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Stepping-stones in rivers Group 5 - Carme Anguera Iglesias (E) , Kalle Mäkinen (SF),
Chapter 1: Communication and new technologies
CHAPTER 2: MULTICULTURALISM IN AN INTERCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
Chapter 3: COMMUNITY WORK AND ADULT EDUCATION
CHAPTER 4: ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT
Chapter 5: Adult education and social policy, an international perspective
Chapter 6: Foundations of adult education
"What are you doing?" said the little prince to the adult educator. "I am planning the education of the people", the adult educator answered. (....) "And how do you know what kind of education the people need; do you know them so well?" the little prince asked. "I am also a human being, so...." the adult educator said to the little prince, "and besides I have learned about this at university". And then he enumerated eighteen different subjects of his study. "Oh, that is a lot, the little prince said embarrassed, "but what is the connection between the people? Should I need education, I would find a friend and travel with him for a long while. That is how we would experience what we need in life". (Theo Jansen and Jumbo Klercq)
We will first give an overview of the structure of this final paper. In this respect we will describe the topics we focussed on in each module and that are part of the content of each of the following chapters. In the second part of this introduction we will describe how we organised our group work and what the contribution of each of the group members was in this respect. We will end the introduction with a short evaluation of our previous expectations towards this program as a whole and the different modules separately.
Almost each chapter is built with two kinds of cornerstones : theoretical insights and practical applications. In this way we could experience ourselves what the possibilities , limits and difficulties were of the theories, perspectives and models or frameworks presented during the different modules. More general reflections and questions or remarks of the group members were taken into account also. The first chapter, communication and new technologies, is an actual subject in 1999. It can be seen as a tool that facilitates learning-processes within communities, like companies, schools, etc. and communication-processes between institutions and people (e-mail). By means of communication and new technologies the role of the teacher or adult educator is shifting from an active ("pourring-into model") towards a more passive facilitating role : the learners become more active and can choose their own learning style, so the educator has to be able to play different roles like animator, tutor, expert, designer. An important thing for adult education to take into account is the background and characteristics of the learner : with what goal are they following education/training ? In this first chapter we tried to position the new technologies in the learning-environment and we describe several influential factors that have to be taken into account to create a suitable learning-environment. We also asked ourselves some questions about the role of the teacher with new technologies, the function of these technologies and about the principle of self-directed learning in relation with the democratisation-principle of education. Adult education plays also an important role related to the subject of multiculturalism. It can help to create a better understanding of other cultures and to get people more integrated in society. Related to this topic we discuss in the second chapter the task of adult education in cultural and intercultural learning. We apply some of the theories presented in this module on a case about an intercultural situation and we describe and compare the field of adult education in our countries according to multicultural education. The integration-issue is also a relevant topic of community work. In this respect an adult educator/community worker has to facilitate processes in the community and tries to reach and help groups at risk in the society. With the efforts of adult education the percentage of social exclusion can hopefully be decreased. In this way education has a large social meaning. To demonstrate this, we worked out a case in chapter three about a community-development project focussed on the unemployment issue in a local neighbourhood. We reflected upon the following topics : the position of community education as a ‘ go-between’, the definition of the relationship between individual and community, and a deontological code for adult education to act upon. Even in organisations/companies we can recognise an important social aspect. But the general aim will always be profit. To reach this general aim, more specific aims have to be established, and one of these shall be to improve the social contact between the collaborators of the company. We explain in chapter 4A what sort of actions can be undertaken to cope with changes in organisations and what role adult education can play in this, by means of a case-study about an intervention in a non-profit organisation that is working with volunteers. In the following part of this chapter (4 B) ‘labour and education’, the need of training will be under discussion : what has to be the weight of the humanistic and the economical approach ? We try to make clear what kind of contradictions and difficulties one has to cope with in this respect. To do this in a concrete way we use again a case-study but now in a profit organisation that has to deal with cultural changes. We can recognise this last question about the humanistic and economical approach also on the macro-level, the political level. We have seen two major political streams in this respect: the neo-liberal model and the social-democratic one. In chapter 5 we first give a description of these two models and actual developments related with them. According to this we discuss some contradictions and paradoxes in the following part. And we finish this chapter with few remarks and questions towards the future. In chapter six we use a house as a metaphor to get a clearer view on the foundations of adult education. We start with a description of this house and its geography. Then we try to make a link between theory, practice and research. And finally we reflect upon the influence of the changing society on the foundations and future identity of adult education. In the conclusion of this final paper, we make some further reflections about this relationship and the role of adult education in Europe in the present and the future.
