Search

Political parties are essential for the functioning of parliamentary democracy, yet parties have not received much attention in contemporary research on popular education. The aim of this article is to analyse the contemporary role of party-political education as a form of popular education in two labour movement parties in Sweden. The study is based on semi-structured interviews focusing on the reasoning behind the organisation of education in political parties. The interviews were conducted with ten interviewees who represented ABF (the Swedish workers' educational association), the Left Party, and the Social Democratic Party. The thematic analysis resulted in four categories of roles ascribed to education in political parties: "ideological training," "training skilled members and leaders," "training for a social infrastructure," and "training for internal positioning and distinction." The first two categories correspond to knowledge-oriented roles, while the two last represent relationship-oriented roles. Findings show that party-political popular education still plays a significant role in contemporary Sweden. The shrinking member base of political parties creates challenges when new members and prospective representatives cannot be expected to have as extensive popular movement experience as previous representatives. In this situation, study activities are, to some extent, attributed more significance than previously.

Denmark has a strong and versatile tradition of adult education. Over a long historical period, adult education for public enlightenment and leisure, for continuing study and for vocational and professional competence have been developed, been made part of state policy and been used by citizens. But in recent years the public and political presence of Danish adult education has changed. While education policy issues generally abound in public and political debates, adult education is given much less attention than earlier. In this article, we trace the causes of this and conclude that it reflects a turn towards focusing on vocational types of adult education and a relocation of adult education policy to networks linking the state and the social partners. Drawing on theories of policy streams, policy networks and the competition state, we provide a historical analysis of Danish adult education reforms during the past two decades and document how the vocational turn has manifested itself.

Adult education in art galleries sits on a fault line, at once an apparatus upholding the affirmative aspects of museum culture cultivated by global elites, a propellant in the whirring of an increasingly dislocated set of events on trendy and consumable political themes, and a site for 'allyship' and other kinds of radical and socially transformative work. Resurrecting Hannah Arendt's question, 'where are we when we think?' this paper explores how we might move from a moment in which the 'space' of the gallery is replaced by the 'time' of the event (Helguera) and towards embedded space-times that attempt to address contemporary urgencies through situated practices that collectively analyse and respond to conditions. Drawn from examples derived from the author's practice, the paper argues for the use of popular education and anti-colonial pedagogies in the production of adult education in galleries, suggesting that such processes support groups in collectively naming and thinking through conflicts to re-shape both the galleries in which they have congregated and the worlds beyond their doors. This paper suggests that the re-construction and use of the often forgotten genealogies of emancipatory education are pivotal to doing social justice work in galleries.

This article seeks to show the relation between popular education and solidarity economy in experiences of solidarity economy enterprises in Brazil. It is based on diverse experiences which have occurred in various sectors of this economy, highlighting those experiences which took place in João Pessoa with the creation of a Cooperative of Workers in Party Services (Copy Buffet), in the district of Valentina, and in the town of Catende, when workers took control of a sugar mill for 15 years, in addition to more than five years of experience in an Incubator of Solidarity Enterprises. It employed a research methodology oriented by the inductive method to investigate the theoretical descriptive dimensions of popular education and of solidarity economy, after consulting the relevant bibliography on the issue. As a result, it was possible to emphasize the dimensions common to all these practices, such as culture, work, the "popular" centred on a pedagogy for the promotion of the other, in addition to ethical values, such as dialogue, solidarity, justice and equality. Popular education in tune with solidarity economy.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the presence of emotions in the constitution of popular education in Latin America, thus contributing to understand popular education as a thinking-feeling practice. It starts from the assumption that emotions are also historical and cultural expressions that mark societies and their understanding of education. In the chronicles of Guaman Poma de Ayala, one can see signs of the resistance to the conquest and of the ambivalence that characterizes coloniality; in Juana Inés de la Cruz, one hears the voice of a woman who breaks the silence; in Paulo Freire, lovingness and indignation are constitutive elements of his liberating pedagogy. In history, some emotions, such as honour, lose their strength or have their meaning changed; others, such as solidarity and insurgency, appear as possibilities of transformation in new times. The study attempts to contribute to the understanding of the complex relation between rationality and emotions in education.

