A collection of articles exploring education, learning and social change. We look, in particular, to provide a space for people to explore the theory and practice of informal education, social action and lifelong learning.
Featured in the encyclopaedia :
What is community development? The idea of community development grew, in large part, out of the activities of colonial administrators. We examine this legacy and the theory and practice that emerged. We also look to the body of overlapping ideas, including community participation, community organization and community work. In this piece we suggest that community development is perhaps best used to describe those approaches which use a mix of informal education, collective action and organizational development and focus on cultivating social justice, mutual aid, local networks and communal coherence.
What is youth work? Exploring the history, theory and practice of work with young people. What is youth work? Where did it come from? What is the state of youth work practice today? We explore the development of the theory and practice of youth work in Britain and Northern Ireland – and its uncertain future.
Mary Wollstonecraft on education. Mary Wollstonecraft has long been appreciated as a major political thinker – but she also made important contributions to educational theory and practice. Barry Burke investigates.
Caring in education. In this article Nel Noddings explores the nature of caring relations and encounters in education and some of the difficulties educators have with them. She also looks at caring relations as the foundation for pedagogical activity.
Social pedagogy. The German tradition of social pedagogy has become associated with social work. This tends to obscure its educational credentials as ‘education for sociality’, particularly to English-language readers. Here we explore its history and current status.
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Developments within different areas of practice
Association, democracy and civil society: exploring civil society, civic participation, the development of community and association, and the activities of educators and animateurs.
Christian youth work and youth ministry: exploring the development and current experience of Christian youth work and youth ministry.
Community learning and development: exploring the development, theory and practice of community development and community work.
Evaluation. A developing set of pages exploring theories, issues and practices in evaluation.
Groupwork: exploring the principles, theory, practice and development of work with groups.
Helping: exploring the theory and practice of helping.
Informal and non-formal education: the experiences, practice and theories of informal education and non-formal education.
Informal Jewish education: exploring the principles and practice of informal Jewish education
Lifelong learning and adult education: exploring the development of theory and practice in adult education and lifelong learning
Research for practice: exploring research within and around informal education and social action.
Schools: explore the possibilities of informal education, social pedagogy, community learning and development and social action for schools.
Settlements and social action centres: exploring the special contribution of university, social and educational settlements.
Social action, social change and social reform: exploring the arenas, ideas and theorists of social action, social change and social reform for educators and animateurs.
Social pedagogy: exploring the theory and practice of social pedagogy.
Teaching and pedagogy. Exploring the theory, practice and commitments involved in teaching and pedagogy
Youth work: exploring the theory and practice of youth work and youth development
Featured in the archives
Charles Dickens – A sleep to startle us: An article on ragged schooling that appeared in Household Words in 1852.
Octavia Hill – Space for the people. This article by Octavia Hill, included in Homes of the London Poor (1883), outlines her case for the need for all people to be able to access space: places to sit in, places to play in, places to stroll in, and places to spend a day in.
James Hole – Social education: Chapter 8 of James Hole’s (1860) “Light, More Light!”On the present state of education amongst the working classes of Leeds – exploring the power of popular forms.
Fred Milson – Growing with the Job: In this popular pamphlet from 1968, Fred Milson makes the case for attending to the growth and development of workers – and the special setting in which they are working.
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Acknowledgements: The picture of Charles Dickens is believed to be in the public domain and was sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Picture: community by Brendan Murphy. Sourced from Flickr and reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) licence. http://www.flickr.com/photos/murphyeppoon/5166862608/