Organisation of the group work and contribution of the group members Our self-directed group consisted of four fulltime students : from the university of Groningen (The Netherlands), Barcelona (Spain), Helsinki (Finland) and Leuven (Belgium), and one halftime student from the university of Nijmegen (The Netherlands). The fact that there were all different countries involved, made it a real challenge to work together because everybody had his/hers own experiences in the field of adult education and had a different perspective towards this topic because of the different accents in the curriculum of the students and different levels in the careers: third year adult education (Helsinki), third year educational sciences (Groningen), final year social pedagogics (Leuven), third year pedagogy with specific subjects related to social-cultural work and labour (Barcelona), final year combination of orthopedagogics and social pedagogy (Nijmegen). In itself this was a richness because we could learn a lot from each other and we could look at the same issue in very different ways, but at the same time there occurred also some difficulties in matching the different thinking-levels (practical, theoretical and relfective) and perspectives. Obviously all of this influenced the way we organised ourselves and the way the papers are conceived and written.
How did we work together for the Friday-papers ? On Thursday-evening we had a general group discussion. In this way every group-member had the opportunity to bring in his/her own ideas, questions, remarks and reflections about that weeks module. At the end of this discussion we decided what topics we wanted to put in the paper and how the structure of the content would be. We also divided the tasks. In most of the modules everybody wrote (individually or in pairs) a piece or worked out more clearly some aspects of the general discussion. Friday-morning there was a more focussed discussion about the different elements we worked out and we tried to link them. In the afternoon there were two people responsible for typing the text and hand it in (we made a kind of role-system for this).
How did we organise ourselves for writing this final paper ? At the end of the six modules everybody had all the different Friday-papers to read them through : adding remarks, corrections and suggestions for improvement and at the same time looking for elements to put in the conclusions. This all in order to have a feedback-discussion about the different chapters. We also divided the chapters then in that way that every group-member was responsible for finishing two chapters and we decided to write the introduction and conclusion in pairs. To be able to write the conclusion and introduction we had a separate group discussion and one part of this consisted of a small group-evaluation (see task-and relation-process). When all the chapters were finished there was again a discussion about the general reflections and everybody could give his/her approval about the way they were conceived. We finished the work with the lay-out and copying.
Something about the task- and relation-processes For co-operating in this intercultural group all the members fit together and add each other, in a way. We could experience that all of us had another kind of working and thinking. One is thinking in schemes and more theoretical frameworks, another wants to make theory more concrete with the help of examples and real-life situations, and again another is integrating and reflecting upon past and new theories. In this sense it was challenging for every member to struggle with the basic difficulty to make his/her message clear to the rest of the group. The first six weeks of the program our group consisted of five people and we were adjusted to work with this group in a certain way. So when this program finished for one of the group-members half-way it was very difficult for the rest of us to keep the same level of discussions and teamwork. Everybody in our group experienced it like this. Also time-pressure and the high tempo of the program as a whole (classes, group discussions and writing papers), made it hard to have deep reflections and discussions. It was an interesting learning-experience to reflect upon our own functioning as a group. We realised now that a kind of ‘interim-evaluation’, in order to be able to maintain the same group-functioning, would have been helpful. The meaning of the word international has gained new connotations for us. Since the beginning of this program and during it, it has changed from a more theoretical and abstract view towards a more interactive and concrete connotation. An international environment is a fruitful context to work in where the seeds of ideas grow into unexpected new thoughts when the dialog between participants is open and free. This international character of the program gave us broader information about adult education and its fields all around Europe, but not only this, it has helped us to realise the differences and similarities between and within different countries. We have been working in intercultural groups where we have been able to observe different and similar ways of work, think and act, and understand that there are always differences and similarities that should be taken into account and also respected, on a national, cultural or individual level. It makes us think about the meaning of "multicultural" and the big need of an intercultural education with all its meanings, on all the levels. With this we mean that there has to be intercultural education to understand and adapt it to everyone, respecting always the differences. These reflections have been helpful for us on our personal level as well as our professional future, when we will have to work as adult educators and we will need to apply all our knowledge and experiences. This program, and more concretely the way of working in intercultural groups, gave us the opportunity to be more open and become more flexible in our future as adult educators.
