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International Program on Adult Education FINAL PAPER Intercultural Group 3 Esther Booltink This document was realized by an intensive writing-process of our intercultural group consisting of a Finnish student, a student of the Netherlands and two Belgian students. Before introducing our final paper, we want the reader to get to know the writers of this paper. Tom Jansseune is a last year student in Social Pedagogics at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He already finished his dissertation about the influence of the process of individualization on social movements. During the three months of his apprenticeship in the training-centre of a financial holding, namely KBC-Bank and Insurance, he worked on the description, the analysis and the preparation of the implementation of a learning-center in the organization. His motivation to take part in this Erasmus-Socrates program was to broaden his view on Adult Education through an intercultural perspective. Veerle Dupont, a Belgian student from the University of Leuven, is a last year student in Social Pedagogics. She saw the possibility to take part in the international program on adult education as a powerful and stimulating way to end her five-year during study. She has some practical experiences in the fields of youthwork and communitywork as main focuses in two projects she worked on. Before moving to Montpellier, she just finished her three months during apprenticeship in a small organization specialized in the prevention of sexual and physical violence and abuse. With these practical experiences and the theoretical backgrounds concerning several years of studying, she wanted to exchange ideas and experiences in an intercultural sphere. The participation on this program was for her a challenge on personal and also on professional level. Miia Lehtonen is Finnish, fourth year student in educational science at the university of Helsinki. Educational science is her main subject, but she has also studied social psychology and adult education. She has some practical experiences in the field of education, working as a teacher in a primary school. There she realized how important a good learning-environment is for successful learning-processes. Learning-experiences as a child influence the image of learning and thereby future (adult) learning-processes. Next autumn she will start her final work. Before that she wanted to enhance her knowledge about Adult Education and to get inspired by colleagues from different countries (maybe get an idea for the topic of her final work). She considered coming to Montpellier as a great opportunity! Esther Booltink is student at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Before she came to Montpellier, she finished her study Orthopedagogics with a specialization in behavior and raisingproblems. She has ten months of practical experience in the field of orthopedagogics, working in an organization for foster-care, where she worked closely with fosterparents. In the field of Adult Education she only has experiences as a learner, except for a course she has given to first year pedagogic students as a student-assistant. As an orthopedagogic, she will work with parents and groupleaders. Often this means, trying to bring about change in behavior and/or attitudes. During her apprenticeship, she realized how much adult learning and organizational learning differ from childlearning. Adults have an enormous amount of experiences (much more than children) which influences their (new) learning-processes. Therefore they need a specific approach. She became interested in the topic of Adult Education and decided to join the program in Montpellier. Also living in another country and working with people from different countries appealed to her. In this preface, we also want to make use of the opportunity to thank all the people involved in this program for making it such a success! This final paper is the result of an intercultural group-work concerning the intensive Erasmus-Socrates program of Adult Education in Europe, held at the University Paul Valéry in Montpellier. The content of this paper is related to the general structure of the program: a collection of critical reflections on every module, discussed in our intercultural group-work and written down in separate module-papers. Although each paper stands on its own, our way of dealing with the selected topics was in every module more or less the same. Three different steps can be distinguished. The first step consists of a description of the topic in relation to the situation in society. The concepts we used to characterize nowadays society at hand are: the risk society, the multi-cultural society, the fast technological and organizational changes, the growing mobility, the learning society, individualization and globalization. The second step consists of an overview of the selected topics we discussed in our intercultural group. The last step is a search for the functions, the tasks, the role and the challenges for adult education. In the final conclusion of this paper, we come back on the relation between the topics of the modules and the challenges for adult education. This final paper is ended with a reflection on our groupprocess. When possible, we tried to add an intercultural comparative element to the paper. We are aware of the fact that we didn't reach this goal for every module. This is due to the fact, that with such different backgrounds as we have, it was very difficult and sometimes impossible to make (theoretical and practical) comparisons between the different countries. Because of this, our paper turned out to be rather theoretical. We also want to apologize for going slightly over the limit of 18.000 words. Adult education is a never-ending story. 1. NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND INFORMATION Introduction: Structure and Demarcation 1.Society and policy 2. LEARNING STRATEGIES IN A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY Introduction 1.Participation and
integration as unifying links 4. MANAGING CHANGES AND TRAINING IN ORGANIZATIONS Part 1 Case study Part 2 Retroactive path to organizational change Part 3 Pro-active path to organizational chang 5. ADULT EDUCATION AND SOCIAL
POLICY- Introduction: Description of two policy models of lifelong learning 1. Main characteristics 6. FOUNDATIONS OF ADULT EDUCATION 1. Foundations of adult education INTERCULTURAL GROUPWORK REFLECTION
NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND INFORMATION Week 15-19 February 1999 module one Patrick Thomas - Mireille Mahous
INTRODUCTION: STRUCTURE AND DEMARCATION This paper is the result of an intercultural group-work considering the first module of the program: new technologies and information. To structure our thoughts and our discussion, we designed a figure as a frame to overview the complex field of new technologies in education (figure 1.1). In designing this figure, our starting-point was what P. Thomas said about the influence of new technologies on the educational relationship: "there is a revolutionary change in (adult)education with the introduction of new technologies" (from the teacher-learner situation towards a new and more complex situation). We started to think about what the new situation looks like: which are the components involved in that new educational culture/context, and what are the connections between these components? We all concluded after reflecting and discussing the content of this module: that it is a complex situation involving many components linked with many new questions and discussion/attention-points. With the use of the figure below, we tried to make this new situation clear by showing the different components and the connections and influences between these components. We also tried to point out where, in the new educational relationship, a professional (adult) educator can practice his job. The frame that symbolizes the new learning situation can be applied to learning situations in schools, organizations or even in the society as a whole.
Figure 1.1 To make this figure clear we’ll explain shortly the symbols used: * : the place where an adult educator can play a role or can facilitate the ongoing learning(or negotiation)-process or : interaction between both concepts : connections which cause problems (obstacles) or questions (solutions) The components, which are involved in the educational situation (with new technologies), are the following: 1. Experts and/or designers: persons of a multidisciplinary team who design the learning programs. 2. Learner: this can be anybody (from every age, background, level, etc..) including teachers and designers. 3. Media: all kinds of media, in this paper especially new technologies 4. Policy-makers: an overlooking system, like the staff of an organization or the government (country), that makes the decisions about principles, rules, borderlines. 5. Society/culture: the surrounding environment in which all components are embedded (can be the culture of an organization, the society, the international community, …) The relevance of this figure is that it can contribute to more awareness of your own view on the issue of new technology. Being aware of your own position is the first step towards understanding the viewpoints, problems and questions linked to the position of other's. Furthermore it's easier to leave your own view and overlook the different components that are embedded in a whole system of connections and interactions. When discussing education and new technology you have to be aware that there are different points of view from which you can start and that a change in one component causes changes in the other components. The components are interrelated. That's why we think that many problems or obstructions that arise somewhere in the overall educational process have to be solved by involving other components or even the whole system. Considering this, we decided to work out in this paper some of the components mentioned above and tried to sort out the questions and attention-points connected with them. Because our role in this program as a student but also as a (future) adult educator, we choose to focus our discussion respectively on the components ‘learner’ and ‘expert/designer‘ and the links between them and the other components. Because an adult educator can not only be situated (in the figure) on the designer side, but also somewhere else in the whole process, we will try to sort out where he can help facilitating the educational process and what tasks he can do. We will only shortly mention the components 'society' and 'policy'. We also decided not to talk about the 'media' itself because the focus in the whole program is rather educational than technical. We will only concentrate on the links between the media and the other components. For an overview of new technologies and media useful in adult education we refer to the European report of the Task Force 'Educational Software and Multimedia' (own translation - in Goubin, 1997). The final clarifying notes that we have to mention before talking about adult education and new technologies:
- new technology and multimedia as the content of a learning-program - new technology and multimedia as a tool for designing an educational process, thinking about communication, learning-tool, carrier of information,... - new technology and multimedia can support the organizational aspects of non formal adult education like documenting, data processing,.. In discussing the role of adult education, a first look to the context in which learning processes take place is important. Looking at the fast changing society in which new technologies play an important role, we can notice with Doets (own translation - 1998, p.121) the following trends:
We live in a post-modern, individualized society where the individual becomes more and more responsible for his/her own life (self-reflexive biographies). In the context of working with new technology, we can say that the control over his communication-behavior and possibilities can be situated, more than before, by the individuals themselves (own translation - Goubin, 1997, p.113). Another possible danger linked with post-modernity, is the danger of fragmentation. The new technology has the potential of bringing people closer towards each other, but incorporates also the negative characteristic that it can build walls between people. This situation of growing individualization is a big challenge for adult education and will be further elaborated in the module concerning Community Education. Some groups of people have serious difficulties in working with new technology, like elderly people and low educated people. It isn’t easy, and not always the most effective solution to teach these people to work with new technology. Because education isn't the only option, alternatives must be created. Otherwise there will be two kinds of people in society: people who can work with new technology and people who can’t. So the distribution of information can't be limited to one specific medium. Otherwise there won't be a democratization of information, but information will become a good of few. 2.1 The social aspect of learning In self-directed learning, the social aspect of learning is often missing. Through chatting and e-mail there can be interaction, but this kind of interaction is different form face-to-face interaction. We think that for most people the interaction is artificial, and the learner must have the right skills for it. In the most extreme case, the case of 100% self-directed learning, there is a danger that the learner has no opportunities to develop communication skills for real life. Of course, there is no such danger if there is a balance between self-directed and social learning. This comment must be taken into account for other issues mentioned above and below! We are aware of the fact that self-directed learning existed long before new technologies did and that then nobody saw a problem in self-directed learning. Probably, people have the tendency to look for negative aspects in new, uncertain situations. Another ‘danger’ involved with self-directed-learning is that learners don’t get any impulses to question their own perspective/point of view. Because it‘s more difficult to have ‘deep’ interaction. Without this, a learner doesn’t get in contact with different points of view. We think this is dangerous in a period of growing intolerance. (This topic could also be placed under the component society) Sometimes people are motivated to learn, other times they aren’t that motivated. Example : In some European countries unemployed people and refugees are forced to learn (the notion of workfare). In this case it's necessary to motivate adult learners to assure successful learning But this need to motivate adults can be questioned. Is it needed to motivate adults? When do you have to motivate them? Who has to decide that they have to be motivated? These questions are important to ask when reflecting on the learning process of adults. Because those questions about the 'fundaments' of adult learning will bring us too far in this paper (not because it isn't an interesting and important issue) we only want to mention them. By agreement, we start in the following discussion from the point that in some cases it is necessary to motivate adults towards successful learning. The question we have asked ourselves is how the organization of the learning can improve motivation. Adults have very personal needs and they often want to learn fast and want the content to be related to real-life. The program must be clear in explaining what is offered, how much time/effort it will ask and which results can/will be obtained. Because internal motivation is stronger than external motivation, we think it is the task of an adult-educator to try to transform the external motivation into internal motivation. This can be done by stressing the advantages of learning-outcomes and by taking away the fear towards the new technologies. It is known that people often are afraid of changes, especially in a society where everything changes fast. In this high speed developing society, people are obliged to adapt new skills to prevent themselves from being excluded. Because ignorance is an obstacle for learning, it is also important to give clear and objective information to the learner. Because there is a lack of positive information about the use and the advantages of new technologies, it would be good to evaluate the whole new technology world, making the providing of more motivating information possible. Also providing acknowledged certification at the end of a learning program, can be a motivating aspect that has to be kept in mind. Because the learning-program is individualized, also the certification must be individualized. So we can play a role as adult educators in taking the obstacles (like fear and ignorance) away between learners and media. One can wonder what else is needed, when fear and ignorance are taken away and when people are motivated to learn with new technology. Confronted with the new technology-context in which people have to learn, the concept of learning has undergone a shift (own translation - Goubin, 1997, p.128). Learning can not longer be seen as a process of passive receiving information but must be seen as active obtaining and processing of information by the learner. New skills are required to learn fluently with new technologies. By this we mean self-directive skills. The learner must become his own tutor, has to set his own goals, has to evaluate himself, … Learning is more than asking for information. Learning depends on the context of learning, the available material and information, the tools and the characteristics of the person. Confronted with adult learners, all these aspects have to be taken into account. Most learners need external & social feedback. The new technologies can provide feedback, but this kind of feedback is in a way limited. The feedback is often standardized. The feedback that can be obtained from a computer can be perceived as cold and objective. People need ‘social’ feedback, with a personal (and affective) dimension, because human beings are social beings personal & social feedback can't be replaced. This can be compared with the difference between a telephone call and a normal conversation. There is a difference, the appearance is important. But will it still be a problem when also appearance can be realized on line on the screen? What is it that makes the difference for people between a projected face directly on line on the screen (thus same time, different place) and a person sitting in front of them at the same place? Why is it that the last one is more satisfactory for human beings even when they can see and hear the person on the screen? When focusing on liberal adult education, the learner must learn to make a distinction between garbage and ‘good’ information. Like in 'The X-files': The truth is out there. There is no external authority that has the legitimacy to make the distinction for him. In the context of liberal education, adult education has to start from the learner side because the adult learners themselves are the only ones who can decide which information fits best with their goals and which learning strategy is most efficient for them. The learner needs support (strategies) to find the right information that fits with his needs. (The standardpage-idea might be a useful help). On the other hand, in vocational education, a negotiating process considering learning with new technologies between adult learners and the staff, has to be initiated. In vocational learning-programs it is not only up to the learner to make decisions about the selection and content of this programs. Adult educators can play a role as facilitators between adult learners and staff in clarifying both needs and wishes. The learner must find out his main learning-style and with which media he can learn best. How can you know if self-directed learning is something for you if you have never tried it ? We believe that primary and secondary schooling must create more opportunities for students to come in contact with different learning-styles and different media. 2.5 Personalization and destandardization We see personalization and destandardization as the most positive aspects in learning with new media. The following possibilities are very interesting for the learner :
The obtained flexibility is especially important for certain groups, for example working mothers. Note : The characteristics of personalization and destandardization aren’t that new. Already in the seventies, in the Freinet and Montessori schools children were learning at their own pace, and they could select their own subjects and media. The children set their own learning-goals and designed their own programs. During this module, we‘ve had the ‘possibility’ to be in the point of view of the learner, next to our focus as future adult educators. From this learner point of view we experienced which are the characteristics of a learning-program that facilitates learning. From these experiences we could derive some global suggestions towards global criteria that should be used by designers. Notice that we only mention the global criteria because the criteria that should be used for designing learning-programs depend on the content, goals, target-group and media of this learning-program.
