popular Education, ‘So We Stand’ and the ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’   Liam Kane Lecturer in Adult Education University of Glasgow.   With funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, a novel project has taken place over the last two years under the title ‘Using Popular Education in Anti-Poverty and Environmental Justice Organising: Bridging Constituencies, Building Movements, and Crossing Disciplines’. The aim was not just to take a popular education approach to promoting social change but also to make learning about popular education a central part of the process. I was a named researcher on the project, along with former Concept editor Eurig Scandrett, but the driving forces were Paul Routledge, a geography lecturer, and Aaron Franks, a PhD student, both shining examples, from the University of Glasgow, of how to promote popular education from within as well as outside the state. Of particular interest was that rather than starting from a community group, community workers or a department of education, the initiative sprung from a traditional academic discipline geography not something normally associated with popular education, albeit it was done in conjunction with the umbrella grassroots grouping ‘So We Stand’. This article summarises what the project was about and discusses the use of ‘the triple self-diagnosis’, an extended activity which has stood the test of time, from Mexico to Scotland, and was useful for just such a scenario as this.  One objective of the project was to provide people of limited resources with an opportunity to learn from each other’s experience of facing economic disadvantage and/or environmental degradation. From the start, then, the project hoped to bring together and form alliances between activists working in separate but related forms of activity. It was the cliché of ‘starting from where people are at’ - what Freire called people’s ‘generative’ themes – and then moving out to broader concerns. The funding applications were to ensure that the costs of bringing people together would not be a prohibitive factor.   Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  2  Another was to ‘provide participants with the practical and analytical tools, through popular education methods, for relating their personal experiences of economic disadvantage and environmental degradation within their communities to the experiences of other communities and individuals with similar concerns’. So the aim was both to ensure the whole process was immersed in popular education practice but also to encourage and enable people to go on to use a popular education approach themselves in their future work as community activists. This would mean that some of the training would focus more on the theory and practice of popular education itself rather than the content of anti-poverty and environmental justice.   Another aim was to facilitate a dialogue between ‘popular’, experiential knowledge and ‘academic’ knowledge, wherever it might be beneficial. In addition to those who initiated the project, a number of other, sympathetic academics were invited to participate in the process as well.   Ten day workshops were held in total, using a range of popular education methods - social theatre a la Augusto Boal, creative mapping, art and music, for example – in order to;  • help increase understanding of issues relating to climate justice, economic deprivation and privatisation  • explore environmental justice from the perspective of ethnic minority women in marginalised communities  • produce useful resource materials for community organisations and members.   The workshops facilitated exchange between different communities and groups from Govan in Glasgow (e.g. Sunny Govan Radio; GalGael), Friends of the Earth Scotland, the Afro-Caribbean Network, Glasgow Sport and Culture, So We Stand, AMINA (the Muslim Women's Resource Centre), the Women's Friendship Group in Govanhill and the International Women's Group in Sighthill. The workshops saw new collaborations between different (community, activist, and academic) constituencies - one participant commenting that the use of popular education and social theatre saw “people interacting without the usual barriers of language or social conventions. It was   Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  3 successful in opening up a space for people to project their self and their own struggles”.  A total of 200 participants engaged in the exercise and were introduced to practical and analytical tools through experiencing popular education and social theatre methods in action. Participants’ feedback showed they highly valued the experience but recognised the need for more networking with other groups and ongoing practical help with relating popular education to their activism. Some concrete outcomes of the project were that it generated (i) a systematic ‘contact exchange’ between participants via the So We Stand website and email list (ii) a blog on ‘popular education and environmental justice’ (http://populareducationaenvironment.blogspot.com/) (iii) a Sunny Govan radio programme on popular education, using  vox-pops taken from the workshops (iv) qualitative material for future community mapping in Govan (v) significant data for further research into the usefulness of this type of work. Further information on this and related projects can be obtained from the So We Stand Website (http://sowestand.com/).  Particularly since these workshops involved bringing together groups who had not known each other previously, an important first step was to try and make explicit exactly what the different groups were doing before considering what they all might learn from each other. One exercise used was the ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’ developed by the Central American popular education network ALFORJA. While this can take up to a week to do fully, it can be adapted for a one-day workshop.  Starting from Practice: The ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’  True to the principles of starting and theorising from practice, the aim of this exercise is to help groups explore beneath the surface and take a fresh, objective look at what they do. The ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’ requires groups or organisations to examine three dimensions of their practice: (i) Concept (ii) Context (iii) (actual) Practice. It takes the following format:    Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  4 1. CONCEPT (of practice): First, the aim is to find out what people in any particular group/organisation think they are trying to do. The particular technique used to do this is normally a ‘Brainstorm on A4’ • Each participant receives 4 or 5 blank sheets of A4 paper • They take a few minutes to think of the 3, 4 or 5 main things they think they are trying to achieve (their aims or objectives) in their group/organisation (or in their particular role in the organisation) • They write these down, in large writing, a separate sheet of paper for each aim/objective • Participants are organised into groups of 4 - 5. All A4 sheets of paper are laid out on the floor (some 16 to 20 per group) and the group spends a few minutes reading them • Groups then have to discuss all the aims/objectives written down and see if they can group them into different categories or classifications • On a large, blank poster groups draw a column for every category they decide on. They write the title of the category at the top of the column and place all the corresponding sheets of A4 below it  • Each group’s poster, showing all the objectives and their classification, is put on the wall (alternatively you can just do all this on the floor) • All participants take time to walk round the room and see what each group has produced • The co-ordinator asks questions to encourage critical analysis: how do the aims/objectives and their categorisation compare between groups? If they are different, why is that so? Are there any inconsistencies? Do some objectives conflict with others? • If appropriate, the posters can be kept and written up for future reference  At the stage of classification, it is the discussion which matters rather than the final outcome: there are no right or wrong answers. In thinking through possible categorisations for the objectives, discussions move from the concrete to the abstract, from practice to theory. The co-ordinator should not provide a set of ready-made categories beforehand: at this early investigative stage, the less the co-ordinators interfere the clearer an idea is obtained of the groups’ own perceptions of what they are trying to do. When the exercise is finished, the collective view of what the group thinks it is trying to do, inconsistencies and all, is there, objectified, for everyone to see. (If the organisation has a written constitution or stated aims and objectives, it is important that these are not to hand. The list of objectives should not be pre-meditated but come from the heart).    Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  5 During these particular workshops, the co-ordinator divided the large group into sub-groupings according to the area of activity in which they were involved. Thus, people involved primarily with poverty-related issues worked together as did those working mainly on environmental issues. At the end of this exercise, there was a clear display, for everyone to see, of the collective perception of what people were trying to do, what different groups had in common and where there might be potential difficulties or divergent interests in working together,  2. CONTEXT (of practice): participants now describe the social context in which they are trying to intervene. In groups of 4 or 5, according to similarity of organisation, or role within an organisation, they ‘brainstorm’ what they see as the main elements of this context. The co-ordinator explains that these elements could be political, economic, cultural, organisational - anything and everything they see as important (though it is better to avoid giving examples as these may guide people to think in a particular way). Groups then do a ‘poster exercise’ (see below) and present their synthesised vision of the context for the larger group to de-code.  Poster Exercise  The aim is for small groups to produce a graphic, symbolic representation of their views on a particular theme and present this to a larger group for discussion and analysis. It can deal with a wide range of themes, abstract and concrete, from politics and religion to propaganda and soap opera. In the training of popular educators in Central America, it is commonly used to help popular organisations analyse the political-social context in which they are operating.  • In small groups, participants ‘brainstorm’ and discuss their understanding of the theme being explored. Someone notes the main ideas on paper. • They then discuss how to represent their ideas symbolically, in a drawing. Rough sketches are made to accompany the discussion. When a final graphic is agreed, this is made into a poster. • The small groups come together, presenting their poster in turns to the larger group. • The group presenting the poster keeps quiet while the co-ordinator invites everyone else to (a) describe (b) interpret what they see in the poster. • The group who produced the poster then give their own explanation to the larger group.    Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  6 The small groups often interpret the context in different ways, some emphasising the local, others the regional, national or even international. The co-ordinator again asks questions to provoke deeper analysis: why are there different interpretations? Are they complementary or contradictory? Would any group want to make changes, having listened to different interpretations? The posters can be photographed or copied onto smaller paper for future reference.   3. (actual) PRACTICE: again working in small groups, participants note down what they actually do in the organisation and how they go about doing it (as opposed to what they think they do, or would like to do). This is then synthesised into a ‘sociodrama’ and presented to the whole group for interpretation and analysis.  Sociodramas  Sociodramas are short drama sketches which problematise unresolved conflicts taken from the concrete, real-life experience of the learners. They allow people to reconstruct this experience, analyse it from a distance, and consider options for change. Again, it can deal with a wide range of themes or topics, from the abstract to the specific, such as the conditions of health, housing or poverty in a particular community.  • Participants divide into groups (4-8 people) to discuss the problems they have experienced (or witnessed) relating to the theme being explored. • They then select one or more of these which they think are (a) generally representative of the group’s experience (b) suitable to re-enact in front of others (albeit artistic license is permitted). • They decide on (a) the brief story-line (b) the physical layout of the room so that it resembles the appropriate location (c) who will play what character in the sketch (c) the kind of dialogue in which the characters engage. • After some rehearsals, they act out the sociodrama in front of the larger group. • As before, the co-ordinator stimulates wider discussion in two stages, firstly inviting people to describe what they see happening in the sociodrama and then to interpret what it is meant to reveal. • Having heard the audience’s views, the ‘actors’ then explain what it was all about and the whole group engages in further discussion and analysis. Variation: • Groups are instructed to ensure that sociodramas present problems for which they have found no easy solution. • Once a sociodrama has been performed and analysed, it is acted out once more, only this time the audience can stop it at any point, replace the characters, improvise changes to the dialogue/storyline and try and push the sociodrama towards a different conclusion, forcing everyone to consider possible actions for change.   Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  7    The co-ordinator guides a whole group discussion along similar lines as before: do the sociodramas reveal any problems with the practice? Do some examples of practice clash with others? Is there anything obviously needing to be done to improve this practice?  An optional, final stage of the ‘triple self-diagnosis’ is to reunite the analyses of these three areas - concept, context and actual practice - in what is called the ‘CONFRONTATION’. What is consistent through the three areas? What are the conflicts? What requires remedial action? A full-group discussion revolves around the completion of a chart with three columns entitled ‘Consistencies’, ‘Inconsistencies’ and ‘Knots’ (i.e. something needing straightened out).  ‘Starting from where people are at’ is an oft-cited mantra, not only in popular education but in adult education as a whole. The ‘triple self-diagnosis’ is designed to find out precisely ‘where people are at’, in all its variety and contradiction. When all aspects of a popular organisation’s practice are laid bare and no assumptions taken for granted it provides the basis for discussion between educators and learners about the appropriate way to proceed with a programme of education and action. Participative techniques are useful for this exercise but they are not ends-in-themselves: it would be possible to do the triple self-diagnosis using a completely different set of techniques.  When the training is over, activist-educators go back to their own organisations and pay close attention to all aspects of their practice, possibly running or adapting the triple self-diagnosis themselves.  I have been using this exercise in a variety of forms for years, it provokes endless amounts of discussion and brings clarity to areas often insufficiently addressed in a group or organisation’s practice. It’s an ideal exercise to use or adapt when working with a group(s) for the first time and hopefully proved to be a useful starting point for many of the participants involved in this particular project.   Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  8 References All quotations and factual information are taken from the Report on the project written for the ESRC by Paul Routledge and Aaron Franks.  For more information on popular education methods taken from Latin America see chapter three of: Kane, L. (2001). Popular Education and Social Change in Latin America. London: Latin American Bureau. 