Chapter 1: Communication and new technologies 1.1. Overview about this first chapter This first chapter is based to the first module we had about new technologies. It starts with the general introduction about the topic where some connections to the changing society is been made. The content is divided into three parts starting from the discussion about new paradigms within this area of interest and preceding towards more practical level about the use of new technologies in adult education.
This module, Communication and new technology, is been partly a reaction to the educational challenges of the new information era when both new means and new tools of education are taken into serious consideration. While new technologies and communication strategies are developed are also old learning theories taken under consideration and critical evaluation. Internet which enables new ways of communicating and offers new inexpensive strategies for publishing new information is good example of the big processes which are changing the society into something else than what we see it today. The issue of information society under post-modern discourse as a new more developed social structure has its’ impact also towards educational strategies and means. One of the roles of adult education is to take part actively in to the changes in the social structures. This module could be seen as a logical consequence to these changes and an answer to the arising questions about these new means. Whether the progress is progression towards something better and more equal world order is more difficult question. After all we are just talking about new tools which themselves cannot change the reality, the most basic question is how can we actively use them to change the reality into what we see as better. Information superhighway, distance education, telematic learning, virtual universities and cyber society have all somehow mysterious and romantic sound; but then again are they themselves enough? These new tools for learning are developed by the new media but too often the most principal fact is forgotten that they are still just tools, they don’t alone bring us "better" learning solutions and deeper learning. Even during the lectures of this module the subject was looked through too uncritical eyes, since after all the discourse is about something new which still needs lot of assessment. Presentation for a new paradigm that is called the new model needs also more specifying questions about what it is and what it’s not about.
The next figure illustrates our view of learning in which the context of learning activities is taken into bigger consideration; the fact that learning is always related into certain contextual principals was not -what we think- taken into consideration in the "new model". To put it another way the variety of different contexts was not discussed deep enough. Although the new model sees learning from more diversified and sophisticated way than more "traditional" and behavioristic learning theories. We think also the question about who sets the objectives was not mentioned enough. After all the teacher should be more like a guide to help learners find their learning objectives, though the teacher’s role is by no means an easy task to define since it depends on many factors (content of the course, participant’s background knowledge, what means/technologies are used etc.). The issue of defining objectives is to be seen from more broader way: what kind of objectives are we talking about, is it a question of small course based objectives or about more larger objectives which the individual sets for his/her personal growth? Off course the objectives are intact also to what kind of courses are we talking about, is it a matter of vocational education, liberal studies or about degree oriented studies? Point being here is that nevertheless the question of setting the objectives (referring to "goals" in the figure) is one of the most principal ones. Figure 1 The figure 1 above sees the goals in the central-point, as the most central. This means that when defining goals all these components have some references towards goal defining, though depending on the course (learning activity as a whole) some factors could be even excluded while some could be dominant. Media could be seen also as a content of a learning activity though it’s here put separately as its own unit, since the module is about communication and new technologies it would be interesting to formulate a figure where the media itself would be the central factor. What essentially is the role of the media?
1.4. The new model and goal setting Here the media refers to new media (=Internet with its several means electric mail, web-pages, news, discussion groups etc.), which is a broad concept itself. The goal setting in the learning activity and the actual use of the new media are one of the most problematic questions. Usually the new media is seen more or less as a synonym for self directed learning and distance learning. Here the goal setting of the individual is relevant, what skills do we have to give for the learner to make he/she define the objectives of the learner activity when he/she is left alone with the growing alternatives. This new information era gives more pressures for the individuals to cope with the information flow and to deal with the different alternatives and that is the reason why goal setting should be taken into more serious consideration. The new model is more complex and perhaps also more dynamic than the older centralised and passive teacher oriented model. The new model takes different learning strategies and the consideration of the media in the learning environment, and the pedagogical solutions have more variation; tutoring, expertise, group animation and pedagogical designing. The teacher uses several methods and tasks in helping the learner to find their learning environment, teachers’ tasks are diversified and the group (peers) itself is seen as a learning recourse. What lacks here is the stress about the problematic of this model when it comes to the previous discussion about the goal setting. When the learning environment has such variety as in the new model, the pressures for the active learner versus passive teacher dichotomy are greater. If the learner is the active subject with his/her active decision making and the teacher is more as a passive tutor, what is the role of the teacher in the goal setting? In this case it’s obvious that the learner is the one who in the first place defines the goals for his/her learning activity. Here the reader should get critical and ask, shouldn’t it always be the learner itself who actively defines the goals for his/her learning? Or is it the other way around: Can somebody else than the learner itself define the learning objectives? In adult education these questions are central since after all, the learner (adult) should be capable to realise his/her needs and objectives for learning. In theory this is the ideal situation that the learner «really« can set the goals for himself/herself, actively and choosing between the best alternatives to him/her. Again the