Tag: community

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Reaching for the arts in unexpected places: public pedagogy in the gardens

Author: Ligia Pelosi, Victoria University

Edition: Volume 55, Number 3, November 2015

Summary:  What constitutes public pedagogy? The term is broad and can be applied in so many situations and settings to the learning that occurs outside of formal schooling. In this article, the author explores how a community event – a painting competition held in a Melbourne suburb’s botanic gardens – constitutes public pedagogy. The event centres on appreciation of the gardens, and on fostering the arts in the community. Local schools and residents have shown their appreciation
of the competition through increased participation over the past five years. However, there is much learning that is unexpected and far less tangible, which flourishes beneath the surface of the event. Capturing a collective memory of the suburb is one aspect of such learning that is historically significant. The author argues that the event can also be seen as activist in a political sense, through the way it has restored the arts to the community in a way that education in a neo-liberal climate is currently unable to do.

Keywords: Arts, curriculum, community, public pedagogy

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 55_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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How a personal development program enhances social connection and mobilises women in the community

Authors: Nandila Spry, Hillsong City Care and Southern Cross University: Teresa Marchant, Griffith University

Summary:  Gender equity and the empowerment of women is a significant international issue. Successful adult education programs are vital to enhance women’s situation. Lessons learned from a personal development program provided for thousands of women are analysed. The program is conducted by community service providers in Australia and internationally, with an Australian evaluation reported here. The three phase evaluation included 500 participants, with pre- and post-tests for a sample of 161, structured phone interviews with 53 and third-party observations from six organisations. The value includes multiple measurements over time, in a thorough evaluation with mixed methods, along with policy and practice implications. Key adult learning issues canvassed include the role of empowerment, adult education and transformative learning. Key findings included that women’s self-esteem, emotional intelligence, purpose and mobilisation increased, with the latter evident in vocational outcomes and social connection. Some women expressed interest in facilitating the program for other groups. As one facilitator observed ‘the program really empowers women to tap into their own gifts and talents’. Lessons learned encompassed improvements to the program including sustainable social networks, since for these women purpose in life and mobilisation were intertwined with social connection and helping other women.

Keywords: community, empowerment, evaluation, personal development, self-esteem, women

 

 

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 54_2. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Literacy strategies used by adults with intellectual disability in negotiating their everyday community environments

Authors: Michelle F. Morgan, Karen B. Moni and Monica Cuskelly; University of Queensland

Edition: Volume 53, Number 3, November 2013

Summary:    This paper presents the findings from one part of a participatory research investigation about the literacy strategies used by three young adults with intellectual disability in their everyday community environments. Using data collected through video recording, prompting and think-alouds, information was collected about the range of literacy events that the research partners engaged with and the strategies that they used to negotiate these events. Findings revealed that these young adults engage in literacy in their everyday lives using literacy strategies that are multiple and varied and which draw on learned school-based and context specific strategies. Visual texts enabled more effective construction of meaning. Multiple context specific examples are provided to create a snapshot of how these young adults use literacy in their everyday community environments that broadens our knowledge and understanding of the types of literacy events and strategies that they engage with.

Keywords: literacy, intellectual disability, community, strategies

 

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 53_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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The public sale of funds for Indigenous education: a perspective from Tranby Aboriginal College

Author: Kate Munro, Tranby Aboriginal College

Edition: Volume 45, Number 2, July 2005

Summary:  The discussion begins with an overview of the historical struggle for independence in Indigenous education and highlights the success in the provision of quality education by the community-controlled sector, and more specifically, Tranby. The right to self determination is then contextualised against a backdrop of the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths In Custody (RCIADIC) and within a framework of international legal authority. Finally the diminution of funding for Indigenous education is discussed with reference to the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2005, and its potential impact on Tranby and the community-controlled sector.

