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Pays : Slovénie  Langue(s) : anglais 

8th International Conference of the ESREA Network - Perspectives on Community Practices - Living and Learning in Community


Date :  du 18-06-2015 au 20-06-2015

Lieu :  Ljubljana

Organisation :  European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA)


Programme : 
Although on national and international educational policy levels attention is devoted particularly to the training and vocational education of adults, and at the same time informal, civic and democratic learning are considered as important on a rhetorical level, most existential, substantial learning is connected with the everyday life of adults, intertwined with the environment and social milieu they live in. In the last decades many adult educators have strongly criticised estranged and manipulative policy measures, bringing commodification to the area of adult education and inserting market ideology and privatisation as main mechanisms of the field. However, from the perspective of both structural and interpretative social theories, learning is seen and understood as very much connected with the real life of adults, with their struggle to deal with life's challenges, with endeavours to tackle social inequalities, injustices, and also with efforts to enhance their quality of life and well-being.

      These learning processes, which are most present and realizable on the community level, have for decades been argued to be important, but they have acquired new power in the time of crises, which strengthen individualization, alienation and feelings of hopelessness. Arguments stand for bottom-up strategies, for the possibilities for social involvement of all those living in the community, regardless of age, gender, socio-economic status, level of education, etc. In the last decades, private interests became very aggressive intruders into public space; there are many proofs of the regulation of quasi public spaces and of the progressive privatisation of public space, which influence learning and social and cultural practices strongly. There are new forms of governance, reconfiguring the collective life; conventional public spaces are being supplemented and squeezed out by a wider mix of spaces with different governance arrangements, with different sets of expectations, obligations, and often implicit or explicit limits on who can use them and how. Places are integrated into an ‘experience market’, where all kind of events are offered to excite people for a short time (festivals, biennales, cultural events); even culture is therefore used for the marketization of public spaces. Lively public arenas filled with diverse people and employed for a range of purposes decline, while more controlled spaces, limited by the dictates of private parties, gain ascendancy. These changes have many negative effects for the retaining of the efficacy of public space to contribute to social, economic and democratic goals, including growing inequality and social fragmentation.

      The questions then remain:

      - Who is allowed to be there, perform, speak, learn?
      - How can we, as professionals from the field of adult education (and other related fields) influence these processes and enable the maintenance of ‘free’, non-structured and accessible spaces, arenas, which allow learning, communication, exchange, argumentation, action?
      - What is the role of adult education and education of youth in this process?
      - What interventions can educators apply, what kind of actions in the field of learning and education are reasonable and necessary, that all members of a community will be able to participate in, enrol in, and prosper?
      - Which ideas are of most importance?


      We can argue that for adequate research of the learning processes (in public and social spaces) in community, interdisciplinary approach is needed; findings from andragogy, pedagogy, gerontology, sociology, philosophy, geography, ethnology, architecture, performative arts, and probably also some other disciplines, which could influence the defining of, and arguing the importance of, learning in community, have to be considered.

      Some fields of the abovementioned disciplines, like public pedagogy, public sociology, critical gerontology, phenomenology, public geography, sociology of space, ethnomethodology, to mention just some, are dealing with specific issues to give meaning to learning in community through different lenses, and encounter different aspects of personal and social development of individuals, groups and whole communities.

      Consequently, many local initiatives are intertwined with the international global networks, like squatters or projects within the European capital of culture, where different actors on local levels deal with global problems of self-supply (like urban gardens), protection of vulnerable social groups (migrants, Roma people, poor and solitary old people, etc.), empowerment of local communities for entering political arena (networks of participative performative arts, initiatives in public spaces, etc.), active citizenship, etc. These disciplines in diverse ways highlight and evaluate aspects of community practices, which appear through alternative community initiatives, like critical literacy practices, art and culture initiatives, cooperatives, urban furrows, etc. Community is the venue for learning, a crucial part of the external conditions for learning, a space where the individual interferes with the environment and other people; it is a space with potential to develop critical consciousness and emancipation, which can contribute to the empowerment of community members and, finally, offer a new chance to avoid solitariness and despair. Many different ideas, measures and initiatives are needed so that the community becomes inclusive, open and hospitable enough in order that learning can happen and each member can find a possibility to participate.

      Conference participants will address and discuss the following subtopics:

      - Interlacing of learning, social, cultural, art and other community practices in urban and rural communities; case studies from learning community practices;
      - Inequalities in communities and the role of learning activities;
      - The role of public, private and social space as a sphere of learning in community;
      - The role of (adult) educators and (adult) education in fostering community learning;
      - Interdisciplinary approaches to community learning theory and practice;
      - The importance of local initiatives in globalized european political space;
      - The search of connections between social/educational institutions and civic initiatives.


      Keynote Speakers:

      dr. Gert Biesta
      Department of Education of Brunel University London, England
      When learning becomes the problem: Action, community and democracy beyond learning?

      dr. Danny Wildemeersch
      Laboratory for Education and Society, Leuven, Belgium
      Is this a failure? Exploring the Largo Santa Philomena Experiment in the Greater Lisbon Area (Portugal)

      dr. Marta Gregorčič
      University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
      Education for Social Change: The Producing Struggles of Self-organized Communities – Potencias



      URL :  http://bgl2015.pedagogika-andragogika.com/


      mot(s) clé(s) :  alphabétisation et éducation des adultes, communauté de pratique