Concept (E-Journal)
Not a member yet
377 research outputs found
Sort by
Eurig Scandrett (ed) (2020) Public Sociology as Educational Practice: Challenges, Dialogues and Counter-Publics
Full text linkPublic Sociology as Educational Practice frames, critically engages with and seeksto further the theory and practice of public sociology as popularised by publicsociologist, Michael Burawoy. Public sociology is about taking sociology outsidethe university, and using it to support ‘publics’ or communities to generateknowledge about society and how it can be changed. To readers of a journal aboutcommunity education this aim will likely sound familiar; the explicit and implicitlinks between arguments for public sociology and the dialogical pedagogy of PauloFreire are clear throughout the book
Understanding Community Learning and Development Practitioners’ Engagement with Information Communications Technology
Full text linkCommunity Learning and Development (CLD) practitioners in Scotland have been responsible for supporting people to use Information Communications Technology (ICT) since the 90s. The ubiquitous nature of ICT means that the people and communities we work with, and ourselves, need to understand how we engage with this. However, there is a complex policy landscape and limited research around ICT in CLD and this is affecting how we can use this effectively. Since the term CLD includes different professions, it can be described as pluralistic and there are different philosophies that inform practice. This would indicate that there are shared epistemologies which can form a broad body of practice research, but this is not yet fully realised. This research explores models which can be used to identify shared epistemologies and start discussion about how we practise, specifically around using ICT. The research used mixed methods under a constructivist/interpretivist paradigm to understand how CLD practitioners at Dundee Carers Centre engage with ICT. The findings from this research are not intended to give definitive findings, but to support CLD practitioners to reflect on practice and generate discussion around using ICT. Whilst this research was completed in 2014, it can be used to inform and develop practice during the COVID-19 pandemic
Post-Covid Youth Work and Mental Wellbeing of Young People Across Scotland and England
Full text linkThis article seeks to contribute to the debate about the current and future support needs of young people (aged 11-25) across Scotland and England who are experiencing mental distress in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. In doing so, it focuses on the profession that works specifically with this age range – youth work - and youth work practice across Scotland and England, and then examines the challenges and opportunities for the profession. It concludes that youth work, and youth workers, are well placed to provide much needed initial mental health support to young people, but that the profession urgently needs the UK and Scottish Governments to financially (re)invest in its infrastructure to deliver this provision
Participatory action research and disability activism
Full text linkThis article centres on my dissertation in Arts, Festival and Cultural Management at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. It explored whether participatory action research is appropriate for aiding the formation of disability arts-based policy recommendations in collaboration with Scottish-based disabled artists. These recommendations were intended for Creative Scotland, the national public arts funding body. The article will explain why thisproject was chosen, revealing that the reasons were partly personal. My upbringing and educational background have created a resolute stance that disabled people are acutely disadvantaged by normative social constructs. As will be contended, the academic and creative realms are not exempt from the shortcomings of an ableist macro paradigm, and this has been central to the research. Some key findings and provisional policy recommendationswill be touched upon which suggest that Creative Scotland could learn from paying closer attention to disabled artists’ views, and models of good practice elsewhere. A core strand will rest on the interplay between structure and agency - the possibilities for personal agency within the structures of policy and politics. Whilst a central problem in undertaking the research was capacity, in particular the limited duration of the fieldwork, nonetheless the research model enabled unanticipated collaborations, and exposed progressive ideas and routes which, if taken, could potentially lead to enacting change. The article will consider personal reflections on the research and my role within it, uncovering both real and imagined experienced. In doing so, a reminder of the importance of connecting theory to practice surfaced, honing the pivotal qualities a community educator should aim for, namelyfacilitating dialogue and claiming democratic spaces