Because Skinner's conditions for efficiency in training match with a lot of the characteristics of learning with new technology, we believe that the criticism on behaviorism can be applied to learning with new technology. So to improve learning with new technology, the teacher can take characteristics of the information-processing model into account. It is clear that adult education has to take his responsibility in this new digitalized society. It's strategy must not be one of turning its back to or denying the new developments, but in contrast adult education has to focus on the most vulnerable groups. Adult education can help to prevent, in the context of digitalization, the marginalization of groups like elderly people and low educated people (own translation - Doets, 1998, p.124). Our idea is in appliance with in the declaration of Hamburg about adult education in the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education, 14-18 July 1997 in Hamburg (Germany): "The development of new information and communication technologies causes new risk for social and professional exclusion of groups, individuals and organizations who are not capable to adapt to this new environment. Considering this, one of the future - tasks of adult education is to decrease the risks to exclusion" (in Doets, 1998). Taking these most vulnerable target-groups as the main focus, we give a short summary of the possibilities for adult education:
More global challenges for informal-education are (own translation - Goubin, 1997, p. 132):
To come back to central figure (introduction), an adult educator has responsibilities on the side of the learner, in the negotiating process between policy and learners-situations, between staff and adult learners/workers and can he also have an input on the side of the designer.
We believe that the new technologies are powerful tools for (adult) education. We don't regard it as a super-tool, not as the ultimate or only tool, but as one tool next to a lot of other tools. This is why we state that if there is a balance between (self-directed)learning with new technology and social or group learning, carefulness in judging the positive and negative aspects of self-directed and social learning is needed. All the different media, the learner, the expert, the tutor, the designer and the policy-makers are involved in the organization of learning-environments. The interconnections between all these 'partners' are more important than new technology and their characteristics 'an sich'. After a time of amazement about the possibilities of the new technology, we think time has come to bring the consequences, the conditions and the factors for successful education into account. As a designer, an educator,... , you must have a broad overview of the whole learning-system to take all the different viewpoints into account, resembling our situation, discussing in our multicultural groups, sharing our different points of view.
Documenten over de vijfde internationale UNESCO- conferentie over volwasseneneducatie - Confintea V. De verklaring van Hamburg over volwasseneneducatie: Programma voor de toekomst van de volwasseneneducatie. Vorming 13(4), 249-280. Doets, C. (1998). De digitalisering van de samenleving: Problemen en uitdagingen. Vorming, 14 (2), 119-124. Goublin, J. (1997). De rol van nieuwe technologie in de niet-formele volwasseneneducatie in Europa en Vlaanderen. Vorming, 13 (2), 113-133.
LEARNING STRATEGIES Week 22 February to 5 March 1999 module two Ruud Van Der Veen - Orfried Schäffter - Julia Spintorakis This paper is the result of an intercultural group-work considering the second module of the program: learning strategies in a multicultural society. In a society that is becoming more and more multicultural, adult educators are confronted with people from very different groups/cultures and people with very different backgrounds. This diversity causes all kinds of irritations, like differences in habits, language barriers and so on, in educating these people. How can an adult educator deal with multicultural target-groups and what can he do to facilitate the learning-process of a multicultural society as a whole? In this paper we are following the thinking process of an adult educator in dealing with multiculturality in his work. We came up with three important steps in this thinking process. First an adult educator has to understand the situation at hand. This means being aware of his own culture with the specific habits, norms and values and having at least some knowledge of the culture of the others he meets. A great help to understand today's society is to go back to the 'roots' of society (the history of our western society but also the history of the migration flow) to understand the background of the current situation. Step one will be discussed in paragraph 1. The next step in the thinking process is the clarification of the goal of your effort. Where do you want to go to? How do you want the future to be? This discussion about a (future) multicultural living together will be discussed in paragraph 2. In paragraph 3 we will focus on the role of adult education in a learning multicultural society followed by the conclusions in paragraph 4. Before starting our discussions, we want to make some remarks: When we use the concept 'identity' in this paper, we refer to all the different levels of identity dr. Shäffter was talking about in his classes (organism, psychic system, person, family, social group, organization, milieu/lifestyle, ethnic group, nation, culture). Encounters can happen between and on all levels of identity, but in this paper we will focus on encounters with and on the (ethnic-national) cultural level. Being aware of the fact that the concept 'culture' has many definitions, we want to have our main focus on culture in the more narrow but most common sense, namely the ethnographic-national systems of meaning like the Moroccan, Latin American,... culture. In a broader sense we see culture as a constructed and shared meaning. In that sense you can talk about the culture of a generation, an organizational culture, a subculture in the sense of milieu and lifestyle (a youth-club for example), a neighborhood,... next to or including the ethnographic cultures. In this paper we take the point of view of an adult educator in dealing with multiculturality, but we want to stress the need of a broader view. For adult educators it is, in our opinion, important not to stay only in the educational discipline when dealing with it, but also make use of other disciplines like (science of) history, economics..., for instance in multidisciplinary teamwork. In complex modern society, understanding the situation has to be the first step in the thinking process of an adult educator in dealing with multiculturality. An adult educator has to begin with analyzing the situation. First an adult educator has to meet himself. He has to find an answer to the questions: "Who am I? What is my background?" After that the questions: "Who are they? What is their background?" become important. It is only by considering these questions that an adult educator can have a clear view of the situation at hand. In nowadays-modern society there is more diversity in identity among people living in that society. One reason for this is the increasing individualization. In western, post-modern individualized society former certainties (or "the grand narratives") slowly fade away. Former identity providing groups (like churches and youth-movements) aren't that powerful anymore in the development of an individual's identity. Individuals are more responsible to find out which values are important for them. So, individuals have to create their own identity by taking little pieces of existing groups or have to establish new identity providing groups themselves. This is why we think, identity in post-modern society is composed of more little bricks. In their work, adult educators are confronted with learners who often come from cultures where family-life or for instance religion still plays an important role in the development of identity. These broad socializing entities provide individuals certainties (views, stereotypes, norms, values), certainties they use to form their identity. People are less obliged to search for (new) groups to identify with in order to develop their identity. Adult educators should be aware of the cultural differences in identity formation and should be open minded towards the fact that (within one culture) every individual forms its identity in its own way! Another reason for the increasing diversity in identity among people in nowadays society is the increasing mobility between people of different cultures, facilitating their encounter with consequences for identity development of the people involved. A third reason is the encounter of different groups entering society, encounters with also consequences for identity development. The homogeneity of the incoming groups (migrants) in Europe is decreasing. First, mainly people from Morocco or Turkey entered West-European countries to work there, nowadays there are much more different nationalities like for instance people from former Yugoslavia and from Albania. But migrants not only differ in their nationality, they also differ in kind of migrants they are; for instance are they illegal migrants or refugees? Often forgotten are the 'rich' migrants; workers of multinationals, NATO, EC etc. We are aware of the fact that the process of migration and the nationality of the incoming groups differ between European countries. International policies should recognize those differences. 1.2 Model of experiencing strangeness useful for understanding When people are confronted with something they can't understand, they experience strangeness situated on one (or more) of the different levels of their identity. An experience of strangeness is combined with emotions, like irritation, ignorance or even fear when people get the idea that their own identity is being threatened. Working with these emotions can result in learning-processes. But they can also be a barrier to learning. People try to find explanations for situations they don't understand in order to deal with the evoked emotions after experiencing strangeness. The explanations they find, can be located at all the different levels of identity. In our opinion explanations for experienced strangeness are often already given in the model of experiencing strangeness as counter image. Forefathers formed explanations, which have become stereotypes (automatic explanations for experienced strangeness). These stereotypes can form a basis for discrimination. To overcome this, people should put away the stereotypes, go back to their feelings of strangeness and find explanations for the feelings of strangeness for themselves instead of using stereotypes. Because of the enormous diversity among people in identity (see paragraph 1.1), we think the feeling of irritation produced in encounters with others is a good starting-point for an adult educator in the step of "understanding" the situation (by reflection on experienced critical incidents). We want to present a model of experiencing strangeness, useful in the step of understanding situations. The development of identity is a dynamic process. In the development of identity periods of "belonging to" a certain identity providing group (social class, culture, religion, ethnic group etc.) are alternated by periods of "distinguishing yourself from" a certain identity providing group. This dynamic process can work on the different levels of identity at the same time, at another pace; being in a period of belonging on one level of identity, an individual can be in a period of distinguishing on another level of identity. A period of belonging seems to play an important role in making distinctions between outside and inside, thereby stabilizing the identity already build up by former encounters with others. This seems necessary to enter a period of distinguishing. This dynamic model does not only fit the development of an individual's identity but it can also be applied to the development of group identities! In the colleges Dr. Schäffter mentioned four models of experiencing strangeness: a strangeness as counter-image Model 'a' can be recognized as a mechanism of forming distinctions, thereby stabilizing the already developed identity in a period of belonging to, where as models 'b', 'c' and 'd' can be seen as mechanisms working in periods of distinguishing yourself from a certain identity providing group. To explain these ideas, we give an example of a child who grows up. When a child is born, it belongs to certain identity providing groups, primarily its family. The parents provide the child a clear distinction between inside-outside, right-wrong etc. The border between inside and outside is very strong to create safety for the child, making further development possible. In this the model of strangeness as counter-image can be recognized. In puberty children are identifying more and more with peer-groups, by doing so distinguishing themselves from their parents and constructing their selfhood (model of strangeness as sounding board of the self). At the same time, the process of identifying with peers takes the form of strangeness as counter-image, stabilizing identity. This process goes on and on with periods of distinguishing from old groups and periods of belonging to new groups to stabilize a new part of identity. As we see it, strangeness as counter-image is very important in the development of individuals or groups, because people need a certain amount of stability of the self for successful development. Instability is a barrier to development. In paragraph 3 we will refer to this model to derive adult learning-needs, educational strategies and programs. After the adult educator has taken the step of "understanding" the situation, the next step for an adult educator in dealing with multiculturality is clarifying and thinking about the future: where do we want to go to? What is the image of future society? For designing programs in adult education, the formulation of goals is an important step. In trying to clarify what we mean by 'multiculturality' and a 'multicultural society', we can distinguish two different points of view which are not excluding each other but which refer to different levels of acting: a more passive one and an active one. It is the last one we want to propose as a challenge for every individual and the whole society. But both contain learning-possibilities and tasks for educators: a) Multiculturality as a fact to acknowledge Living in today's society means living in a multicultural society. Multiculturality has to be seen as a characteristic of society. This (increasing - see 1.1) diversity in cultures has to be acknowledged by all the members of society. Van Labeke (own translation - 1998, p.24) distinguishes three different meanings of the multicultural aspect of society: 1. the internal multiculturality or the different cultural communities in a monocultural (like we mentioned in the introduction, culture is seen here as nationality) society, like the Flemish society in the Belgium society. 2. the external multiculturality or the permanent presence of groups with different ethnical backgrounds due to the migration-flow into a before-monocultural society 3. the inter-generational multiculturality or the difference in life environments of successive generations. Multiculturality is often used in the second meaning. b. Multiculturality as a challenge to work on If we talk about 'real multiculturality', we want to stress the active component (in contradiction with the preceding more passive view on multiculturality). The presence of different cultures in society challenges everybody to construct a mutual reality in encounter with other members of society. If that can be realized, we can talk about a real multicultural society. The goal for society is thus to reach a real multicultural society through real encounters. Multiculturality here is more seen as a process of encountering strangeness and constructing a mutual reality by communication. Different possibilities to construct this reality through encounter can be distinguished. 1. In our discussion we saw this construction possible in using a vertical higher context as a kind of "umbrella". Multiculturality can be seen then as a level of identity just above the cultural level (earlier in this paper we mentioned that in the identity of an individual, different levels can be distinguished). In this line of thinking, going to a multicultural society means: finding an umbrella that gives different cultures commonalties. Usually when people experience strangeness on a level of identity lower than the cultural level, they can find some commonalties on a higher level of identity to overcome the problem. When facing strangeness on cultural level, a higher order commonality-giving umbrella is missing. The challenge here is to find this umbrella! Example: We have been discussing if one Europe could be an example of an umbrella term. Shall we ever form one Europe? Can people unlearn their own-anchored (cultural)identities ? Maybe only in a very gradually process of evolution. New technology is a tool to make contact and exchange information possible between people from different cultures. But to achieve the idea of one Europe a personal encounter is necessary. Also the different nations should not stay in there own territories, because the spatial territory is very important in the development of the identity! 2. But in agreement with Schäffter we may not forget the possibility of building mutual reality using the horizontal contact level. Example: You can feel closer with students studying adult education from Finland, the Netherlands... than with other students in your own university. 3. Schäffter also mention a third possibility: building a mutual reality in going to a deeper existential need by mutual regression. He calls it the deepest form of creating a human reality: empathy, sympathy and love. Example: You can experience strangeness with your African neighbor, his language, practices, the smell of his food,... In encountering strangeness, you can accept on this cultural level to not understand, but respect each other, and become on personal level really good friends. (for example mixed couples) As we see it, going to a real multicultural society means that we move to the fourth model of experiencing strangeness: "strangeness as complementary". To achieve that, people (each with their own history of identity development) have to learn to live with each other, just like family-members have to learn to live with each other. Multiculturality is seen as a kind of attitude; an attitude of respect for others with different values, norms and beliefs, of openness towards others and understanding and of clear intercultural communication. In this society with a great diversity in identity among its members, (adult)education is more and more needed. And not only for the incoming groups! In a society, which is becoming more and more multicultural, society as a whole has to learn. So multicultural (adult)education must not focus on individual learning of migrants alone. 'Apart from the classical work with foreigners which is directed at the mediation of linguistic competence and a basis knowledge of how to cope with elementary everyday situations, it is a duty of further education as a whole, to acquaint adults with life in a society where people of differing cultural origin live together which, in turn, is connected to experiencing moments of uncertainty, irritation and feeling alien' (author unknown, 1993, p.20). 3 Adult education in a multicultural society Now, after the necessary steps of first trying to understand the situation by analyzing today's society (paragraph 1) and in the light of this, secondly clarifying the desired future-pattern of living together (paragraph 2), we want to focus on the role of adult education in a learning (multicultural) society. Before presenting a model placing apart the different steps in the educational process of a learning society, a few notes have to be made:
In literature the following different areas of intercultural learning are founded: 1. intercultural learning as interdisciplinary principle In this paper we shall focus on the fourth area of intercultural learning.
