Learning through Community

Developed within a network of Canadian researchers and their community partners, this book is a collection of case studies that explore the learning that people do through community engagement.

The crucial work here explores learning that is organized by the learners themselves, collectively, rather than as individuals.

Reflecting the contributors' political priorities, the volume begins with groups that are highly marginalized in our society: immigrant women, sex trade workers, senior citizens, garment workers, women doing community economic development, and people who identify with disability and anti-poverty movements.

It then shifts to consider groups whose members have been accustomed to seeing themselves as 'centered' or mainstream: teachers, for example, or employees of the new 'learning organizations'.

Regardless of their location, the people involved are learning to labor and to survive the turbulence of rapid socio-economic change in the global economy.

These case studies trace the enduring effects of gender, class, language, race, and governmentality on their efforts. Significantly, they also probe the possibilities for oppositional action.

Highlights the scope of learning that people engage in through community participation Extends existing boundaries and sets new parameters for the scholarly consideration of adults' learning Features an unusual hybridization of conceptual traditions, and scholarly disciplines Highlights the learning of groups that are typically overlooked due to (and reinforcing) their marginalization Reflexively reveals the editors as learners through engagement in a scholarly network and collaboration in editorial production Begins from a Canadian perspective to engage with broader international debates

Klappentext

This book is a collection of case studies that explore the learning that people do through community engagement. Developed within a network of Canadian researchers and their community partners, it explores learning that is organized by the learners themselves, collectively, rather than as individuals. Reflecting the contributors' political priorities, the volume begins with groups that are highly marginalized in our society: immigrant women, sex trade workers, senior citizens, garment workers, women doing community economic development, and people who identify with disability and anti-poverty movements. It then shifts to consider groups whose members have been accustomed to seeing themselves as 'centered:' or mainstream: teachers, for example, and employees of the new 'learning organizations.' Regardless of their location, the people involved are learning to labour and to survive the turbulence of rapid socio-economic change in the global economy. These case studies trace the enduring effects of gender, class, language, race, and governmentality on their efforts. Significantly, they also probe the possibilities for oppositional action.

"It makes a timely and significant contribution to adult learning theory and practice. It does so at a time when adult learning is very much on the agenda of academics, policy makers and organizational leaders in both formal in informal sectors around the globe."

Nancy Jackson, OISE/UToronto, Canada

Inhalt
Out of Bounds: Situating Ourselves.- The Turbulence of Academic Collaboration.- Participation and Learning in Turbulent Times: Negotiations Between the Community and the Personal.- From the Margins: Case Studies.- Women, Violence and Informal Learning.- Stigma to Sage: Learning and Teaching Safer Sex Practices Among Canadian Sex Trade Workers.- Informal Civic Learning Through Engagement in Local Democracy: The Case of the Seniors' Task Force of Healthy City Toronto.- While No One is Watching: Learning in Social Action Among People who are Excluded from the Labour Market.- Knowledge Collisions: Perspectives from Community Economic Development Practitioners Working with Women.- Teacher's Informal Learning, Identity and Contemporary Education Reform.- Learning Through Struggle: How the Alberta Teachers' Association Maintains an Even Keel.- Formalizing the Informal: From Informal to Organizational Learning in the Post-Industrial Workplace.