reader must be warned not to read these lines too uncritically. Here we should ask about the role of the adult education in the empowering of the individual: What are the strategies and means to give those skills for the individual to choose the «right« (What after all is right or wrong is central question as well. Don’t we always choose only right alternatives, why would we choose consciously wrong alternatives?) alternative? In the new model there are still some other factors too that we think ought to be stressed. Those are: The new model in relation to cognitive constructive learning theories and the real importance of the media itself. What is relevant activity in the specific context? How much the strategy is context based and how much the activity is bounded into different resources? After all the impression this new learning model gives is somehow too wide and hopeful vision of learning, especially when it comes to the use of new communication technology and new media (internet with its’ wide applications). What about comparing the new model to learning theories that are more present in the field of adult education in general, meaning the cognitive constructive side of the post behavioral learning theories? Why were those more cognitive learning theories left out from the new model during the lectures? What follows after Piaget, where were more reflective and activity oriented theorists left, such as Kolb’s learning by doing and the constructivist tradition as well as Mezirow’s ideas of self directness and self reflection in adult learning? Since the new model itself has aspects from a lot of different theories like those mentioned here. The fact that media is only a tool to accomplish the goal of the teachers’ or learners’ learning activity was not explicated enough. As the new model sees the learning as more individualised process it still leaves open the question whether it is the learner or the teacher who sets the learning goals. The question of the self directness of the learner is one of the most important ones: Does everybody have those learning skills which are needed for more individualised learning? How much can the teacher motivate and guide the learner to find his/hers learning skills without treating the learner as an object? And isn’t somehow paradoxical to discuss about self directness if one needs somebody else’s skills first to be able afterwards set one’s own goals in reference to what he/she has been thought?
1.5. Distance education and new media Let us first take a glance towards distance education which is one of the aspects in media education. After this the new media is discussed. We look the distance education from a comparative point of view between the positive and the negative aspects (figure B). We think that the distance education is not the perfect way as it is sometimes said. But then again we don’t dare to criticise it too much. It has some new refreshing strategies to offer for trainers and teachers as well as for learners. Figure 2
Now we have to remark that there are some differences in the flexibility of choosing courses between the different kind of distance education as well as in the costs to follow some courses. Opportunities differ for example while using for example radio or Internet. Basically the use of internet is relatively cheap although the equipment has high prices, but essential here is not the cost of these means but how they can be distributed equally to people to grant same opportunities for all. There is no point of talking about revolutionary new means for learning if these means are available only for limited and narrow population. This question about the equality in relation with the idea of equal education for everybody was not taken into consideration. When it comes to the segregation of people into those who have the access and knowledge to use the new means (internet) of communication and those who lack the skills to constructively take advantage of the opportunities that knowledge society grants for capable people. At the same time the question of the secularising aspect of new technologies is also relevant, does those new means of communication lead the society into even more democratising world order or does it only emphasise the individualisation and differences between social classes in the post-modern society. Here the role of adult education is to take critically part to this process of reducing inequality, by finding such solutions for the use of new media for decreasing inequality. At the same time the one who can use the new media has the means to reach the source of information which in the post modern era is the one cornerstone of western economies, that is the exchange of information and the ability to select and construct it into knowledge. We have been reflecting what is the function of the new technologies maybe more in the vocational field of adult education. Therefore we have listed some things that one have to keep on mind while preparing a training program (figure 3).
figure 3 The figure above describes generally about the organising of vocational training and as you can see the new technologies can be one of the reasons to have training programs in the vocational field. The field visit to France Telecom is a good example of how the in-company training could be the content itself of the training program, while it could be also used as the mean of such training. The intranet application can be used for organising the training or there can be training to train the employees to know how to use the application. In the scheme the objectives are in a general level about training, although we could say that the active use of new communication technologies in the workplace can have similar consequences as the objectives in the scheme. Meaning that when the employees know how to use it effectively (as for example the previous Intranet example), it can help the individuals adapt more quickly into changing situations and therefore to improve the efficiency of the company and the quality of the work within the organisational framework. We could also replace the word in the middle (training program) into new communication technologies so that it would be in the central-point. It can be a competence tool, objective and it surely has a big influence into individuals’ lives as well as into collective action and into society at large. What about then the teacher’s role when using the internet? We think it depends on the current tasks and objectives of a specific learning context. The teacher can be a tutor and more passively on the background or his/hers role can be more active depending on the tools which are used or the objectives of the learning task for instance. It’s also possible to teach the students to cope with the information flow. It has to come from both sides, you have to learn the skills to cope with the environment, and opposite, make the environment more logical for the students. The question of the teacher and Internet is off course much more complex that it might seem here and depends on many different components such as is it the didactic tool or content of the learning activity.