Based on the diagnostic model (supra) we developed a frame focusing the role of education in a learning society (see table 2.1). 'As researchers such as Vygotsky have made clear, personality develops through encounters with the physical world and through relations with other human beings' (Burkitt 1991, p.138 -In Smith, 1996, p.6-7). On the other hand, clear distinctions between your inside and the outside are necessary to recognize the outside. Being aware of the close knit of both mutually necessary conditions, clarifying your own borders (who am I) and meeting the other (further developing of the personality), we still want to split up these two processes. Both steps are, in our thinking, necessary to achieve a multicultural living together. As the second step contains more the process towards a real encounter, we see the third step as a real peaceful multicultural encounter. The separation of the learning process in three steps can be helpful, but in reality the steps are of course more complex and interwoven. In the whole designed dynamic model we especially want to stress the importance of communication. In a multicultural society, the development of communication skills must be the focus of adult education. Real social encounters are after all mediated by language. On each level we will point out the needs or goals for education and according to this we will search for the suitable strategy and an example of this.
Table 2.1 *(a) It is very important that learners are aware of the norms, values and habits of their own culture to make for instance multicultural communication effective. What are the vehicles of communication in their culture? How do people in their society handle proxemics or haptics? How do they use gestures, symbols, tone of voice or eye contact? In meeting others, knowing how these things work in your own culture can facilitate contact, because you can better see what the differences are between the person you meet and yourself. Being aware of your own position is the first step towards understanding the points of view, problems and questions linked to others positions. Also very important in understanding people from different cultures is that learners have some knowledge of the norms, values and habits in the culture of the people they encounter. Being aware of the differences between persons in this respect can overcome great problems, misunderstandings and mis-communications. *(b) Autobiographical reflection (Kelchtermans, 1994, p.114) is a way of reflection that goes back to the (individual our group-) experiences in the past (by involving the concepts 'critical incidents', 'critical persons' and 'critical phases' ) to search for the roots of the today's frame of interpretation that determines our acting and the way how we look towards today's society. It intends gaining insight into this personal frame towards revising and further development. *(c) The method of reminiscence or working with biographies and life-stories of people, can contribute to the aim of a multicultural living together (own translation - Van Labeke, 1998, p.25) by: - a better knowing and understanding of each others 'internal multiculturality'. This concept refers to the diversity of migrants of the same ethnic community. In going together through a process of remembering, the social and cultural backgrounds of each other can become clearer. - help young migrants to develop their personality in a more balanced way. Young migrants often have problems to find a healthy balance between the two cultures they are confronted with: the culture of the ethnic group they belong to represented by their parents and grandparents, and the culture of the country they grew up. The life-stories of their grandparents can help them to (re)explore
their roots. Perceived strangeness usually forms the starting-point/motivation for adults to take part in learning-programs. Adult educators should try to bring learners in contact with (unknown) strangeness, if possible. We see going to a real multicultural society means moving to the fourth model of experiencing strangeness: "strangeness as complementary". Multiculturality is a kind of attitude; an attitude of respect for others with different values, norms and beliefs, of openness towards others and understanding and of clear intercultural communication. The educational answer is not the only answer to the problem of multiculturality. There have to be initiatives on all different levels of society (for example economic level), but also on international level. International policy is very important (for instance diplomatic relations can help in finding solutions)! Adult educators can practice their profession on all the different areas of action. Within the educational answer, teaching is not the only tool. You should use information, animation and formation as an integrated entity in education. Kelchtermans, G. (1994). Autobiografische relfectie in opleiding, nascholing en begeleiding: Een biografische bril op de professionele ontwikkeling van leerkrachten. Deel 2. ORG, 3382, 113-130. Labeke, S. van (1998). Reminiscentie, werken met herinneringen en levensverhalen. Vorming, 14(1), 19-27. Author unknown (1993). Multicultural dimensions. Adult Education and Development,40, 20-25. Smith, M.K. (July 1996). Selfhood. http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-self.htm Week 8 March to 20 March 1999 module three
Theo Jansen - Herman Baert This paper is the result of an intercultural group-work considering the third module of the program: Community Education. We will discuss the relationship between the individual and the collectivity. The purpose of this introduction is to explain the figure that we have created to structure our discussion of this module. The elements 'participation & integration' and 'learning community' will be elaborated in the following paragraphs. The other elements will be briefly explained in this introduction part.
Figure 3.1 Risk Society is placed in the middle of the figure because it has caused tension in the relationship between the individual and the collectivity. For Beck (in Hake, 1998) the late modern society is a risk society in which institutions, organizations and individuals are at risk. The big challenge for adult education is to help people to deal with the new risks situated in almost every segment of society: political, social, ecological, economical (for instance the unemployment), moral, and technological (for instance the revolutionary technological innovations,...). In this paper we will try to explain how adult education can help people to handle these risks, by introducing the concept of Learning Community. Note that adult education can be seen as a risk producing institution itself. Even though education is a tool for integration and participation, we also have to think about its negative effects. Education can cause risks too, because not everybody has the same opportunity for education. For example the level of formal education that people have reached will make the difference for future chances and can create a division between people. So we have to keep in mind the limits and consequences of adult education in the risk society. In the risk society the balance between individual and collectivity is going towards the side of the individual. Because nowadays the grand narratives have lost their legitimization, people think more about themselves and are focused more on their own personal life. We think more about what is good for ME, and not so much anymore about what is good for US. Neighborhoods, organizations,... are losing their function of integration and shared meaning. It is in this context that we want to discuss the relevance of community work. Because the grand narratives have lost their integrative power in the risk society, people have lost their external reference for 'good & bad'. They have to build their own reference-frame through occasional connections with existing communities or by creating new ones. Communities are important in people's life because it are places where people make relationships with other people. In the light of the risk society, communities have obtained a new function as 'sounding-board'. They can be seen as forums where people can express their thoughts, values, views... We believe that the central problems in the risk society are the lack of integration and participation in community life. We see participation and integration as tools to reduce the tension between the individual and the community. But how can adult education make people participate more in the community? How can adult educators motivate them to be active citizens? 1. Participation and integration as unifying links In our figure (3.1) we explain that participation and integration are 'tools' to reduce the tension between the individual and the collectivity. But how can adult education promote people to participate in a community? Which skills are required for it? In the following text we want to talk about participation and integration together, because we see them as closely linked. For us, integration is 'being part or member of community', a necessary condition for participation. Participation isn't possible if there is no feeling of belonging to the community. 1.1 Participation: a description In agreement with Verbeke (own translation - 1997) we distinguish two ways of looking to participation. 1) being a member of community and 2) taking part in community. The first conception of participation refers to the fulfillment of basic rights in the central domains of life, like the right of having an income, a workplace, a house in a community. It is a quite passive role of being a citizen. The second one is a more active way to look at the role of the citizen. People have a voice and must have a say in matters that concern them. They can use their voice by influencing for instance the municipality. They have something to contribute from the basis to change or adapt the existing community. By organizing activities themselves (like for instance child-care-networks, security guards, festivities...) they contribute to the development of their community. Of course there are always people who don't feel like participating, but they should at least have the opportunity to do so. Participation can be reached on different levels (own translation - Verbeke, 1997). The first level is the primary social network, for example family, neighborhood and friends. The second level consists of participation in the public services. On this level there is a client-participation, people are seen as consumers of the services of the basic institutions. The third level is the participation in social organizations (social participation). The fourth level is the participation in the political domain (political participation). We believe that adult education should focus on the realization of participation on all four levels. These four levels can be combined with the different fields of life/society: labor, social, free-time, education, ... Adult educators must be aware on which level and which field they are working and must make priorities (in cooperation with the people!). For example: migrants may have a strong primary social network, but might have a very low participation on the other three levels. It is evident that not every migrant thinks that the same level deserves the priority. 1.2 Adult education: a contribution With Verbeke (1997, p. 97) we want to consider participation as a dynamic process (see figure3.2) which includes three steps that can not be neglected: 1) the distribution of information, 2) activating people (motivating them) and 3) encouraging people to influence policy. These three steps have to be taken into consideration and need attention when community-workers are trying to stimulate people to take part in community-life.