Popular Education, ‘So We Stand’ and the ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’

Enlighten

      Kane, L. (2013) Popular education, ‘so we stand’ and the 'triple self-diagnosis'. Concept: The Journal of Contemporary Community Education Practice and Theory, 4 (2). pp. 1-8. ISSN 1359-1983  Copyright © 2013 The Author.   http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/87583/     Deposited on:  18 Nov 2013       Enlighten – Research publications by members of the University of Glasgow http://eprints.gla.ac.uk   Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  1 Popular Education, ‘So We Stand’ and the ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’   Liam Kane Lecturer in Adult Education University of Glasgow.   With funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, a novel project has taken place over the last two years under the title ‘Using Popular Education in Anti-Poverty and Environmental Justice Organising: Bridging Constituencies, Building Movements, and Crossing Disciplines’. The aim was not just to take a popular education approach to promoting social change but also to make learning about popular education a central part of the process. I was a named researcher on the project, along with former Concept editor Eurig Scandrett, but the driving forces were Paul Routledge, a geography lecturer, and Aaron Franks, a PhD student, both shining examples, from the University of Glasgow, of how to promote popular education from within as well as outside the state. Of particular interest was that rather than starting from a community group, community workers or a department of education, the initiative sprung from a traditional academic discipline geography not something normally associated with popular education, albeit it was done in conjunction with the umbrella grassroots grouping ‘So We Stand’. This article summarises what the project was about and discusses the use of ‘the triple self-diagnosis’, an extended activity which has stood the test of time, from Mexico to Scotland, and was useful for just such a scenario as this.  One objective of the project was to provide people of limited resources with an opportunity to learn from each other’s experience of facing economic disadvantage and/or environmental degradation. From the start, then, the project hoped to bring together and form alliances between activists working in separate but related forms of activity. It was the cliché of ‘starting from where people are at’ - what Freire called people’s ‘generative’ themes – and then moving out to broader concerns. The funding applications were to ensure that the costs of bringing people together would not be a prohibitive factor.   Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  2  Another was to ‘provide participants with the practical and analytical tools, through popular education methods, for relating their personal experiences of economic disadvantage and environmental degradation within their communities to the experiences of other communities and individuals with similar concerns’. So the aim was both to ensure the whole process was immersed in popular education practice but also to encourage and enable people to go on to use a popular education approach themselves in their future work as community activists. This would mean that some of the training would focus more on the theory and practice of popular education itself rather than the content of anti-poverty and environmental justice.   Another aim was to facilitate a dialogue between ‘popular’, experiential knowledge and ‘academic’ knowledge, wherever it might be beneficial. In addition to those who initiated the project, a number of other, sympathetic academics were invited to participate in the process as well.   Ten day workshops were held in total, using a range of popular education methods - social theatre a la Augusto Boal, creative mapping, art and music, for example – in order to;  • help increase understanding of issues relating to climate justice, economic deprivation and privatisation  • explore environmental justice from the perspective of ethnic minority women in marginalised communities  • produce useful resource materials for community organisations and members.   The workshops facilitated exchange between different communities and groups from Govan in Glasgow (e.g. Sunny Govan Radio; GalGael), Friends of the Earth Scotland, the Afro-Caribbean Network, Glasgow Sport and Culture, So We Stand, AMINA (the Muslim Women's Resource Centre), the Women's Friendship Group in Govanhill and the International Women's Group in Sighthill. The workshops saw new collaborations between different (community, activist, and academic) constituencies - one participant commenting that the use of popular education and social theatre saw “people interacting without the usual barriers of language or social conventions. It was   Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  3 successful in opening up a space for people to project their self and their own struggles”.  A total of 200 participants engaged in the exercise and were introduced to practical and analytical tools through experiencing popular education and social theatre methods in action. Participants’ feedback showed they highly valued the experience but recognised the need for more networking with other groups and ongoing practical help with relating popular education to their activism. Some concrete outcomes of the project were that it generated (i) a systematic ‘contact exchange’ between participants via the So We Stand website and email list (ii) a blog on ‘popular education and environmental justice’ (http://populareducationaenvironment.blogspot.com/) (iii) a Sunny Govan radio programme on popular education, using  vox-pops taken from the workshops (iv) qualitative material for future community mapping in Govan (v) significant data for further research into the usefulness of this type of work. Further information on this and related projects can be obtained from the So We Stand Website (http://sowestand.com/).  