Co-Design and Conservation: A Case-Study from RSPB Biosecurity for LIFE in Coastal and Island Primary Schools and Youth Groups Across Scotland
Full text linkHere, we reflect on the process and outcomes of co-designing seabird conservation resources with upper-primary-aged pupils. We focused on biosecurity (protecting wildlife from potential invasive species), an intellectually and emotionally complex topic which includes many social issues alongside ecology. Public awareness and understanding are vital to biosecurity, and we aimed to engage schools and pupils as key stakeholders in their local biodiversity and its protection. Using a youth work approach, we facilitated pupils’ direction of their own learning practices and the development of creative, reflective, and evaluative skills. Through co-design, we developed more relevant, desired, and empowering resources than conventional methods could produce. From April to June 2021, we worked with 106 young people across Scotland as part of the Biosecurity for LIFE project, raising local awareness of biosecurity as part of the project’s wider conservation aims. Teachers and pupils flourished within the six-week programme and its co-design framework, developing outstanding work and quickly adapting to a novel topic. Teachers saw positive outcomes throughout the Curriculum for Excellence and Learning for Sustainability, much of which came from pupils’ generative and collaborative working. The resources produced met the needs of staff and students, including local specificity, flexibility, and Gaelic translation, with pupils’ outputs emphasising creative and active ways of learning. We see co-design as a useful and empowering model for conservation education, helping teachers to navigate demanding curricula and pupils to direct their own learning, find their voice, and cover issues relevant to their own experiences
Rosie R. Meade and Mae Shaw (editors) 2021, Arts, Culture and Community Development,
Full text linkThis excellent text, recently published in the Policy Press Rethinking Community Development series, critically explores the relationship between arts, culture and community development in different parts of the globe including Lebanon, Latin America, China, Ireland, Sri Lanka, Chile, Brazil, and Finland. Arts and culture in this book are taken as being created in a manner that is participatory and practised by those involved as equals. This recognises that people bring different skills and talents, and all should be understood as being part of a democratic enterprise. 
Rethinking community activism as policy, politics and practice: the current crisis
Full text linkTranscript of a keynote speech given at the 2020 conference of The Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults (SCUTREA) during the first Covid 19 lockdow
Community adult education for a social vaccine in pandemic and post pandemic times
Full text linkThis article argues for a \u27social vaccine\u27 in pandemic times that underpins the fourbasic requirements for global health and equity to flourish by providing a life withsecurity, opportunities that are fair, a planet that is habitable and supportsbiodiversity and governance to ensure resources are fairly distributed (Baum andFriel, 2020). By a ‘social vaccine’ I do not mean a biological vaccine that isproduced in laboratories and injected in arms to produce immunity to the COVID19virus. A ‘social vaccine’ is an antidote to counteract the consequences and long-termeffects of epidemic upheaval, designed from below in participatory and dialogicalrelationships with those worst affected by its consequences. This article argues thatcommunity adult education, which has incessantly prioritised employability skillstraining, should play a pivotal role in providing a ‘social vaccine’ in pandemic andpost-pandemic times. The significance of community adult education is that it seeksto build the curriculum from the inequalities and injustices that people experience intheir everyday lives by providing opportunities for individual and collective change
Obituary George Lamb January 8, 1964- May 21, 2021
Full text linkIf George Lamb had been asked for guidance on what to include in his obituary, the response would probably have been a rolling of eyes, followed by directions to his Twitter profile.
Community Worker with issues. Knows gibberish, went to many different places of learning some of which were quite good. Worked with many different communities.
When people say of someone who has recently died ‘Oh, he was a force of nature’ that isn’t necessarily reassuring. What do they really mean? A modern-day Heathcliff striding across the windswept moors? An irascible old git in a flat cap, railing about everything going to hell in a handbasket and how much better the good old days were
In Defence of Lazzin Coordinators
No full textTom Leonard\u27s poem \u27The Liaison Coordinator\u27, characteristically written in Glaswegian demotic, is an (aways timely) warning that managing the poor should not be confused with managing poverty. On the other hand, Christine Hoy, a retired nurse, suggests that there is an alternative argument for the defence