Figure 3.2: participation- process (own translation - Verbeke, 1997). For the realization of the distribution of information as the first step in the participation-process, a solid information-policy is required. Decisions about channels for the distribution, the target-group and other practical things have be taken into account. A second step concerns the motivation-aspect. Sensibilization can stimulate the members of a community to contribute to the development of their environment. The creation of an open climate for dialogue and two-sided communication is therefore needed. Mobilizing people means thinking about creative ways and channels to approach people and motivate them which is important to provide them reasons to participate. In this step, outreaching work becomes important. The aim of the third step of providing possibilities to have a voice in the policy of planning development, activities and changes,... is the shared ownership of the problem-definition. By giving room for a personal input and by confront the different presented suggestions and statements, real shared policy-making is possible. Extra support and guidance is needed for the most disadvantaged groups, for instance low-educated people, poor people, people with less experience,..... Note that in this context it is important not only to provide the official participation-channels (meetings, council-boards,...). Adult education has to offer different kinds of participation- channels, because people have different reasons for participating and because some people don't have so well developed verbal skills to express their feelings and thoughts aloud in public meetings. To not only reach the high educated and verbal-advantaged community-members, informal participation-channels like expositions, scale-models of their neighborhood where the people have to mark the problem-points they observe in their neighborhood,... should be used next to the official ways to participate. We want to stress here, that before you can stimulate people to participate in community-life, they first have to feel integrated. Therefore a preceding step of animation might be needed to create a feeling of belonging to the group/community. According to Longworth (1997), a learning community is one way to handle the negative aspects of the risk society. A learning community can be described as a city, town, village or region, which integrates its economic, political, educational, cultural and environmental structures toward developing the talents and potential of all its citizens. Adult educators have to think how to increase the learning capacity of the whole population. Then the one major pillar is lifelong learning. A learning community can be a strategy for the development of lifelong learning among citizens. Ten characteristics of the learning community can be distinguished (Longworth, 1997). 1. The aim of a learning community is to increase the learning capacity of whole populations. We think it is also a "second chance" for disadvantaged people and includes both the individual as the collective orientation. For Longworth, in the learning community the family is the most fundamental unit for the development of learning throughout life. Some of us question this, because the valued importance of families is changed. Learning by young children can be hampered if parents have a negative attitude to learning and pass this negative attitude over to their children in a process of intergenerational transfer. One task for adult education is to change the image of learning. Adult educators have to promote integration at the different levels of communities (see 1.1), for example cooperation between families and schools. The first requirement for a learning community is a plan to get all people more participating. This plan should be written and available to anyone who wants to read it. Even in this stage of construction of the plan adult educators must try to get the involvement of all members of the community. Because some people don't participate easily, outreaching work is necessary to know the individual needs of these people. 2. A learning community has a multi-action orientation, which means that the community energizes all sectors to cooperate together and share resources, including human resources. The advantage is an adaptable outlook through the variety of inputs provided by people from different sectors. In a learning community, education is not the only institution, which promotes lifelong learning. There are partnerships with different departments and services. A notable part of learning takes place outside formal education. There are a lot of work-based learning- and flexible learning-routes for adults. We find an example of this in CFI Olympe, that we visited, they have cooperation between different levels of social work (local level, department level, state level) and they also try to find out suitable learning ways for people in cooperation with other institutions. 3. The key to develop successful ideas and strategies in a learning community are those people with the insight and the energy to take the leadership role. Good leadership can be a promoter to learning. You can make use of already existing leadership-capabilities or/and develop leadership skills in people of all sectors of community. 4. There are many tasks for an adult educator to get citizens involved in a learning community. How can a community satisfy the learning needs of people without knowing what these needs are? Community workers have to focus on small communities within territorial communities like for instance a youth-movement, the self-employed people,... and do outreaching work there. When you get information about the needs of the different target-groups and small communities, it is easier to offer suitable possibilities to participate. 5. Providing updated information about what is going on, both inside and outside the community is also a task for adult education. 6. The role of an adult educator is also being a general activator. The true learning community is outward looking. No community can have a monopoly of knowledge. Learning community encourages links between citizens of all ages and races in the other communities. The task of an adult educator is to bring different people together and keep/make them tolerant. One fear expressed in our group is, that the community may become too strong and doesn't want to cooperation with other communities. That is why adult educators have to promote links and contacts between different communities. They have to avoid that communities become islands. We would like to use here the concept 'semi-permeable community' : a community with clear borders, with a clear distinction between the inside and the outside, which gives it identity but still with possibilities for some input from the outside. In this context, an adult educator has a double role to play. On the one hand he has to be the voice of the community in the outside to have an influence in matters that concerns the community. Also the announcement of the activities and developments in the community outside the community is an important task. On the other hand, information from outside the community has to reach the community. 7. People often need personal objectives to respond positively to learning opportunities. Adult educators can help to develop personal learning plans and provide mentoring and counseling. For example in the organization CFI Olympe, they developed personal learning plans for disadvantaged people. 8. How can you find innovative ways of encouraging all citizens to participate? Attractiveness and high quality of the activities are crucial factors in individual's decision to connect to communities. Making part-time engagement possible also promotes participation in the different activities because it creates a bigger accessibility. Besides the stress on innovation in the ways to approach people, we want to add the growing attention to innovative kinds of communities themselves. The increasing mobility and the revolutionary distribution of new technologies are some of the reasons for a shift in attention in looking towards communities. Next to the traditional territorial perspective (the community as a 'consciousness of space'), other perspectives become more and more object of research and practice of adult education. For instance the perspective of communities as networks open up possibilities to give an answer to actual problems or changes. Involved in the evaluation of the young local initiative of 'food-teams' gave one of us the possibility to experience the restrictions, challenges and possibilities for adult education in this kind of network 9. Adult educators also have to think about sustainable strategies to help wealth-creation and employment in the community. But access to the labor market doesn't always mean that people feel integrated. Also social environments are an important promoter for integration. 10. When the result of learning is joyful, it encourages lifelong learning. Therefore, learning programs have to be adjusted to different learning styles and needs. Adult education alone can't bring the individual and the community closer together, but it can be a promoter to reduce tension between them by creating participation- and integration possibilities. A learning community is one way towards integration and participation and to reach a good balance between the individual and the collectivity. Because nowadays people not always belong to one community anymore, outreaching work becomes important. Because occasional connections with a short-time membership are nowadays a popular way to build up your own 'narrative', adult education can contribute to this development by helping people to connect to new communities (the role of information!) and by giving support and guidance to formulate their personal lifelong-learning-plans. A big task of adult education is to find out what kind of participation and learning possibilities it has to offer to disadvantaged groups. Special attention to the creation of suitable participation-channels is needed. In this context, adult education has a role in changing the "bad" image of learning (and participation) some people have. If learning gives a satisfaction, it promotes lifelong learning. Hake, B.J. (1998). Lifelong learning and the European Union: A critique from a "risk society" perspective. Lline, 1, 54-59. Longworth, N. (1997). Learning community- Wishful or practical thinking? Lline, 1,16-20. Verbeke, L. (1997). Participatie van bewoners in stedelijke vernieuwing. Vorming, 13 (2), 83-112. IN ORGANIZATIONS Week 29 March to 9 April 1999 module four/five René Bouwen - Pilar Pineda This paper is the result of an intercultural group-work considering the fourth and fifth module of the program, respectively "Organization and Management" and "Labor and In-company Training". Never before in human history businesses and social organizations had to cope with so many fundamental changes. Not only internal pressures of for instance new technologies and the changing structures or attitudes threaten the survival of organizations, also external pressure in the economic and political environment have to be mentioned here (Bouwen, 1991, p.37). For example in Holland the flow towards working with large-scale organizations in the field of youth-care is one of the main causes of fundamental changes in social organizations at the moment. It is in this context that our case considering a merger of two organizations for foster-care, can be situated. The resemblance of our case with cases in other sectors or countries, the complexity of the consequences of a merger, the amount of organizational aspects that are involved in or influenced by a merger, are strong arguments for our choice to work further on this case. All the named aspects make this specific case interesting for applications and links with the field of adult education. 1. This merger, resulting in one organization for foster-care, will be described in the first part of this paper. A description of the organization for foster-care after the merge and the characteristics of the two former organizations will be given. 2. Starting from the description of the situation given in the first part, we'll work out in the second part of this paper a way to improve the existing situation by following a sequence for initiating and managing change developed by Kolb and Frohman. We see this educational intervention as a way of generating change after the implementation, as a reactive path to organizational change necessary because of an internal pressure, namely stress and negativity among the workers. In analyzing this reactive path of guiding an organizational change, we'll focus on aspects of organizational development. In this application, we'll start from the assumption that, confronted with stress and tension on the workplace 10 months after the merger (June 1998), an appeal was made on the guidance of a consultant to optimize the change-process focusing the strengths and problems of the organization. 3. In the third part of this paper we answer the question "how can we as adult educators, imagining that the merger wasn't implemented yet, introduce the change in a constructive way with a long-term process in mind?" We see the answer to this question as a pro-active path to organizational change caused by external pressure, namely the political decision to merge. The introduction of the merger in both involved organizations, gives us room for planning in-company training as a tool for preparing the employees to the future change. We start from the assumption that to prepare the involved organizations to the future change, a consultant is recruited six months before the implementation of the merger (March 1997). The following figure (4.1) tries to clarify the difference between both paths to the implementation of change, including the time-factor:
Figure 4.1 CASE-STUDY As was mentioned in the introduction, there is a flow towards large-scale organizations in the field of youth-care in Holland. As a consequence, many small organizations are obliged to merge to form larger organizations. The organization we describe in this paper is an organization resulting from such a merger between a middle large organization for foster-care (MLO, about thirty people) and a small organization for special foster-care (SO, about ten people), dealing with foster-families who take care of children who are on the edge of belonging to foster-care. The decision to merge was taken in March 1997. The merger became a fact in September 1997. Before giving a description of the organization for foster-care in paragraph one and giving the characteristics of the two former organizations in paragraph two, we want to make the following remark. The description of the organization is given by one of us who worked in this organization during her apprenticeship. The place was provided by the former MLO. We are aware of the fact that her story is not totally objective, because she was part of the organization for ten months and thereby involved in the change process. 1. Organization for foster-care The goal of the organization for foster-care is to mediate between foster families and foster children to provide a safe and loving home for children who cannot live with their parents because of all kinds of problems. The organizational structure of the organization for foster-care is given in the following figure (4.2). The numbers between brackets represent the number of employees.
Figure 4.2 After the merger the former president of the MLO became the general president of the organization. The former president of the SO for special foster-care became the head of staff. The staff consist of the head of the staff, two team-coordinators (one of the coordinators guided two teams), a behavioral scientist, a psychologist (from the former SO) and a (family)system scientist. Three forms of foster-care can be distinguished; foster-care in crisis situations, foster-care in networks of extended family and friends and long-term foster-care. For each form of foster-care there was a team formed in the organization. Each team was composed out of: - the coordinator of the team (also staff-member) The workers of the former SO were divided over the three teams. The way of working in the organization after the merger was based almost completely on the way of working in the MLO. Their way of working was precisely described and criteria for quality of the work were developed. The workers from the former SO had to adopt this (for them) new way of working. Because of the small size of their former organization, their way of working had been less explicitly described. They were used to talk about their cases thoroughly with their colleagues and were able to consult a child-psychiatrist and a psychologist whenever they felt like it. Adopting the new way of working meant for them, that they only knew about the cases of their colleagues by means of paper reports. There was a lot of resistance against the "obliged" merger from the part of the workers of the former SO. The child-psychiatrist was fired because he was totally not willing to cooperate. Without the child-psychiatrist and their way of working, the workers of the former SO felt unarmed. This resulted in a lot of stress and tension and people staying home from work. Co-operation and partnership in the period after the merger became impossible. The workers of the former SO felt as if they totally lost their own identity and felt that decisions were being made for them. They wanted to form a fourth team in the organization for foster-care, but forces in the field of youth-care made this way of organizing impossible. The organization was divided in two groups and people talked about "we and them". 2. Characteristics of the two former organizations To understand the case study better, we give in this paragraph the characteristics of the MLO and the SO before the merger. The description is based on the questionnaire of Vokipo (Bouwen, De Cock & De Witte, 1998). Note that after the merger the way of working of the MLO was more or less taken over for the entire organization.