Particularly since these workshops involved bringing together groups who had not known each other previously, an important first step was to try and make explicit exactly what the different groups were doing before considering what they all might learn from each other. One exercise used was the ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’ developed by the Central American popular education network ALFORJA. While this can take up to a week to do fully, it can be adapted for a one-day workshop.  Starting from Practice: The ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’  True to the principles of starting and theorising from practice, the aim of this exercise is to help groups explore beneath the surface and take a fresh, objective look at what they do. The ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’ requires groups or organisations to examine three dimensions of their practice: (i) Concept (ii) Context (iii) (actual) Practice. It takes the following format:    Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  4 1. CONCEPT (of practice): First, the aim is to find out what people in any particular group/organisation think they are trying to do. The particular technique used to do this is normally a ‘Brainstorm on A4’ • Each participant receives 4 or 5 blank sheets of A4 paper • They take a few minutes to think of the 3, 4 or 5 main things they think they are trying to achieve (their aims or objectives) in their group/organisation (or in their particular role in the organisation) • They write these down, in large writing, a separate sheet of paper for each aim/objective • Participants are organised into groups of 4 - 5. All A4 sheets of paper are laid out on the floor (some 16 to 20 per group) and the group spends a few minutes reading them • Groups then have to discuss all the aims/objectives written down and see if they can group them into different categories or classifications • On a large, blank poster groups draw a column for every category they decide on. They write the title of the category at the top of the column and place all the corresponding sheets of A4 below it  • Each group’s poster, showing all the objectives and their classification, is put on the wall (alternatively you can just do all this on the floor) • All participants take time to walk round the room and see what each group has produced • The co-ordinator asks questions to encourage critical analysis: how do the aims/objectives and their categorisation compare between groups? If they are different, why is that so? Are there any inconsistencies? Do some objectives conflict with others? • If appropriate, the posters can be kept and written up for future reference  At the stage of classification, it is the discussion which matters rather than the final outcome: there are no right or wrong answers. In thinking through possible categorisations for the objectives, discussions move from the concrete to the abstract, from practice to theory. The co-ordinator should not provide a set of ready-made categories beforehand: at this early investigative stage, the less the co-ordinators interfere the clearer an idea is obtained of the groups’ own perceptions of what they are trying to do. When the exercise is finished, the collective view of what the group thinks it is trying to do, inconsistencies and all, is there, objectified, for everyone to see. (If the organisation has a written constitution or stated aims and objectives, it is important that these are not to hand. The list of objectives should not be pre-meditated but come from the heart).    Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  5 During these particular workshops, the co-ordinator divided the large group into sub-groupings according to the area of activity in which they were involved. Thus, people involved primarily with poverty-related issues worked together as did those working mainly on environmental issues. At the end of this exercise, there was a clear display, for everyone to see, of the collective perception of what people were trying to do, what different groups had in common and where there might be potential difficulties or divergent interests in working together,  2. CONTEXT (of practice): participants now describe the social context in which they are trying to intervene. In groups of 4 or 5, according to similarity of organisation, or role within an organisation, they ‘brainstorm’ what they see as the main elements of this context. The co-ordinator explains that these elements could be political, economic, cultural, organisational - anything and everything they see as important (though it is better to avoid giving examples as these may guide people to think in a particular way). Groups then do a ‘poster exercise’ (see below) and present their synthesised vision of the context for the larger group to de-code.  Poster Exercise  The aim is for small groups to produce a graphic, symbolic representation of their views on a particular theme and present this to a larger group for discussion and analysis. It can deal with a wide range of themes, abstract and concrete, from politics and religion to propaganda and soap opera. In the training of popular educators in Central America, it is commonly used to help popular organisations analyse the political-social context in which they are operating.  • In small groups, participants ‘brainstorm’ and discuss their understanding of the theme being explored. Someone notes the main ideas on paper. • They then discuss how to represent their ideas symbolically, in a drawing. Rough sketches are made to accompany the discussion. When a final graphic is agreed, this is made into a poster. • The small groups come together, presenting their poster in turns to the larger group. • The group presenting the poster keeps quiet while the co-ordinator invites everyone else to (a) describe (b) interpret what they see in the poster. • The group who produced the poster then give their own explanation to the larger group.    Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  6 The small groups often interpret the context in different ways, some emphasising the local, others the regional, national or even international. The co-ordinator again asks questions to provoke deeper analysis: why are there different interpretations? Are they complementary or contradictory? Would any group want to make changes, having listened to different interpretations? The posters can be photographed or copied onto smaller paper for future reference.   3. (actual) PRACTICE: again working in small groups, participants note down what they actually do in the organisation and how they go about doing it (as opposed to what they think they do, or would like to do). This is then synthesised into a ‘sociodrama’ and presented to the whole group for interpretation and analysis.  Sociodramas  Sociodramas are short drama sketches which problematise unresolved conflicts taken from the concrete, real-life experience of the learners. They allow people to reconstruct this experience, analyse it from a distance, and consider options for change. Again, it can deal with a wide range of themes or topics, from the abstract to the specific, such as the conditions of health, housing or poverty in a particular community.  • Participants divide into groups (4-8 people) to discuss the problems they have experienced (or witnessed) relating to the theme being explored. • They then select one or more of these which they think are (a) generally representative of the group’s experience (b) suitable to re-enact in front of others (albeit artistic license is permitted). • They decide on (a) the brief story-line (b) the physical layout of the room so that it resembles the appropriate location (c) who will play what character in the sketch (c) the kind of dialogue in which the characters engage. • After some rehearsals, they act out the sociodrama in front of the larger group. • As before, the co-ordinator stimulates wider discussion in two stages, firstly inviting people to describe what they see happening in the sociodrama and then to interpret what it is meant to reveal. • Having heard the audience’s views, the ‘actors’ then explain what it was all about and the whole group engages in further discussion and analysis. Variation: • Groups are instructed to ensure that sociodramas present problems for which they have found no easy solution. • Once a sociodrama has been performed and analysed, it is acted out once more, only this time the audience can stop it at any point, replace the characters, improvise changes to the dialogue/storyline and try and push the sociodrama towards a different conclusion, forcing everyone to consider possible actions for change.   Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  7    The co-ordinator guides a whole group discussion along similar lines as before: do the sociodramas reveal any problems with the practice? Do some examples of practice clash with others? Is there anything obviously needing to be done to improve this practice?  An optional, final stage of the ‘triple self-diagnosis’ is to reunite the analyses of these three areas - concept, context and actual practice - in what is called the ‘CONFRONTATION’. What is consistent through the three areas? What are the conflicts? What requires remedial action? A full-group discussion revolves around the completion of a chart with three columns entitled ‘Consistencies’, ‘Inconsistencies’ and ‘Knots’ (i.e. something needing straightened out).  ‘Starting from where people are at’ is an oft-cited mantra, not only in popular education but in adult education as a whole. The ‘triple self-diagnosis’ is designed to find out precisely ‘where people are at’, in all its variety and contradiction. When all aspects of a popular organisation’s practice are laid bare and no assumptions taken for granted it provides the basis for discussion between educators and learners about the appropriate way to proceed with a programme of education and action. Participative techniques are useful for this exercise but they are not ends-in-themselves: it would be possible to do the triple self-diagnosis using a completely different set of techniques.  When the training is over, activist-educators go back to their own organisations and pay close attention to all aspects of their practice, possibly running or adapting the triple self-diagnosis themselves.  I have been using this exercise in a variety of forms for years, it provokes endless amounts of discussion and brings clarity to areas often insufficiently addressed in a group or organisation’s practice. It’s an ideal exercise to use or adapt when working with a group(s) for the first time and hopefully proved to be a useful starting point for many of the participants involved in this particular project.   Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013    http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  8 References All quotations and factual information are taken from the Report on the project written for the ESRC by Paul Routledge and Aaron Franks.  For more information on popular education methods taken from Latin America see chapter three of: Kane, L. (2001). Popular Education and Social Change in Latin America. London: Latin American Bureau. 