Catherine Walsh is senior professor and director of the doctoral programme in Latin American Cultural Studies at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Ecuador. Her present work is focused on the political, epistemic and ethical project of critical interculturality, and on concerns of decoloniality, taking as key the themes of knowledge, ancestrality, race and gender, education, law, state re-founding, and decolonial thought and pedagogy. For Walsh, Paulo Freire is a grandfather and ancestor of sorts; she writes here that she yearns now to once more dialogue with him. She says that she longs to tell him of her own shifts, movements, unlearnings and relearnings, since they last met. Above all, she desires to share with him her praxical thoughts on the what, why, and how of decolonial pedagogies walking and asking. It is in this context and that she writes the following notes to Paulo and to others who wish to read them.

How can visual arts and popular education pedagogy contribute to collective recovery from and reconstruction after trauma? This question framed the design and delivery of the Trauma Recovery and Reconstruction Group (TRRG), which consisted of 12 group sessions delivered to clients (trauma survivors) of the Centre for Concurrent Disorders (CCD) in Vancouver, Canada. Data were generated through individual and group interviews, observations (field notes) and creation of visual images. The use of popular education and visual art methods proved to be a powerful approach to deepening understanding and taking action. Participants learned how the delivery of mental health services, as well as acting as systems of exclusion organized around gender, race and class, were implicated in their (re)traumatization. Through the popular education process, participants also identified actions that could enhance their collective recovery and reconstruction. Implications arising from the study include the need for ongoing contextually oriented assessment to accurately determine states of health and stress, and the value of collective popular education and visual arts methods for clinically based trauma related psycho-education. (Contains 2 figures.)

On the basis of a three-year study of the role of popular education in local development processes in Sweden (2006-2008), this paper sets out to outline the role of popular education as a development actor in rural and urban contexts. Two different scenarios and approaches are discussed. One is the role of popular education in rural areas, which is interlinked with the village movement, dominated by bottom-up approaches and strongly linked to voluntary work carried out by local inhabitants themselves. Another scenario is the role of popular education in urban areas, which is dominated by top-down approaches in which popular education has taken on the role of implementing and running projects funded by the government and public sector, "for" local inhabitants. Our findings on the role of popular education in local development processes in urban and rural areas are discussed in relation to theories on community development and community identity, and to a theoretical model that illustrates the different ways in which popular education relates to local communities. (Contains 2 notes.)

Analysis of Portuguese adult education policies from 1974-1999 showed that an early-70s radical period ended with establishment of capitalist neoliberal policies. There is a strong dichotomy between formal adult education and nonformal education offered by community organizations. Popular education is marginalized and the state's role in civil society is weakening. (Contains 60 references.) (SK)

Reviews the cultural and global context of the fifth International Conference on Adult Education; assesses the conference declaration and agenda for the future; and questions whether the recommendations are bold and radical enough to address wider intellectual and ideological issues. (SK)

Proposes a political sociology of adult and popular education in Latin America as a basis for a radical comparative approach. Discusses four problems associated with adult and popular education: definition, the political nature of education, quality of comparative research data, and the need for good theories. (SK)