RETRO-ACTIVE PATH TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE Starting from the description of the case-study in the first part, we'll work out an imaginary situation in which we'll focus on the following question: how can we, as adult educators, confronted with a merged organization characterized by a negative sphere of frustration and tension (June 1998- see figure 4.1), try to optimize the further development of this organization? The sequence for initiating and managing change developed by Kolb and Frohman will be the red line in our analysis of the change-process. As mentioned in the overall introduction, we see this educational intervention as a way of generating change after the implementation as a reactive path to organizational change caused by internal pressure, namely stress and negativity among the workers. We start from the assumption that, confronted with stress and tension on the workplace 10 months after the merger (June 1998), an appeal was made on the guidance of a consultant to optimize the change-process focusing the strengths and problems of the organization. In the first paragraph we analyze the case study a little further in order to understand the situation better. We do this by means of the idea of different kinds of organizations and the organizational learning cycle described by Poell, Tijmensen & Van der Krogt (1997). In paragraph two, we discuss what can be done to improve the existing situation in the organization for foster-care. 1. What forces are present in this organization? 1.1 A mixture of professional bureaucracy and adhocracy Seven different kinds of organizations can be distinguished: simple structure, machine bureaucracy, professional bureaucracy; divisionalized form; adhocracy, missionary organizations and political organizations. We see our organization as a mixture of professional bureaucracy and adhocracy. We will give some examples to illustrate this idea using the organizational design of Mintzberg that was discussed during classes. The matrix organization of an adhocracy can be recognized in the organizational structure of the organization in our case. The three different forms of foster-care (crisis, network and long-term) can be seen as three different markets. Staff, family research, matching, social work and behavior science can be seen as the different functional groups within each of these three different markets of the organization. The key means of coordination in our case are at the one hand mutual adjustment because the work is coordinated in the teams composing out people with different expertise. On the other hand also standardization of skills is a mean of coordination; all different expertise/functional groups are specialized in foster-care and in the organization there is a strong emphasis on developing the field of foster-care. As we focus on unit size, we see that in our case the organizational structure is wide at bottom (the teams) and narrow elsewhere (there are only two authority figures: the general president of the organization and the head of staff). The organization in our case was meant to be a horizontal organization where everybody had the same voice. Looking at the ideological force within the organization, we see that the MLO and the SO didn't have the same psychological foundation; their main philosophy(s) differed. The former MLO was based on the attachment theory, the former SO was based on behavior theory. We also think that the definitions of for instance teamwork and communication probably differed between the two organizations. The former organizations also differed in the power structure. We have the idea that in the former SO the child-psychiatrist had much authority, whereas in the former MLO the authority was more equally divided. 1.2 The organizational learning cycle Now, we want to reflect on the change-process as a whole and make an analysis of the organizational learning process of our case. Because we think the implementation of a merger can be seen as a learning-process on the part of the, in this case, two former organizations we want use the organizational learning cycle of Poell, Tijmensen & Van der Krogt (1997) to analyze the process.
Figure 4.3 (Poell, Tijmensen & Van der Krogt, 1997) In the organizational learning cycle four steps can be distinguished. The last step in the organizational learning cycle generates more information, which restarts the cycle. We will link these steps to the characteristics of learning potential in contexts. In our analysis, we will mention the main elements of each step in the organizational learning cycle, afterwards we analyze our case study in the light of the step mentioned. Before starting we want to remark that involvement on the part of the workers and support for the workers are crucial in all the steps of the learning cycle. 1. Widespread generation and information The first step in the learning cycle is the giving of information in the two directions. Why is the merger necessary? What are the reasons to merge? What will be the concrete changes? What are the consequences of the merger for the workers themselves? What are the implications of the merger for their way of working from before the merger? And, how did the workers of both organizations perceive the merger? The goal of this providing and giving of information is to achieve involvement on the part of the workers. In our case study the merger was forced because of the flow in the overall youth-care system to large-scale organizations. We are not sure if the workers of both former organizations understood what the philosophy behind the flow to large-scale organizations was. Understanding and acceptance of the reason for the merger seems very important to feel involved in it. Analyzing the case study we got the idea that there may have been a misunderstanding in the communication about the concrete changes the merger would bring about. There seemed to be different understandings of the concept teamwork and of the new structure of the organization between the two former organizations. That is why we want to stress the importance of cognitive clarity in learning-processes of organizations like a merger. So two sided and open information is very important; the staff of the organization has to inform the workers of the merger, the workers on the other hand have to have the opportunity to give feedback to the staff before ideas to change an organization are a given fact. So, timing of providing information and opportunities for communication is essential. 2. Integration of new/local information into the organizational context To integrate new information into the organizational context, confrontation of differences, open communication and appreciation of diversity (safety to say things) are of vital importance. It seems that in our case study there was no open communication on the concrete level about the diversity of working between the two former organizations before the merger. The real confrontation of differences was in working together in daily life after the merger. The feelings of resistance of the workers can be an indication that there was no appreciation of diversity, but they can also have caused no appreciation of diversity. 3. Collective interpretation of information In our group there was a little confusion about the difference between step 2 and step 3 of the organizational learning cycle. The two steps are closely linked. As we see it, individual integration of new information into the organizational context (step 2) is necessary for and can lead to collective interpretation of information (step 3). It is very important that the workers in our organization develop a collective way of interpretation, but within that collective interpretation every worker still is an individual with his or her own values and viewpoints. So appreciation of diversity within the collective interpretation is also very important. 4. Having authority to take responsible action based on the interpreted meaning. Authority figures have to listen to the voices of the workers of their organization in two ways. First they have to be sensible to the existing problems of the workers and use this as information to develop ideas for organizational changes. On the other hand workers must have the opportunity to give feedback on proposed organizational changes. In our case study it seems that the people from the former SO thought it was no use to give feedback; they seem to feel that everything was being decided for them. They seem to experience no sounding board! Looking at the overall process of the merger, the process went too fast in our opinion. We want to stress here again the importance of timing in organizational changing processes. 2. Reactive path to improve the existing situation Starting from the description of the case-study given in part one of this paper and after analyzing the situation at hand a little bit more, we where thinking about what we can do to improve the situation in our case-study. To change things in our case study, somebody from outside is needed: an objective person who is not part of the fight. This person can provide the organization for foster-care "knowledge from outside" that exists next to the knowledge from inside. An adult educator can play the role of consultant (the role we practiced in the simulation assignment). One of the main tasks is to create an open and safe communication climate. To structure the process of improving the situation in the organization for foster-care, an adult educator (in the role of consultant) can make use of the sequence for initiating and managing change developed by Kolb and Frohman. It is a seven-stage process. For each stage, we will mention some elements we think are very important in that stage. Whenever possible we will refer to our case study.
Figure 4.4 Sequence for initiating and managing change by Kolb and Frohman In this stage of orientation in the organization, a consultant has to orient herself in order to get grip on the situation at hand. We recognize this stage in the description of the case study we gave earlier in this paper. When the consultant really enters the organization, it is very important that there is a clear "psychological contract" between the organization and the consultant. It should be clear what the role of the consultant will be during the process of change in the organization; what will the consultant do and what will he not do? We think a consultant has to be a facilitator, a person who helps the workers so that they can advice themselves in the future. The attitude of the consultant has to be one of objectivity and acknowledging. The appreciative approach, where the consultant focus on the competencies, forces and energy among the workers in the organization, is according to us the best way to establish a positive relationship between the people of the organization and the consultant and thereby to motivate the people for change. In our case-study, the consultant should make it perfectly clear that he will not choose sides, otherwise the people of the former SO could see him/her as an instrument to fulfill their needs. He should also emphasize that it is not only the product but also the process of the change that is important in forming good relationships and social cohesion between the workers. The consultant should be very supportive in the situation to create acceptance and motivation from the side of the workers, but he should leave enough distance to have a objective view on the situation; 'It must be possible to find ways to combine in an open relationship the support and the confrontational aspect' (Bouwen, 1995, p. 10). By emphasizing the existing competencies (and recognizing the difficulties), a good relationship between the workers and the consultant can be established. 'It is only when the relational process get stuck that adaptation is in danger and that change becomes a difficult task' (Bouwen; 1998, p. 304). In the stage of making a diagnosis, we want to stress the importance of shared ownership of the change. 'The question is: how can we frame change so that each voice from different and unequal positions can be heard in an assembly with equivalent seats' (Bouwen, 1995, p.11). Every worker in the organization for foster-care should have the opportunity to tell the consultant (and his colleagues) what he or she experiences as the main problems (What caused their irritation?) and (for the stage of planning and action) how these problems according to them can be solved best. There should be multivoiceness and an appreciation of different perspectives. The consultant should use this knowledge from inside together with his knowledge from outside to formulate, in cooperation with the workers, a diagnosis and to make plans for action. The diagnosis can be made on three different levels; technological, structural and relational level. Looking from outside now, we think the main problem in the organization for foster-care is situated at the relational level. Although we think this level should be the main focus of action, the workers of the organization have to find out for themselves what they think the main focus of the process of change should be. The consultant can help them by asking them about their experiences and categories them on the different levels mentioned above. An analysis of the past can provide the consultant information that is useful in the stage of formulating a diagnosis (but also in the stage of planning and action). In our case study two pasts can be distinguished (see figure 4.1): (a) the period before the merger (= the different past) and (b) the period after the merger (= the common past). Both pasts contain a lot of useful information for the consultant, and therefore need the consultant's attention. The period after the merger can also be called "the first change process" whereas the period after the entry of the consultant can be seen as "the second change process". The irritations of the first change process that especially the workers of the former SO showed, seem to be utterances of resistance. Resistance can be seen as a source of energy (people do care!), that when transformed can become a drive in the second change process. In the diagnosis we should also focus on the capacities (of the workers) of the organization after the merger. Although there were a lot of problems, many workers handled the situation after the merger in a certain way. Which 'survival' strategies did they use? Can these strengths be used in changing the organization so that they can learn from each other? The consultant has to work from the existing capacities. Here we can recognize the idea of "Empowerment". In making a diagnosis and planning action, it is important for a consultant to have in mind the different learning-outcomes of the employees. If we considering organizational change as a learning-process (see 1.2) we have to be aware that learning can lead to conformity and perpetuation of work rules or to innovation in the context and conduct of those rules (Maanen & Schein, 1979 in Smylie, 1995, p.96). A merger brings about a change on the collective and individual level and creates a lot of learning-possibilities. Change asks for reaction on the new situation; a new environment needs new behavior, new attitudes etc.. Determined by time and context, the individual learner can make use of those learning possibilities. Characteristics of the organizational environment and personal past learning experiences influence the learning outcomes of the individual learner. Smylie (1995, p.96) distinguishes different learning-outcomes: (a) habitual reaction based on presuppositions (b) non-consideration of the situation as a learning opportunity (c) rejection of new learning (d) preconscious learning (e) behavioral change (f) memorization of new information (g) contemplation (h) reflective practice and (i) experimental or scientific inquiry. The first three (a, b and c) can be categorized as non-learning, the next three (d,e and f) as non-reflective learning and the last ones (g, h and i ) as reflective learning. If we want to innovate and improve the existing situation, if we want to stimulate a continuing learning organization, we have to promote reflective learning: conceptual change, reflective thinking, experimentation and innovation. Also in this stage of planning it is crucial that the workers feel that there is "shared ownership of change"; what things do they want to change and how? After analyzing this, a common goal for the organization has to be formulated. One of the short-term goals in the second change process of the organization for foster-care could be changing the image of the common past. The workers have to learn to see this period as a learning experience for them and for the organization as a whole. There is a lot of research that describes the relationship between learners and their environment. Summarizing the main result of research on this topic, we can describe a working environment that promotes learning in the workplace (Smylie, 1995, p. 103-107). One of the most salient conditions is opportunity for individuals to work and learn with and from others on an ongoing basis. It provides individuals a greater variety of sources of information and ideas. A second condition concerns collaboration in group-work. Here, the importance of open communication and examination of taken-for-granted beliefs and assumptions in work and learning is stressed. A third related condition concerns the distribution of power and authority. A similar position or status (egalitarism) and shared power and authority allows more freedom and flexibility for critical thinking and analysis. Fourth, variation, challenge, autonomy and choice in work appear to promote learning. Finally, the presence of feedback-mechanisms and integration of work and learning are the main conditions that create a learning environment. To support the learning- and change-process of individuals and the collectivity, it is important to take these workplace conditions into account in planning organization development activities. In the stage of planning and action the recognition of the differences between workers in main learning-styles, learning experiences and learning-pace is also important. In line with this, each worker needs individualized feedback and support. When planning actions for change, the consultant has to keep in mind that an organization is a system; when he changes one part of the system, this has consequences for other parts of the system and for the system as a whole. Evaluation is very important in change processes. Four forms of evaluation can be distinguished: initial evaluation in the planning of the change-process, process evaluation during the change, final evaluation to see if the goals of the change-process are met and post evaluation to see if the change is really being implemented. The consultant has to pay attention to all of these four forms of evaluation. If the evaluation shows that the action did not result in the expected goals, the consultant must go back to the planning phase. The consultants' task is to stimulate, open up communication between the workers of the two former organizations and to give information, feedback and guidance in the process of change. One of his goals has to be that the organization is able to control and direct autonomous the seven stages of organizational change without the support of the consultant. That is why we think it is so important that the consultant works on the strengths of the organization. As we see it, in the retro-active path to change, support for the workers by the consultant, creating involvement on the part of the workers and a sphere of appreciation of diversity is essential for real organizational development. Also two-sided and open information between members of the organization and between the workers and the consultant is of vital importance. Communication is the first step: it is an offer and an invitation for two-sided interaction (Bouwen, 1998, p. 305). It is by dialogue that new meaning can be created among the speakers and in this way a real organization, in the sense of a community of shared meaning, can be constructed. Note that meaning is a continuous constructing process: it is an ongoing and never-ending process. In the whole process of organizational development, the time factor must be taken into account. PRO-ACTIVE PATH TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE As described in the first part of this paper, the merger caused a lot of negative reactions among the people in the 'new' organization for foster-care. In this third part we want to go back in the past (before the implementation), trying to deal with the decision to merge both organizations in a pro-active way. Although the organizations themselves didn't follow the pro-active way to change in reality, in this second part we want to do the whole process over again like a kind of a thinking experiment. As was mentioned in the overall introduction, we start from the assumption that to prepare the involved organizations to the future change, a consultant is recruited six months before the implementation of the merger (March 1997). 1. Training as a proactive answer Where the development of the organization was the main focus of the consultant in the guidance of the change-process after the merger, the introduction of a merger in our opinion, demands a focus on the individual level. Because of the big consequences of the decision to merge for the individual worker (he will work in a new environment, with new people, maybe on a different task, in a other role, structure and culture,...) new knowledge, skills and attitudes are needed. Individual acceptance of the change is a first important step in the change-process to prevent negative reactions afterwards and to strengthen the motivation of the individual worker. Moreover, the focus on the individual permits the recognition of individual fears, questions and needs. The choice we made for Organizational Development (or OD-) activities in the first part (reactive path to change) was based on the knowledge that organization development focus on the organization first, on the interrelationships of people and units within the organization, on structures and communications- but not on the individual. The focus on the whole organization in a reactive path to change can be justified by our analysis of the situation after the merger. Of course individual and organizational development are closely knit together: people develop because an organization develops and the organization develops because people grow to new dimensions (Laird, 1985, p.12). In this part we want to explore the opportunities of in company training for a successful introduction of a big organizational change with consequences on the organizational, but also on the individual level. Confronted with a future structural (and cultural) change on the organizational level, training can be an important tool to prepare all employees for the new work situation. Of course training is not the only answer. For a good result the support of non-educational (structural and strategic) decisions and actions is needed. Choosing for training as a tool to introduce change demands a careful process of successive actions (Pilar Pineda). The first step in planning training is studying the strategic plan (1) of the organization. Well-informed of the strategic plans and possibilities of participation in this plans, a need-assessment (2) and formulating of the training aims (3) becomes important. Both activities result in a training plan (4), the starting point of the real design (5) of the training activities. After the implementation (6), the results (7) have to be evaluated. Besides a previous initial and process evaluation, a post-evaluation linked to the strategic plan may not be forgotten.