Keywords: Indigenous education, self determination, RCIADIC, custody, legal, community

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Water, weeds and autumn leaves: learning to be drier in the Alpine region

Author/s: Annette Foley & Lauri Grace

Edition: Volume 49, Number 3, November 2009

Summary: Our paper explores how and what adults living and working in the Alpine region of Victoria understand and are learning about the changes to water availability, in a time when the response to water availability is subject to extensive debate and policy attention. Interviews for this study were conducted in the towns of Bright and Mount Beauty, with participants drawn from across the Alpine region. The interviews focused on what local stakeholders from the Alpine region understood about water availability in the region and how and what they had learned about living and working with climatic changes in their local area. The findings of our study see that there was evidence of a strong understanding of the direct and indirect impact of climate change on participants’ local community area. The study also sees evidence of learning through a community ‘frames of reference’ as outlined by Berkhout, Hertin and Dann et al.

Keywords: water availability, policy, climate change, community

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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The power of ‘e’: extending the ‘E’ in ACE

Author/s: Jane Anderson

Edition: Volume 49, Number 2, July 2009

Summary: Over the past decade or so, an educational evolution has been redefining our understanding and practices of adult community education (ACE) in profound and comprehensive ways. The name of this transformation is e-learning. A bountiful interpretation and practice of ‘e-learning’ in ACE results inevitably in extending our educational work; its presence automatically extends the WHY (our purpose), the WHO (our community), the WHEN (the timing), the WHERE (the learning spaces), the WHAT (the scope), the WHAT FOR (the learning achievements) and the HOW (the modes, methods and media). In other words, the power of ‘e’ as a multidimensional force in ‘e-learning’, and the way it extends meanings, values, ideals, purposes, practices and participants in ACE, means it redefines our  understanding of education itself. As a consequence, e-learning has given us new possibilities of connectedness, community, democracy, global citizenship, lifelong learning, transformational learning, learning to learn, critical literacy and much else.

Keywords: ACE, e-learning, results, achievements, connectedness, community, democracy, lifelong learning

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_2. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

 

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The learning projects of rural third age women: enriching a valuable community resource

Author/s: Glenna Lear

Edition: Volume 51, Number 4, Special edition, December 2011

Summary: As a third age PhD candidate with a passion for learning, I wanted to explore the learning of other rural third age women who live on the Lower Eyre Peninsula (LEP) of South Australia. This reflects the methodological stance of heuristic inquiry, which requires the researcher to have a passionate interest in the phenomena under investigation, and in this case includes my tacit knowledge as a third age learner and long-term resident of the region. I deliberately chose six very influential women over 50 years of age who have transformed their rural communities into vibrant ‘can do’ societies better able to cope with the economic, environmental and social changes of the last two decades. I wanted to know how they adjusted to the lifestyle changes in their middle years, after their children left home, their third age, how they adapted to the social and economic changes in rural life, and what they learned as community change agents and leaders of community organisations, boards and community development committees.

My research methodology gave them the opportunity to reflect on their autobiographies as co-researchers during our two informal conversations about their learning. I discovered that, at different stages in their lives, these midlife women intuitively realised that they needed to do something for themselves in the wider world, independent of the farm and their family, which required them to learn and change. They are passionate lifelong and lifewide learners, continually searching for something that challenges, excites and extends them. This paper discusses their lifewide learning and personal development in community activities and formal educational institutions, which has been personally rewarding and enormously beneficial for community viability and wellbeing. Although the numbers are low and the women come from a small remote region of South Australia, there are similar women of action in almost every community, both rural and urban, who continue to make a difference.

Keywords: rural, third age, women, community, change agents, development, learning

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 51_4_Special Edition. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Educational alternatives in food production, knowledge and consumption: The public pedagogies of Growing Power and Tsyunhehkw^

Author/s: Pierre Walter

Edition: Volume 52, Number 3, November 2012

Summary: This paper examines how two sites of adult learning in the food movement create educational alternatives to the dominant U.S. food system. Continue reading “Educational alternatives in food production, knowledge and consumption: The public pedagogies of Growing Power and Tsyunhehkw^”