1.6. New communication technology in practice About our field visit to France Telecom we can show an example of new communication tool used for the needs of a big organisation to spread the relevant knowledge inside the company and keep the workers informed with Intranet solution. This Intranet is also an example about how they at least try to implement the ideas of a learning organisation by using the new technologies. We are still curious of their organisational culture and how useful this system is for the workers or if it fits with the needs of the workers and do they have the access and the skills to use it effectively. Indeed the skills for using the Intranet application within the company staff is essential. Is the Intranet with all its’ databases only distributing of knowledge or can we say that it also redistributes the wisdom within the employees? It is obvious that it hasn’t much effect if it is merely a tool to collect information, this information should be turned into knowledge and -what even better- into wisdom. Nevertheless it seems that the using of this kind of Intranet application can be very fruitful for such a big company. It doesn’t exclude the issue of training people to use that application, which is obviously needed to make the application to be actively used in the practice and culture of the organisation. The Intranet application at France Telecom can be seen as a tool and also as a competence of the company. It is a way to spread the knowledge (just plain information or wisdom in best case) inside the company when it is used as a new tool instead of a traditional library for instance. At the same time it can be a competence for the company if it really brings surplus to the company and makes the practice more efficient and qualified. Is ought to be stressed that spreading information and creating databases for the employees doesn’t mean any progress itself. The employees must also have the resources to constructively and self directly use and apply the information in the Intranet.
1.7. Conclusions and remarks about this first module When it comes to web-sites and CD-ROM presentations during this first module, we should ask why wasn’t any questions about user interface stressed, such as the theoretical background prepositions? With what guidelines can we evaluate the user interfaces of -for example- CD-ROMs and does there even exist ultimate and best user interface since the theoretical backgrounds of learning are always connected to the objectives of the media artefact and the current content of the CD-ROM? What about the different kinds of teaching methods? We think it’s important to have more than one experience about teaching models. So it would be interesting to receive different ways of teaching during the following modules, keeping in mind the variation of pedagogical strategies. This first module «Communication and new technologies«, is a construction and synthesis of this information era that we are living now. It is a logical consequence in the field of adult education into being active participant in the change process of the society. The new communication technologies have their impact in the society in many levels and one of those levels is obviously the field of academic disciplines. Partly, this paper is been about the issue of how can we, as adult educators, take part into the active construction and the use of these new tools.
CHAPTER 2: MULTICULTURALISM IN AN INTERCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE Multiculturalism is, like the first module, an actual topic of this century. All the countries have to do with migration-processes and multiculturalism. In this module we can see that multiculturalism isn’t only talking about differences and similarities between cultures, but also within cultures, the so-called subcultures. Every person will experience feelings of strangeness and will have to do with surfaces of irritation. How every member of the society will deal with this situation is different. A question concerning this general idea is: "In what respect adult education can or has a task in this, related to cultural and multicultural learning?". In the second paragraph we’ll try to answer this question and we’ll reflect upon the strategies to combat discrimination between and within cultures. In the next part we’ll clarify our thoughts about experiencing strangeness by means of an example of cultural differences, with different surfaces of irritation involved. After discussing this example we’ll give some information about multicultural education in our countries. In the conclusion we mention some differences and similarities of multicultural education in the different countries.