Figure 4.5 2. 1 Organization's strategic plan Confronted with the demand of preparing the employees for a planned merger, the first task of a consultant is the study of the organization's strategic plan. This plan will tell us that in the near future (September 1997) a merger between two organizations for foster-care due to external political pressure, is planned. The structure of the new organization will be the structure of the MLO. The people of the SO will be divided over the three existing teams (supra). Facing the strategic plan, a first important question has to be taken into account: Is there a possibility as a consultant, to influence this plan? Is there a way to criticize this plan? Do we have to accept it as a given fact or is there some openness to modification? If the strategic plan is fixed and closed for any questioning or new input, the consultant has the task to search for clear acceptable reasons for the decisions described in the plan. The employees have the right to be well informed. A strategic plan with openness to modifications is of course desirable. Such a plan of the 'how, what & why' of the merger, which can adapt to (new) needs, questions or problems that arise from the basis will optimize the process of change. The task of the consultant in this case is to look for channels that provide participation of the employees in the strategic plan. If you 're faced with a lack of freedom, as the first situation describes, you can only try to 'do the things right'' or, in other words, to search for the best way to implement the strategic plan. Freedom for modifications permits you to 'do the right things'. It gives you the possibility to find out which strategic plan is the best for the organizational change. The knowledge of the strategic plan of the merger permits a clear view of the demands on the employees. Attitudes of acceptance of the merger , flexibility, being able to work in new teams, in a new structure,... are examples of demands referring to the organizational change. Besides an organizational analysis, a person-, task- and KSA (knowledge, skills, attitudes)-analysis on the side of the members of both organizations will provide an overview of their individual and group-characteristics. Questions as 'which kind of training did they already had in the past?', 'Which skills, knowledge and attitudes do they already have?',.... have to be posed. In this context, training can be seen as a way to over-bridge the gap between the requirements of the merger explicated to the workers and the needs and prerequisites of the workers themselves. Interviews with the people involved in the change, research about previous training and education of the workers, questionnaires which give information about skills, knowledge and attitudes, are examples of instruments useful to provide relevant information. Suppose that, after processing and classifying data, those instruments would bring up the following information:
Note that this need-analysis is done by research. A continuing check-up during the change-process is needed. The process of need-analysis results in a clear formulation of the training aims. In formulating the training-goals, it is important to have their double function in mind: on the one hand they give the direction, the focus of the training in the change-process; on the other hand, they are guidance during the final evaluation. Closely linked to the previous formulated needs, several training aims for the employees can be written down. Knowing that there are of course more aims, we want to give some examples: INFORMATION
COMMUNICATION
TEAMBUILDING
- giving people the possibility to get to know each other better - giving room for reflection on their previous way of working - stimulating appreciation of diversity - making them aware of the richness of working together with another organizations - ...
The previous phases result in a training plan: a document where the learning-needs and aims are carefully written down. The more concrete the objectives are described, the more they contribute to a clear evaluation afterwards. Remember that the training plan is a guide for the implementation of the training but openness to revise this plan, based on new information, is recommended. After careful research about the strategic plan of the organization and the training needs and aims resulting in a training plan, the training-program has to be designed. Here the main work is done by a designer in close relationship with the consultant and an instructor. A clear diagnosis of the target-group, concrete training-objectives and evaluation criteria, a well-considered selection or development of content and methods, using different and relevant resources, are the most important topics to work on in this phase of designing. Because a detailed design of a concrete training-program would lead us to far in this paper, we only want to give a few suggestions:
Notes: We want to stress the importance of 'daily-work'-training: the pro-active training must be closely linked with the daily work of the people involved. Working and learning can not be separated. First of all the work must go on. Asking the employees to spend a part of their time on training for change can cause negative feelings towards this change. The training must create for both parties a win-win situation. During the training, the employees have to see and experience the positive aspect of the merger, namely that both organizations can complete each other and create together one strong organization with room for everybody's talents. Secondly, the training sessions where the employees work together on a professional task closely linked to their daily work, gives, beside the professional product at the end, the possibility to learn from each other. Besides the product, especially the process of the suggested projects is very important. Feedback and reflection provided by the guidance of the trainer are indispensable tools for real learning. 2.6 Implementation of the plan During the implementation of the training-program, continuing evaluation of the process gives the possibility to adjust the objectives, methods or content of the program if needed. A permanent reflection on the training plan in dialogue with the training-practice, permits a closer knit of training and needs of the involved employees. New needs can appear, presupposed needs can disappear: a check-up of the diagnosis on which the training is based, is possible when interacting with the target-group. Thereby, new information from the basis can be communicated to the top, which opens up possibilities of non-educational solutions like a revising of the strategic plan. Change is a learning-process, which involves the whole organization. The carefully described objectives in the training-plan permit a final evaluation of the process, but we are aware that many learning-outcomes are complex and difficult to evaluate. Note that the people themselves, employees and staff, may not be forgotten as partners in the evaluation. Only by reflecting on their previous formulated personal objectives, a real evaluation is possible. Evaluation is a reflective dialogue. The thinking experiment of this third part gave us the possibility to explore the (educational) decisions and steps that are important in preparing a constructive implementation of a big organizational change. The involvement of all members, no matter from what level they are or which role in the organization they play, in a two-side open dialogue seems to be the basis for successful change. The concept of change-agent can be used here to describe the role of the employees. We are aware that total involvement is more easily reached in a small organization than in a large organization, where real participation of all workers is quite optimistic or even naive. Considering training as a tool to implement change, the close knit of learning and working has to be the basic assumption in planning concrete training activities. Finally, we want to stress the importance of the time-factor in planning an implementation of organizational change: learning is a process, determined by time and context. A good use of time and a constructive and positive environment are extremely important. The experience of the whole planning process strengthens our statement that, like many other social phenomena, it is better to foresee and avoid problems on the forehand, then waiting and trying to solve the negative consequences of problems afterwards.
Bomers, G. B. J. (1991). De lerende organisatie. Gids voor de opleidingspraktijk, 8. Bouwen, R., De Cock, G., & De Witte, K. (1988). Vokipo, organizational climate index for profit organizations. Bouwen, R., & Fry, R. (1991). Organizational innovation and learning. International Studies of Mgt. & Org., 21(4), pp. 37-51. Bouwen, R., & Steyaert, C. (1995). From dominant frames towards multi-voiced co-operation: mediating metaphors for global change. Paper prepared for the Academy of Management Joint Divisional Conference on The Organization Dimensions of Global Change: No limits to cooperation. Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit. Bouwen, R. (1998). Relational construction of meaning in emerging organization contexts. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 7(3), pp. 299-319. Laird, D. (1985). Approaches to Training & Development (pp. 5-6). New York: Addison-Wesly. Poell, R., Tijmensen, L., & Krogt, F. van der. (1997). Can learning projects help to develop a learning organization? Lline, 2, 67-71. Smylie, M. A. (1995). Teacher learning in the workplace: Implications for school reform. In: T. R. Guskey & M. Huberman (Eds.). Professional development in education. New paradigms, (pp. 92-113). New York/ London. ADULT EDUCATION
AND SOCIAL POLICY Week 12 to 16 April 1999 module six Licínio Lima - Danny Wildemeersch DESCRIPTION OF TWO POLICY MODELS OF LIFELONG LEARNING
This paper is the result of an intercultural group-work considering the sixth module of the program: Adult education and social policy: an international perspective. In this first part of the paper, our goal is to give a short and objective description of the two policy models. In the two other parts of this paper, our personal opinions and values are more present: in the selection of the contradictions and paradoxes and in our perspective for the future. 1.1 The Social-Democratic policy model In this model the state has a redistributive role and is focused on obtaining equality and emancipation of the citizens (welfare). To reach these goals, the state develops a strong regulation and defines both the means and the ends of education and training. The state guarantees the educational provision for which it is responsible. To ensure this offer, a strong developed organization and administration is required, and therefore an intact welfare state is needed to organize initiatives and to provide the necessary financial means to associations. 1.2 The Neo-Liberal policy model The Neo-liberal policy model must be seen in the light of the globalized market and fast technological change and the social and economic crisis of the welfare state. The goal of learning is economic growth and increased productivity and competitiveness. The underlying assumptions are: 'Learning is a crucial factor for economic growth', 'Economic growth is, if not a necessary condition, certainly a facilitator for achieving equity' and 'A high-skilled labor force will cause a high wage economy' (Soobrayan, 1998, p.106-110). Individuals have to adapt themselves to the demands of the competitive market. Learning is seen as an instrument for the economic competitiveness; this means that notions with an intrinsic value like citizenship and emancipation are excluded from the discourse. For Neo-liberals, social policy consists of a set of programs for people who are at risk on the labor market (Jansen & Van Der Veen, 1997, p.272) . Learning is also focused on creating opportunities for individuals to be better integrated into society (through labor). Due to the economic crisis of the welfare state, the state is withdrawing itself more and more from public policy-making as part of a strategy to reform the welfare state. By giving the responsibility to the individuals, the market and civil society to create learning-opportunities, the state can reduce its expenses on education. The role of the state is reduced to correct the most exuberant excesses of the free market (workfare and post-welfare). Because the state has abandoned it's redistributive role, the differences between groups in society become larger and the labor market becomes highly segmented. We see in the discourses as well as in the practices a shift from the Social-Democratic to the Neo-Liberal side of the spectrum. Some examples of this shift will be given below. The justifications that are often given for the shift are the social and economic crisis of the welfare state and the competition on the global market. In the Neo-liberal model, the demands of the global economy are accepted without any kind of questioning (Schied, Howell, Carter & Preston, 1998). a) In the discourses
b) In the practices
3. Contradictions and paradoxes In this part of the paper we want to do more than only presenting a list of contradictions and paradoxes. In a first step, we will categorize the different kinds of contradictions. If possible we will mention, in a second step, the underlying general principle; the conclusion (Þ ). We can distinguish two main categories of contradictions: contradictions in one model and contradictions between discourses and practices. Next to these two main categories, you can also distinguish contradictions between different levels of policy formation. This means that there are five categories:
a) Social-Democratic discourse and Neo-Liberal practice
Faure developed his theory as a way to bring about educational reform; a way of developing civil society and democracy. A vertically and horizontally integrated and democratized system of education would result in what he called "learning society". Faure's language is still used, but the emancipatory potential of his report is wounded. Now the concept of lifelong learning is used to enhance economic effectiveness. Accountability, standards, relevance to the needs of economy and cost effectiveness have become key-issues, not equality (Bossier, 1998). Þ In the Neo-liberal model, the more emancipatory and social concepts like lifelong learning, the learning society, the learning organization all serve the goal of economic growth. It's like Astrid said the concepts are drag queens. b) Neo-Liberal discourse and Social-Democratic practice Þ Due to the fact that most countries (and organizations) are maintaining their Social-Democratic discourse and only incorporate some elements of the Neo-Liberal discourse, it's difficult to find examples of contradictions between a Neo-Liberal discourse and Social-Democratic practice. c) Contradictions in the Neo-Liberal discourse
The concept of employability is focused on the training of people so they can get a job and/or keep their job. The competition on the global market forced enterprises to rationalize and this sometimes means that they have to fire some of their employees to obtain more profit. So the same discourse can be trying to reduce unemployment but creating unemployment at the same time.