Popular education, ‘so we stand’ and the 'triple self-diagnosis'

Enlighten: Publications

  
 
 
 
 
Kane, L. (2013) Popular education, ‘so we stand’ and the 'triple self-
diagnosis'. Concept: The Journal of Contemporary Community Education 
Practice and Theory, 4 (2). pp. 1-8. ISSN 1359-1983 
 
Copyright © 2013 The Author. 
 
 
http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/87583/ 
 
 
 
 
Deposited on:  18 Nov 2013 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Enlighten – Research publications by members of the University of Glasgow 
http://eprints.gla.ac.uk 
  Vol. 4 No. 2 Summer 2013  
 
 
http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/	  Online	  ISSN	  2042-­‐6	   968	  
1 
Popular Education, ‘So We Stand’ and the ‘Triple 
Self-Diagnosis’ 
 
 
Liam Kane 
Lecturer in Adult Education 
University of Glasgow. 
 
 
With funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, a novel project has 
taken place over the last two years under the title ‘Using Popular Education in Anti-
Poverty and Environmental Justice Organising: Bridging Constituencies, Building 
Movements, and Crossing Disciplines’. The aim was not just to take a popular 
education approach to promoting social change but also to make learning about 
popular education a central part of the process. I was a named researcher on the 
project, along with former Concept editor Eurig Scandrett, but the driving forces were 
Paul Routledge, a geography lecturer, and Aaron Franks, a PhD student, both shining 
examples, from the University of Glasgow, of how to promote popular education from 
within as well as outside the state. Of particular interest was that rather than starting 
from a community group, community workers or a department of education, the 
initiative sprung from a traditional academic discipline geography not something 
normally associated with popular education, albeit it was done in conjunction with the 
umbrella grassroots grouping ‘So We Stand’. This article summarises what the project 
was about and discusses the use of ‘the triple self-diagnosis’, an extended activity 
which has stood the test of time, from Mexico to Scotland, and was useful for just 
such a scenario as this. 
 
One objective of the project was to provide people of limited resources with an 
opportunity to learn from each other’s experience of facing economic disadvantage 
and/or environmental degradation. From the start, then, the project hoped to bring 
together and form alliances between activists working in separate but related forms of 
activity. It was the cliché of ‘starting from where people are at’ - what Freire called 
people’s ‘generative’ themes – and then moving out to broader concerns. The funding 
applications were to ensure that the costs of bringing people together would not be a 
prohibitive factor. 
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Another was to ‘provide participants with the practical and analytical tools, through 
popular education methods, for relating their personal experiences of economic 
disadvantage and environmental degradation within their communities to the 
experiences of other communities and individuals with similar concerns’. So the aim 
was both to ensure the whole process was immersed in popular education practice but 
also to encourage and enable people to go on to use a popular education approach 
themselves in their future work as community activists. This would mean that some of 
the training would focus more on the theory and practice of popular education itself 
rather than the content of anti-poverty and environmental justice.  
 
Another aim was to facilitate a dialogue between ‘popular’, experiential knowledge 
and ‘academic’ knowledge, wherever it might be beneficial. In addition to those who 
initiated the project, a number of other, sympathetic academics were invited to 
participate in the process as well.  
 
Ten day workshops were held in total, using a range of popular education methods - 
social theatre a la Augusto Boal, creative mapping, art and music, for example – in 
order to;  
• help increase understanding of issues relating to climate justice, economic 
deprivation and privatisation  
• explore environmental justice from the perspective of ethnic minority women in 
marginalised communities  
• produce useful resource materials for community organisations and members.  
 
The workshops facilitated exchange between different communities and groups from 
Govan in Glasgow (e.g. Sunny Govan Radio; GalGael), Friends of the Earth Scotland, 
the Afro-Caribbean Network, Glasgow Sport and Culture, So We Stand, AMINA (the 
Muslim Women's Resource Centre), the Women's Friendship Group in Govanhill and 
the International Women's Group in Sighthill. The workshops saw new collaborations 
between different (community, activist, and academic) constituencies - one participant 
commenting that the use of popular education and social theatre saw “people 
interacting without the usual barriers of language or social conventions. It was 
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successful in opening up a space for people to project their self and their own 
struggles”. 
 