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review and trace the lineage of theoretical debates around social movement learning in the field of adult education. We compiled articles, books and conference proceedings on adult education and social movements from Google Scholar using the software Publish or Perish and manually filtered the data to only include those that explicitly address the topic. Based on the data, we identified key literature that scholars cross-referenced, which extended the review to include the literature from the 1970s until today. We argue that the theoretical debates about social movements and education can be characterised by four phases: 1) popular education within and for social movements, 2) the Old/New Social Movement debate and its radical influence on adult education, 3) conflict and pushback between scholars, and 4) social movement learning as a confluence of literature. We argue that it is only when scholars writing about popular education interacted with scholars promoting the idea of 'new' social movements that the current proliferation of 'social movement learning' emerged. Thus, the knowledge production of social movement learning itself has been a result of a dynamic and historical movement in the field of adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties are essential for the functioning of parliamentary democracy, yet parties have not received much attention in contemporary research on popular education. The aim of this article is to analyse the contemporary role of party-political education as a form of popular education in two labour movement parties in Sweden. The study is based on semi-structured interviews focusing on the reasoning behind the organisation of education in political parties. The interviews were conducted with ten interviewees who represented ABF (the Swedish workers' educational association), the Left Party, and the Social Democratic Party. The thematic analysis resulted in four categories of roles ascribed to education in political parties: ideological training, training skilled members and leaders, training for a social infrastructure, and training for internal positioning and distinction. The first two categories correspond to knowledge-oriented roles, while the two last represent relationship-oriented roles. Findings show that party-political popular education still plays a significant role in contemporary Sweden. The shrinking member base of political parties creates challenges when new members and prospective representatives cannot be expected to have as extensive popular movement experience as previous representatives. In this situation, study activities are, to some extent, attributed more significance than previously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adult education in art galleries sits on a fault line, at once an apparatus upholding the affirmative aspects of museum culture cultivated by global elites, a propellant in the whirring of an increasingly dislocated set of events on trendy and consumable political themes, and a site for 'allyship' and other kinds of radical and socially transformative work. Resurrecting Hannah Arendt's question, 'where are we when we think?' this paper explores how we might move from a moment in which the 'space' of the gallery is replaced by the 'time' of the event (Helguera) and towards embedded space-times that attempt to address contemporary urgencies through situated practices that collectively analyse and respond to conditions. Drawn from examples derived from the author's practice, the paper argues for the use of popular education and anti-colonial pedagogies in the production of adult education in galleries, suggesting that such processes support groups in collectively naming and thinking through conflicts to re-shape both the galleries in which they have congregated and the worlds beyond their doors. This paper suggests that the re-construction and use of the often forgotten genealogies of emancipatory education are pivotal to doing social justice work in galleries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to identify the presence of emotions in the constitution of popular education in Latin America, thus contributing to understand popular education as a thinking-feeling practice. It starts from the assumption that emotions are also historical and cultural expressions that mark societies and their understanding of education. In the chronicles of Guaman Poma de Ayala, one can see signs of the resistance to the conquest and of the ambivalence that characterizes coloniality; in Juana Inés de la Cruz, one hears the voice of a woman who breaks the silence; in Paulo Freire, lovingness and indignation are constitutive elements of his liberating pedagogy. In history, some emotions, such as honour, lose their strength or have their meaning changed; others, such as solidarity and insurgency, appear as possibilities of transformation in new times. The study attempts to contribute to the understanding of the complex relation between rationality and emotions in education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss articles contained within the issue on topics such as the development of a decolonial pedagogy, UNESCO's Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE), and the role of emotions in the history of Latin American popular education.

This article seeks to show the relation between popular education and solidarity economy in experiences of solidarity economy enterprises in Brazil. It is based on diverse experiences which have occurred in various sectors of this economy, highlighting those experiences which took place in João Pessoa with the creation of a Cooperative of Workers in Party Services (Copy Buffet), in the district of Valentina, and in the town of Catende, when workers took control of a sugar mill for 15 years, in addition to more than five years of experience in an Incubator of Solidarity Enterprises. It employed a research methodology oriented by the inductive method to investigate the theoretical descriptive dimensions of popular education and of solidarity economy, after consulting the relevant bibliography on the issue. As a result, it was possible to emphasize the dimensions common to all these practices, such as culture, work, the ‘popular’ centred on a pedagogy for the promotion of the other, in addition to ethical values, such as dialogue, solidarity, justice and equality. Popular education in tune with solidarity economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On the basis of a three-year study of the role of popular education in local development processes in Sweden (2006-2008), this paper sets out to outline the role of popular education as a development actor in rural and urban contexts. Two different scenarios and approaches are discussed. One is the role of popular education in rural areas, which is interlinked with the village movement, dominated by bottom-up approaches and strongly linked to voluntary work carried out by local inhabitants themselves. Another scenario is the role of popular education in urban areas, which is dominated by top-down approaches in which popular education has taken on the role of implementing and running projects funded by the government and public sector, for local inhabitants. Our findings on the role of popular education in local development processes in urban and rural areas are discussed in relation to theories on community development and community identity, and to a theoretical model that illustrates the different ways in which popular education relates to local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews Portuguese adult education policies from 1974 to 1999. A realistic portrait in the evolution of adult education system is important primarily, because it may be able to guide other researchers in their investigations. Secondly, this type of analysis allows us to reflect upon wider issues that could represent interesting points of debate at an international level. The Portuguese adult education system has shown considerable changes, caused by the rapidity of political and structural change in the past few years. Radical tendencies, that followed the 1974 coup d'état and the subsequent revolutionary period (1974–1976), ended after the rebuilding of a capitalist regime. Normalization, abandoning former practices, and concentration of the adult educational offer in schools were characteristics brought about by the establishment of neo-liberal policies. Nowadays, we consider that Portuguese adult education is marked by a strong dichotomy between the formal adult education system, and the non-formal one, performed mainly by civic associations. The paper concludes by debating two issues: first, popular education and its failures; second, the state and civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]