Learners are free to choose the education they want, but the goal is almost always adaptation to the prescribed goals of the competitive market. Only functional goals are profitable, emancipatory goals don't pay-of for the organizations and thereby, they aren't offered on the market. The goal is fixed: adaptation to the demands of the market. There is only freedom of choice concerning the means to obtain this goal. There is no choice but to adapt in order to survive (Griffin, 1998a, p.1). This idea is often expressed by the following sentence "There is no alternative". Globalism, technology and the market have narrowed our scope for individual choice (Griffin, 1998b, p.6).
In the learning organization cooperation and teamwork are strongly valued, and at the same time there is competition with other organizations, and even with other teams inside the same company.
We believe that a state that still gives the necessary means to organizations, still has a lot of power, and thereby its' role stays, even if it's smaller then in the Social-democratic model, significant. Generalizing these contradictions, we believe the cause of most of the contradictions is created by the main characteristic of the Neo-liberal discourse: the goal of economic growth. All the other characteristics are secondary, and even instrumental to reach the goal of economic growth. Nice looking objectives like educational choice, de-politization, the learning society, individual responsibility, employability and flexibility aren't the primarily concerns of the Neo-liberal discourse, but rather instruments for the often hidden agenda of economic growth. d) Contradictions in the Social-Democratic discourse
This is not really a contradiction, but a failure of the welfare state in it's aims, because it did not remove the social inequalities it was intended to remedy (Griffin, 1998a 1, p.5).
We believe that if a learning process pretends to be emancipatory, there has to be a strong participation of the learners. In a policy model where the state regulates and offers a prescribed program, there is a big danger that patronization will be the result, instead of emancipation (what also was the case in the role-play). e) Contradictions in / between different levels of policy formation Licíno Lima presented four levels of policy formation: Figure 6.1 Contradictions can be found between these level, but also contradictions between organizations on one of the levels.
We believe the explanation for this kind of contradictions can be found in the specificity of each organization. Every organization has its proper role, goals, responsibility and competence. It's all in the name. 4. Exploring perspectives for the future of policy-making Before we start explaining "our way out", we want to make some remarks and give some attention-points.
Confronted with the current shit towards the Neo-liberal model, we want to pick out some 'useful' characteristics of each model to construct our own model. This might look like eclecticism, but we can't ignore reality. We aren't focused on restoring the social-democratic model in its pure form. We believe that an important part of a way out should consist of an acknowledgment of the role of the four actors: the state, the market, the associations and the learners. The different actors must be seen as partners who share the responsibility. The role of the state has changed, but we can't leave education only to the market. There is a need for an overall regulation of the system, managing autonomy and choice. The role of the state should be focused on:
In our perspective, we want to place two principals in the center: social justice and personal responsibility, two principals that keep each other in balance. Nobody wants to be born in a poor family, handicapped, or without language skills. We believe that individuals can't be responsible for the negative consequences of things that they didn't choose for. But we can say that an individual is responsible for the decision -if it is really a matter of free choice- to work for example part-time instead of full-time. This goes beyond the notion of equity in the Neo-liberal discourse, where people have the same starting point, but in the process of competition everybody is on his own. Equal starting points aren't sufficient because there is neither real freedom nor equality. Choices are determined by the personal situation and the evolution's and circumstances in society. Because of this the individual can't always be held responsible for his own choices. If we take these principals into account, we can conclude that the role of the state can't be limited to focus only on risk-groups and on correcting the most exuberant excesses of the market, but has a responsibility for society as a whole. This is why we think accessibility should be a central notion in the perspective for the future. Education as a basic right, can be threatened in the Neo-liberal model, and therefore must be restored. Education can't be limited to the smart and the rich. In our perspective for the future, there are some attentionpoints we want to put in the spotlight:
Boshier, R. (1998). Edgar Faure after 25 years; down but not out. In: J. Holford, P. Jarvis, & C. Griffin. International perspectives on lifelong learning (p. 3-20). London: Kogan Page. Griffin, C. (1998a). Lifelong learning as educational policy. Unpublished paper. Griffin, C. (1998b). Two models of lifelong learning. Unpublished paper. Healy, T. (1997). Lifelong learning for all. International experience and comparisons. Lline, 3, 170-177. Jansen, T., & Veen, R. van der (1992). Reflexive modernity, self reflective biography: Adult education in the light of the risk society. International Journal of Lifelong education, 11(4), 275-286. Schied, F. M., Howell, S. L., Carter, V. K., & Preston, J. A. (1998). Creating contingency workers: A critical study of the learning organization. In: J. Holford, P. Jarvis, & C. Griffin. International perspectives on lifelong learning (p. 280-290). London: Kogan Page. Soobrayan, B. (1998 ). From apartheid education to lifelong learning: Assessing the ameliorative potential of emerging education policy in South Africa. In: J. Holford, P. Jarvis, & C. Griffin. International perspectives on lifelong learning (p. 103-114). London: Kogan Page. FOUNDATIONS OF ADULT EDUCATION Week 19 April to 23 April 1999 module seven Lambert Mulder - Kari E. Nurmi In this paper we are going to discuss what the foundations of adult education are and what adult education means for us. Nowadays there is a growing attention for adult education: Is it/should it be a discipline of its own? What is the role of adult educator? The shift in thinking about education towards the concept of lifelong learning reflects the growing attention and recognition of adult education in different domains (social, political and economic area for example in the economic area new concepts and ideas arise in discussions like the idea that working and learning are closely knit together and the concept of learning organization...). Actual developments and changes in society influence the conceptual change and cause a growing demand for adult education: the explosion of the labor market, growing individualism, enhanced mobility (for example the growing number of refugees and migrants in European countries). Inside and outside the field of adult education questions as "What is adult education about? What is the role or the profile of an adult educator?" arise. Especially questions about and challenges for the professionalization of adult education as a separate discipline are a hot topic in the sector today. Even the striving for status can be recognized. Looking on international level, a lack of consistency in terminology for the sector of adult education often hampers those international discussions, with consequences for recognition of the sector for the outside. We experienced a lot of confusion about terminology in working in intercultural groups during the classes and in writing our papers; different terms have same meanings, while same terms can have different meanings. Many authors or other people involved in those discussions tried to define the concept adult education. Because of a comparison of all the already existing definitions of the concept is interesting but would lead us too far, we want to give our own, of course incomplete, definition of the concept adult education. This definition will change and develop in dialogue with others or in confrontation with the real practice. For us an adult educator is a "facilitator in the learning process of adults". We believe that the crucial aspect of facilitating learning, is helping people to reflect because reflecting is the basic of learning. In the first paragraph we are going to discuss the foundations of adult education (using intercultural comparison) and the distinction between theoretical and practical foundations. In paragraph two we focus on the practice of adult education. In paragraph three we mention some points that we think are relevant for the future of adult education. We will end the paper with our conclusions. 1. Foundations of adult education In this paragraph we discuss the foundations of adult education. We will distinguish to kinds of foundations: theoretical and practical foundations. Note that in reality a close knit between theory and practice can be recognized. To find out which are the foundations of adult education, we thought about the foundations of educational science in our own countries. We are aware of the fact that the intercultural comparison is not a comparison between countries, but only a comparison between universities, because between universities within one country accents on foundations can differ. Because our intercultural group consists of an orthopedagogic and an educationalist next to adult educators, it is difficult to compare the typical foundations of adult education in each country. As far as we can see, the foundations of adult education are similar to those of the overall educational science. It is only the choice of methodology in the curriculum that makes difference between the specializations. That is why we made a comparison concerning the foundations of the educational science in general.
We came to the conclusion that the foundations of (adult)education are quite similar in our countries. Four main foundations can be distinguished: psychology, sociology, philosophy and (pedagogical) history. The emphasis differs in the different countries. For example in Belgium psychology and sociology are mainly supporting foundations, in Finland the emphasis is very strong on the sociological foundation. We see statistics and methodology as the "foundation of the foundations", the way in which knowledge is reached in scientific way. They are needed in all the disciplines of science. In our opinion, by mentioning all these different foundations, we gave an academic point of view of the foundations of adult education. We think people in the field will not oversee all the mentioned foundations in their work if you ask them. They will not be aware of all of them in the practice. To be able to talk about the practice as a foundation, a distinction between two kinds of practice has to made: 1) practice based on theory and 2) practice founded by practice. The first one is the most known form of practice. You have a theory and the practice is based on that theory; theory is the basis for practice. For example when you are fixing a car, you can follow a theory of the functional model of a car. Following the theory, you know what you have to do in order to repair it in the right way. If you, as an adult educator working in the field, don't know the theory/principles or if there isn't any theory at all, you can use "trial and error" to fix the car. By reflecting (making explicit) on your actions, you develop your own theory. This theory is never free of values. A human being is no "tabula rasa", time and context interact and influence practice and thinking. People can create their theories by putting together (parts of) different existing theories and experiences they have had in the past. We recognize in this the principle of eclecticism, which according to us can be seen in this context as a very creative process. To create a theory based on practice, reflection on action is of vital importance. It is only by means of reflection, that a theory can reach the level of foundations. The regulative cycle, mentioned in the classes, goes around and around (problem definition, diagnosis, plan, intervention, evaluation, problem definition etc.) thereby innovating the theory until it reaches the level of scientific knowledge (foundation). Practice and academic research are both needed and influencing elements in this process. Like concepts need facts to become meaningful and vice versa. Practice and theory optimize each other, among others by mutual criticism. We asked ourselves the question when a theory based on practice can reach the level of scientific knowledge. Only when the theory fits all the characteristics of scientific knowledge (for example general validity), you can speak about a real practical/scientific foundation. Until that the theory only carries the potential of being a practical foundation. We want to make the following remark. Reflecting is the crucial factor of a change/learning process, but not everybody has developed this capacity to reflect. A task of an adult educator can be to help people reflect on their behavior and attitudes, in order to facilitate their learning processes. 2. Practice of adult education It seems that the theoretical foundations are almost the same in every country, but the practice can be quite different. There is for instance a lot of discussion about the fields of working and the profile of an adult educator. Not only between countries and disciplines, but also within countries (for instance between universities) and disciplines (for instance between professors within a certain university). We wonder if the agreement about the content of our program can be the predecessor of an international agreement about the concept of adult education because we think it reflects the main and similar interests in European countries.
The profile of an adult educator is not clear. In job-advertisements for example, they never specifically ask for an adult educator. You have to see for yourself if you could fit with the profile. Moreover, when people ask us "What can you do with your study in the future", we have no clear answer. We can end up working almost everywhere! We think the content of the modules of our program would have been totally different, if the modules where divided over the professors of the different countries in another way. The emphasis of the different elements of adult education differs between countries (and universities). We see in Belgium, Finland and Holland, that there is one discipline of adult education where you learn the knowledge and methodologies to become an adult educator. After graduating, you are confronted with the specific context and content of the organization you are going to work for. For example if you are going to work for an organization, which fights against sexual violence and abuse, you have to adapt to this specific context and content by learning new knowledge. In contrast, in USA there is no discipline of adult education. Students first study a certain content (for instance biology) and only in the last year of their studies, they choose the specialization of adult education. In our group we prefer seeing adult education as a separate discipline, because the students then become more specialized in the field of adult education and can work in a whole range of different fields and are not limited to work in only one field. This is an advantage, because flexibility is needed in the fast changing society we live in. In this paragraph, we also want to come back on the discussion during class around the question: "Should there be general rules (like for instance an ethical code) for the profession of adult education?" The formulation of general rules for being an adult educator can play a role in securing the quality of the profession. If there are some general rules where every adult educator should adapt to in order to be "a good" professional, there is some control on the quality of work. The difficulty of course is, to formulate the criteria for quality work. Who is going to define what is good or bad? Another difficulty of general rules is, that the content of being an adult educator differs, depending on the situation at hand. Does this mean that the concept of adult education is empty without context? Of course the context is a crucial factor, but we want to mention one basic principle, the principle of open communication. At the one hand this means that employers and adult educators should be open to one another. Adult educators are (often) recruited by companies, communities etc. to bring about change in behavior or attitudes of the members. To succeed in this, adult educators and employers should communicate openly and clearly about for instance the mutual expectations and the principles and ethics they use in the work. Without an agreement between employer and the adult educator around these topics, a working-relation becomes difficult. The question is how far an adult educator can go in following his principles, knowing that if he isn't willing to work according to the demands of the organization, another adult educator will take the job. Open communication on the other hand, is also important between the adult educator and the learner. Adult educators and learners should make agreements about what each of them will or will not do in their relation. A kind of contract, based on mutual trust should be established. A lot of research has pointed to the vital importance of the (good) quality of the relationship between learner and teacher in bringing about change in behavior and attitude. To keep a relation based on trust, we thing it is essential that the adult educator doesn't give information about the quality or competencies of the learner to third parties without the approval of the learner.