A total of 200 participants engaged in the exercise and were introduced to practical 
and analytical tools through experiencing popular education and social theatre 
methods in action. Participants’ feedback showed they highly valued the experience 
but recognised the need for more networking with other groups and ongoing practical 
help with relating popular education to their activism. Some concrete outcomes of the 
project were that it generated (i) a systematic ‘contact exchange’ between participants 
via the So We Stand website and email list (ii) a blog on ‘popular education and 
environmental justice’ (http://populareducationaenvironment.blogspot.com/) (iii) a 
Sunny Govan radio programme on popular education, using  vox-pops taken from the 
workshops (iv) qualitative material for future community mapping in Govan (v) 
significant data for further research into the usefulness of this type of work. Further 
information on this and related projects can be obtained from the So We Stand 
Website (http://sowestand.com/). 
 
Particularly since these workshops involved bringing together groups who had not 
known each other previously, an important first step was to try and make explicit 
exactly what the different groups were doing before considering what they all might 
learn from each other. One exercise used was the ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’ developed 
by the Central American popular education network ALFORJA. While this can take 
up to a week to do fully, it can be adapted for a one-day workshop. 
 
Starting from Practice: The ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’  
True to the principles of starting and theorising from practice, the aim of this exercise 
is to help groups explore beneath the surface and take a fresh, objective look at what 
they do. The ‘Triple Self-Diagnosis’ requires groups or organisations to examine three 
dimensions of their practice: (i) Concept (ii) Context (iii) (actual) Practice. It takes the 
following format: 
 
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1. CONCEPT (of practice): First, the aim is to find out what people in any particular 
group/organisation think they are trying to do. The particular technique used to do this 
is normally a ‘Brainstorm on A4’ 
• Each participant receives 4 or 5 blank sheets of A4 paper 
• They take a few minutes to think of the 3, 4 or 5 main things they think they are 
trying to achieve (their aims or objectives) in their group/organisation (or in their 
particular role in the organisation) 
• They write these down, in large writing, a separate sheet of paper for each 
aim/objective 
• Participants are organised into groups of 4 - 5. All A4 sheets of paper are laid out 
on the floor (some 16 to 20 per group) and the group spends a few minutes reading 
them 
• Groups then have to discuss all the aims/objectives written down and see if they 
can group them into different categories or classifications 
• On a large, blank poster groups draw a column for every category they decide on. 
They write the title of the category at the top of the column and place all the 
corresponding sheets of A4 below it  
• Each group’s poster, showing all the objectives and their classification, is put on 
the wall (alternatively you can just do all this on the floor) 
• All participants take time to walk round the room and see what each group has 
produced 
• The co-ordinator asks questions to encourage critical analysis: how do the 
aims/objectives and their categorisation compare between groups? If they are 
different, why is that so? Are there any inconsistencies? Do some objectives conflict 
with others? 
• If appropriate, the posters can be kept and written up for future reference 
 
At the stage of classification, it is the discussion which matters rather than the final 
outcome: there are no right or wrong answers. In thinking through possible 
categorisations for the objectives, discussions move from the concrete to the abstract, 
from practice to theory. The co-ordinator should not provide a set of ready-made 
categories beforehand: at this early investigative stage, the less the co-ordinators 
interfere the clearer an idea is obtained of the groups’ own perceptions of what they 
are trying to do. When the exercise is finished, the collective view of what the group 
thinks it is trying to do, inconsistencies and all, is there, objectified, for everyone to 
see. (If the organisation has a written constitution or stated aims and objectives, it is 
important that these are not to hand. The list of objectives should not be pre-meditated 
but come from the heart). 
 
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During these particular workshops, the co-ordinator divided the large group into sub-
groupings according to the area of activity in which they were involved. Thus, people 
involved primarily with poverty-related issues worked together as did those working 
mainly on environmental issues. At the end of this exercise, there was a clear display, 
for everyone to see, of the collective perception of what people were trying to do, 
what different groups had in common and where there might be potential difficulties 
or divergent interests in working together, 
 
2. CONTEXT (of practice): participants now describe the social context in which 
they are trying to intervene. In groups of 4 or 5, according to similarity of 
organisation, or role within an organisation, they ‘brainstorm’ what they see as the 
main elements of this context. The co-ordinator explains that these elements could be 
political, economic, cultural, organisational - anything and everything they see as 
important (though it is better to avoid giving examples as these may guide people to 
think in a particular way). Groups then do a ‘poster exercise’ (see below) and present 
their synthesised vision of the context for the larger group to de-code. 
 
Poster Exercise 
 
The aim is for small groups to produce a graphic, symbolic representation of their 
views on a particular theme and present this to a larger group for discussion and 
analysis. It can deal with a wide range of themes, abstract and concrete, from politics 
and religion to propaganda and soap opera. In the training of popular educators in 
Central America, it is commonly used to help popular organisations analyse the 
political-social context in which they are operating. 
 
