Abstract
Community education is the amorphous notion that a co-located group of people can determine and design contextually based educational programs that serve their own needs. Although much of our discipline concentrates on adult and continuing education, community education is much less examined. Yet community education is a politically contested space where governmental programs (i.e., family literacy, English as a Second Language, Adult Basic Education, workforce development) seeking social change engage with local learners.
Lyn Tett’s book, Community Education, Learning and Development, aims to “analyse the conceptual, policy and political ideas underpinning community education and the varieties of practice in which community educators engage” (p. xi). She achieves this goal through a sophisticated discussion of community education historically and currently. Her arguments are insightful and layered to demystify the context of assumptions and policies, while leading the reader toward a democratic community-centered approach. Her Scottish perspective provides a different lens to see the historical (since 1975) and current influences on community education in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Scotland. Although the policies and specific examples used are different from those in the United States, the assumptions, impacts, and consequences are surprisingly familiar.
Drawing on Freire (1972) and others throughout the text, Tett counters the top-down discussion of current policy with bottom-up options. She provides examples of community education that “address the concerns of ordinary people and actively draw upon their experience . . . developing the knowledge that is useful to those who generate it” (p. 106). In Chapter 4, Tett provides examples of community education programs that draw on the learner’s experience and allow them to set their own outcomes and goals. Her examples include family literacy learning and educational development and health.
Chapter 5 is written by a guest author, Ian Fyfe, who presents the perspective of “Young People and Community Engagement” (p. 69). This chapter is a condensed version of the whole text with youth as the central focus. The academic tone and message of using community education to support engaged citizenship rather than simply workforce development is consistent with the rest of the text. This chapter helps gain a perspective from those who are serving youth rather than adults.
Throughout the text, Tett reminds us that the role of the community educator is one of negotiation of power within the constraints set forth in policy to support the “learning that leads to democratic renewal” (p. 51). She challenges the assumptions that are often held by policy makers with regards to lifelong learning: that education and training are commodities in the market (p. 44), that economic success equals eradication of deprivation and exclusion (p. 45), that failure is the fault of the individual (p. 47), and that access to education is fair (p. 48). Her deconstruction of familiar arguments for workforce development and lifelong learning are reminders that the underlying educational and political systems often reinforce and recreate imbalances of power for privileged and underprivileged groups.
The final chapter regains an optimistic tone and reminds the community educators of their role. Tett reminds us that “community education is about the development of knowledge and skills, building human relationships, and the engagement of people in understanding the wider social forces that impact [lives] both locally and globally” (p. 103). She supports the democratic tradition of reducing inequalities and redistributing resources as community educators advocate for local priorities rather than negotiate change within policy directives.
This book is a comprehensive and well-supported study of community education in Scotland, but it has long-reaching potential to inform and enlighten the U.S. audience of community educators. References are drawn from across the European Union and the United States. This book will serve well as a primary or companion text for a community education course. The examples of programs promoted within it could be used in a program planning or teaching strategies course as alternative approaches to working with disadvantaged learners. This book stakes a claim for community education in the broader discussion of adult education, especially as budgets continue to tighten and the world tries to recover from the economic crisis.