We wonder if it is needed or possible to form one international profile of adult education? In our opinion it is good that every country has its own interpretation of adult education, because adult education in a country reflects the needs, traditions and culture of that country. For example, in Belgium community life is very important, resulting in a great emphasis on community education within adult education. In Finland, for instance vocational training gets more emphasis in the field of adult education. The main challenge for adult education is to solve the terminology-problem. As already mentioned in the former paragraph, there is much confusion about meanings in the field of adult education. Before thinking about one general profile of adult education, we should focus on consistency in terminology between people, fields and nations. Therefore an international forum with representatives (universities, people from the practice) of the different nations must be created. In the classes we discussed the norms in society and purposes of education in post-modern time. It was mentioned that the most important norm in postmodern society should be an aesthetic way of living. We think adult education can support people in their decision making by creating forums for discussion and by facilitating the development of interaction skills. Professor K. Nurmi proposed that the purpose of education in post-modern society could be enjoyment. We think that there are other purposes of education next to the purpose of enjoyment. In today's society we can distinguish two educational systems: 1. Education for economical development If education is seen as a way to reach economical growth and effectiveness, people can be more or less forced to educate themselves to keep their place on the labor-market. Education in this sense seems to us more survival than enjoyment. If people don't see that the education contributes to self realization, they will validate it in a negative way. For example migrants can be pressured to learn in order to be allowed to stay in the country. They don't have an internal drive for learning but are forced and they will probably not enjoy the education. 2. Education to reach self realization We think that education can only bring enjoyment, if people see education as a way of realizing their selfhood.
Because of the many and fast changes in post-modern society, there is much discussion about adult education, also about the foundations of adult education. Four main theoretical foundations of adult education, that are more or less the same in the universities of our intercultural group, can be distinguished. Practical foundations will differ more between our countries, because when forming theories, people rely on their values and experiences, which are closely linked to culture. Reflection is very important to form practical foundations and therefore adult educators should stimulate this capacity in people. The practice of adult education differs very much between countries. Before thinking about one general profile of adult education, we should focus on consistency in terminology between people, fields and nations. Consistency will facilitate the communication between different countries, making it easier to learn from each other, what will contribute to the development of the theories and practices of adult education.
Adult education is getting more and more attention because of the role it can play in dealing with all the changes and risks in today's postmodern society. In the different modules, a lot of challenges for adult educators have been discussed. We want to give a summary of the main challenges here. Module Challenge for Adult Education
We want to focus especially on the following three challenges: partnership between the different actors involved in adult education, balance between the individual and the collectivity and equality in educational possibilities, as the main challenges for adult education
In the development of adult education as a discipline, a partnership between the different actors involved in practice and theory of lifelong learning is needed (multi-actor orientation). In this partnership the following actors can be distinguished: state and market, policy-makers of the different departments, universities and research-centers, media, governmental and non-governmental organizations, enterprises and employees, learners and adult educators. In the following text, we want to distinguish three kinds of partnerships/networks (see figure below) that are needed to reach two major goals that are related to each other: the optimalization and professionalization of both the science and practice of adult education and secondly the need for an integrative approach of the problems and challenges of today's society. The three partnerships can be seen as links, situated over two main
dimensions:1) science <-> practice and 2) inside <-> outside adult education.
The first network we want to discuss, is the partnership between the science and the practice of adult education. Theory and practice need each other for 1) legitimization, 2) innovation and 3) professionalization. Without dialogue and exchange of information, the practice loses its scientific foundation and the theory its reason of existence. An example of such a partnership can be found in this international program for adult education. Also the 'Andragogendagen', an annual Belgium/Holland initiative, can be seen as an example of a partnership between scientists students of different universities and field-workers, with an intercultural dimension. A second partnership we think is crucial, is a network of the science of adult education with the other sciences. Through such a network, the different sciences can enrich themselves by exchanging results of research, views, theories,... It can also contribute to a better understanding of each other and to a clearer profile of each science. As mentioned in the multicultural discussion, for the development of the identity of your discipline, bringing strangeness closer (the "outsiders") in an encounter is a crucial factor. The third partnership is that of the practice of adult education with other practices. In a lot of our papers, we stressed the fact that the educational answer is not the only answer and that education alone is not enough. In the practice, it's more difficult to make clear distinctions between disciplines/aspects of reality than in theory/science. Most aspects of life need an integrative approach. This means that adult educators have to work together with managers, economists, politicians, priests, doctors, technicians, artists, university professors,... Many problems and changes in society ask for a mixture of educational and non-educational answers. Only through an open dialogue between the involved partners, an integral answer on today's challenges is possible. This means that, for an optimization of the practice and the theoretical science of adult education, not only a forum of partners of different disciplines and facets of society has to be created ('insiders' and 'outsiders'), but also a forum for partners within the discipline (scientists, professors in adult education, field-working adult educators,...). This European Socrates/Erasmus-program can be seen as an example of such a forum. The biggest challenge here is to create consistency in the terminology. It will open up the way for real constructive communication, professionalization and will enhance the development of the sector. Note that besides the three kinds of partnerships mentioned above, there are also other variations possible: partnerships within one segment (for instance a meeting of professors of adult education concerning the curriculum) and other partnerships that cross the boarders of the segments (see figure above respectively (a) and (b)). In the context of the growing individualization, adult education has a big task in guiding and supporting the self-realization of the individual adult learner. This task contains not only out of providing updated and relevant information, but also helping to formulate learning-needs and goals (learning-plan), opening up existing and creating new participation-channels, bringing strangeness closer, training them in communication- and information-processing skills,... Therefore, attention to the individual with his own unique biography (influenced by time and context), his own needs, goals, capacities and learning-style(s) is needed. On the other hand, more than before, the collectivity must be revalued. Adult education has to play a role in the strengthening of the collectivity.
Organizing encounters with others, providing forums for exchanging knowledge, statements, views,... creates a place where people can learn from each other and question their taken for granted ideas and statements which is a first step towards reflection and innovation. Bringing the individual and the collectivity closer together carries the possibility to strengthen both in encounter, which is a challenge for adult education. The goal of equality in educational possibilities during the whole life-course of adult learners/citizens creates a big challenge for adult educators. The widening gap between educated and non-educated people has to be combated. Detecting and taking away obstructions for learning can be a first step. Equality in access to decision-making processes, to participation-channels, updated information and new technology and training new skills for information processing, must have priority in adult education. The explosion of information in our society doesn't mean automatically a higher quality of information or an equal access to information. Especially in regard with these aspects, other non-educational interventions are needed. Note that in dealing with the challenges, special attention for the most disadvantaged groups is required.
Finally, in dealing with the challenges, some crucial elements concerning the approach of an adult educator can be mentioned. We see the main role for an adult educator as a facilitator of learning-processes of adults. In order to facilitate adult learning, adult educators have to promote reflection on behavior and attitudes. Note that adult educators can play a facilitating role on divergent areas and levels. Besides the focus on learning-processes, also a focus on horizontal (for instance partnership on policy-level, self-organizations on community-level) and vertical (on top-down and bottom-up) communication-processes belongs to the facilitating task of an adult educator. Within the educational way of dealing with the fast changing society, there has to be an integration between four different functions of adult education: (1) animation, (2) information, (3) formation and (4) social action. In all these functions innovation is needed to react properly to the changes in society. Therefore every partner should have the room to experiment and to express their creativity. Bringing about changes on organizational level or individual level, adult educators can be confronted with resistance against the change. To succeed in their work, adult educators should use an appreciative approach, with two-sided open communication. They should use the strengths of the individual or the organization as a starting-point in order to reach the desired change (the idea of "empowerment"). Learners should be seen as partners and co-owners in the change process. Only when the diversity and individuality of the learners is taken into account, the change process can be successful. Talking about appreciation of diversity and individuality brings us to the last part of this final paper: a reflection on our intercultural groupwork. REFLECTION
Because we see this paper as a result of an intensive groupwork, we want to reflect shortly on the process we went through with our intercultural group during this program. As almost every theory of groupdynamics states, three dimensions to approach groupwork can be distinguished: the task, relational and individual growth dimension. In the following report, we want to reflect on our intercultural groupwork focusing on those different dimensions.
Task dimension Our groupwork was strongly task-oriented, what can be explained by the intensity of the 12 weeks during program. The interactiveness of the courses, the use of another language to communicate, the time-investment in following courses and processing the provided information and literature, the fast successions of the modules,... required an efficient and goal-oriented groupwork. Confronted with the task to reflect critically on each module by writing an intercultural grouppaper, clear work arrangements were needed. The effective use of the time and the division of tasks were the most important focuses in our group.
First of all, we agreed to define our grouptask as consisting out of an individual and a groupelement. The individual work was important to facilitate the groupprocess. During the groupwork, we shared ideas and by reacting on each other we formed the content of our papers. As the individual contribution, we see:
For each module one responsible person was selected. That person was responsible for writing the first draft of the paper and for making the corrections. If necessary, a second person joined in, to share the work or to work out a part of the content. The collective task was the construction of the module-papers in the groupdiscussions about the content and structure and in the collective feedback sessions after writing the paper. After a final feedback session on the second versions of each module-paper (with special attention for links and elements for our final conclusion), the introduction, groupreflection and the conclusion were written in agreement and in collaboration of all groupmembers. Because of the extensive interaction between individual and groupwork, we really feel that we share the responsibility for this final paper.
In dealing with the different tasks, time was an important factor to take into account. Therefore we decided to follow a strict time schedule for writing the modules and the final paper. As a result of an individual preparation and a long groupdiscussion, a first version of the module-paper could be written at the end of the week. As soon as possible, mostly during the week of the next module, a feedbacksession on this version was organized and resulted, after correction in a second version. These second versions have undergone a third extended reflection in writing the final paper Relation dimension The atmosphere in our group was very good. Everybody was involved in the process and took his/her responsibility. There was a sphere of open communication. All members got room to express their thoughts and ideas, making learning from each other possible. Each member was willing to invest and to work to our shared goal. So we can say, that we really got enjoyment out of the learning in our intercultural group. Individual growth Reflecting on our individual experiences of working in an intercultural group, each of us tried to formulate his/her own learningprocess. "This program enhanced my knowledge and view on the different fields of adult education. I experienced intercultural learning as an interesting way to learn more about different viewpoints and about my personal point of view. The confrontation with intercultural irritation taught my a lot about communication and groupdynamics." (Tom) "Through the feeling of strangeness experienced in the confrontation with individual and cultural differences between the groupmembers, through exchanging viewpoints and experiences about professional and personal matters, I learned more about my personal view and gained knowledge on the different segments of adult education and of life as a whole. The surplus value of this intercultural group in comparison with other groupsession I experienced in the past, were for me the multidisciplinary and the multicultural aspect. Both asked time for exploration but enriched the groupcontribution in approaching the content of this program." (Veerle) "This program offered me the opportunity to look at current events in the field of Adult Education from an international point of view. I noticed how rewarding intercultural learning can be. It is an instructive way to exchange knowledge and experiences between different countries and studies. I think this program really broadened my knowledge and promoted my personal development". (Miia) "Looking back on the program, I can say that attending the program has really enriched me, professionally and personally. I learned a lot about Adult Education: current discussions and hot topics in the field, tasks and challenges for adult educators, ways to promote adult learning etc.. Attending the lectures and working in intercultural groups have broadened my view and I am sure that these learning-experiences will be very useful in my work as an orthopedagogic". (Esther)
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