• In small groups, participants ‘brainstorm’ and discuss their understanding of the 
theme being explored. Someone notes the main ideas on paper. 
• They then discuss how to represent their ideas symbolically, in a drawing. Rough 
sketches are made to accompany the discussion. When a final graphic is agreed, 
this is made into a poster. 
• The small groups come together, presenting their poster in turns to the larger 
group. 
• The group presenting the poster keeps quiet while the co-ordinator invites 
everyone else to (a) describe (b) interpret what they see in the poster. 
• The group who produced the poster then give their own explanation to the larger 
group. 
 
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The small groups often interpret the context in different ways, some emphasising the 
local, others the regional, national or even international. The co-ordinator again asks 
questions to provoke deeper analysis: why are there different interpretations? Are they 
complementary or contradictory? Would any group want to make changes, having 
listened to different interpretations? The posters can be photographed or copied onto 
smaller paper for future reference.  
 
3. (actual) PRACTICE: again working in small groups, participants note down what 
they actually do in the organisation and how they go about doing it (as opposed to 
what they think they do, or would like to do). This is then synthesised into a 
‘sociodrama’ and presented to the whole group for interpretation and analysis.  
Sociodramas 
 
Sociodramas are short drama sketches which problematise unresolved conflicts taken 
from the concrete, real-life experience of the learners. They allow people to 
reconstruct this experience, analyse it from a distance, and consider options for 
change. Again, it can deal with a wide range of themes or topics, from the abstract to 
the specific, such as the conditions of health, housing or poverty in a particular 
community. 
 
• Participants divide into groups (4-8 people) to discuss the problems they have 
experienced (or witnessed) relating to the theme being explored. 
• They then select one or more of these which they think are (a) generally 
representative of the group’s experience (b) suitable to re-enact in front of others 
(albeit artistic license is permitted). 
• They decide on (a) the brief story-line (b) the physical layout of the room so that it 
resembles the appropriate location (c) who will play what character in the sketch 
(c) the kind of dialogue in which the characters engage. 
• After some rehearsals, they act out the sociodrama in front of the larger group. 
• As before, the co-ordinator stimulates wider discussion in two stages, firstly 
inviting people to describe what they see happening in the sociodrama and then to 
interpret what it is meant to reveal. 
• Having heard the audience’s views, the ‘actors’ then explain what it was all about 
and the whole group engages in further discussion and analysis. 
Variation: 
• Groups are instructed to ensure that sociodramas present problems for which they 
have found no easy solution. 
• Once a sociodrama has been performed and analysed, it is acted out once more, 
only this time the audience can stop it at any point, replace the characters, 
improvise changes to the dialogue/storyline and try and push the sociodrama 
towards a different conclusion, forcing everyone to consider possible actions for 
change. 
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The co-ordinator guides a whole group discussion along similar lines as before: do the 
sociodramas reveal any problems with the practice? Do some examples of practice 
clash with others? Is there anything obviously needing to be done to improve this 
practice? 
 
An optional, final stage of the ‘triple self-diagnosis’ is to reunite the analyses of these 
three areas - concept, context and actual practice - in what is called the 
‘CONFRONTATION’. What is consistent through the three areas? What are the 
conflicts? What requires remedial action? A full-group discussion revolves around the 
completion of a chart with three columns entitled ‘Consistencies’, ‘Inconsistencies’ 
and ‘Knots’ (i.e. something needing straightened out). 
 
‘Starting from where people are at’ is an oft-cited mantra, not only in popular 
education but in adult education as a whole. The ‘triple self-diagnosis’ is designed to 
find out precisely ‘where people are at’, in all its variety and contradiction. When all 
aspects of a popular organisation’s practice are laid bare and no assumptions taken for 
granted it provides the basis for discussion between educators and learners about the 
appropriate way to proceed with a programme of education and action. Participative 
techniques are useful for this exercise but they are not ends-in-themselves: it would be 
possible to do the triple self-diagnosis using a completely different set of techniques. 
 
When the training is over, activist-educators go back to their own organisations and 
pay close attention to all aspects of their practice, possibly running or adapting the 
triple self-diagnosis themselves. 
 
I have been using this exercise in a variety of forms for years, it provokes endless 
amounts of discussion and brings clarity to areas often insufficiently addressed in a 
group or organisation’s practice. It’s an ideal exercise to use or adapt when working 
with a group(s) for the first time and hopefully proved to be a useful starting point for 
many of the participants involved in this particular project. 
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References 
All quotations and factual information are taken from the Report on the project 
written for the ESRC by Paul Routledge and Aaron Franks. 
 
For more information on popular education methods taken from Latin America see 
chapter three of: 
Kane, L. (2001). Popular Education and Social Change in Latin America. London: 
Latin American Bureau. 


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Popular education, ‘so we stand’ and the 'triple self-diagnosis'

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