2.2. To be or not to be, that is the question! During this module we have been confronted with different perspectives or theories about understanding the multicultural society. All these theories/models had a different focus on the same subject. This made it very interesting because through the "stories" of the 3 coordinators we got the pieces of the puzzle we now can construct ourselves. In this puzzle we can find economic, socio-political, cultural, historical, sociological, lingual (communicative), psychological, aspects. All those perspectives try to structure and order the reality of a multicultural society by using distinctions and categories (like: group-individual, culture-identity/selfhood-alter-ego, homogenity-heterogenity, similarity-diversity). These categories are needed and useful to give meaning to, to analyse, and to get a clearer view on the very complex reality that was the subject of this module. But maybe it is interesting, at this point, to leave the categories for what they are (artefacts) and try to get a grip of the picture that is in the puzzle as a whole and the ‘who’ and ‘what’ (that is) behind the picture. What we can see, is [an entity: you can fill in every level of identity which O.Schäffter discussed)] a person, a human being who is living in this multicultural society and who gets confronted in every day life with the growing complexity of this society. Constantly, ‘surfaces of irritation’ occur, not only between people of quite different cultures (allochtone-autochtone) but also between people of the same ‘cultural group’ and within peoples own identities (spheres of selfhood), because everybody is part of different cultures and subcultures (families, religions, ....) and at the same time everybody has different roles in life ( father, manager, wife, friend,.....). So, if we think about this, experiences of strangeness are very common for everybody -often without knowing it, without being aware of it- these experiences are an essential part of our human existence. So maybe it is important for us to become aware of our experiences of strangeness. Even more today because we think that these experiences are only more extreme, deeper and more confronting or more obvious if we have contact with somebody of another culture (globalisation process). This can be the first step in understanding and overcoming difficulties and in finding a ‘new modus vivendi’. The question that arises out of this context, out of this given reality is the famous phrase of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘To be or not to be’ ... in the sense of ‘being able to or not to’ survive in the multiculturality, as an aspect of the post-modern society.
2.3. Learning in a multicultural society: adult education has a task Arriving at this point, adult education can play a very important role. In fact, we think, adult education has a crucial task to stimulate, activate, and support (in a co-operative way) people in obtaining the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to be able to act and react in a responsible way in multicultural- intercultural situations. We see the following tasks for adult education: 1) knowledge about: - the ongoing process of integration and discrimination between people - other and own culture - modes of experiencing strangeness 2) skills in: - negotiation - communication - reflection - sensitive treatment of foreigness 3) attitudes towards otherness: - respect - tolerance - openness - integrity To organise a learning environment, Ruud Van der Veen presented, in the beginning of this module, 4 different educational strategies (to combat discrimination). If we use these strategies we have to be aware of the different ideologies that are behind them:
Every strategy has it’s pro’s and contra’s. So it is important to make careful considerations about which strategy you will use at what moment, for who, .... Criteria to make an efficient choice for adult education programs/organisations are linked with our scheme in module 1 (figure A: goals, content, background, etc.). We also think it is important to make combinations between the strategies, and during one program strategies can change and evolve considering the changing circumstances, ..... because every strategy has its own value and function and because the weaknesses of one strategy can be complemented by another strategy. On top of this we can ask ourselves the question to what extent adult education should promote the different cultures in each country. Because we think that it is important for the immigrants/refugees etc. to keep their own culture in the new country. It will help to keep their own identity (pride in culture) and the guest-culture could learn of them. But on the other hand they still have to live in the new culture and they have to live according to those new rules and laws. We can even broaden this (to some extent) also to certain anchored norms, values, attitudes, .... in the dominant culture. But then we can and must ask ourselves: to what extent people must and can really integrate into another culture (in the sense of acculturation) and to what extent they can preserve their own cultural identity. (what do we call ‘cultural identity’? because in confrontation with other cultures your own ‘cultural identity’ can change /evolve). On the other hand these rules, laws, values, ... themselves can be questioned through this confrontation. To question the principles, hidden systems and structures of our own society is a very important issue because in the dominant society there are also people who have not the required skills, abilities, opportunities, or chances. Learning in (and about) a multicultural society is learning about your own identity, sphere of selfhood, culture, universe of meaning, ... in confrontation with others (or with any kind of strangeness), and be able to question it or reflect upon it. Only by doing this we can change or evolve and develop ourselves - and so (through inter-action) the world around us will be changed too. Learning by confronting cultures always implies that there will be transformations of perspectives. One has to change knowledge and to replace some to fit in the new information he or she gets. This can be a really frightening experience, because the person cannot count on previous knowledge he or she has. It is important to be aware of that and help people to overcome their fears. So not only migrants , but also the rest of society should learn and change through intercultural contacts. It can be seen as an enrichment of the whole society. (see example and scheme further on).
2.4. Modes of experiencing strangeness: a critical incident scrutinised We have learned a lot about ourselves through the theoretical framework, O. Schäffter presented. It was a very interesting, new, open and creative way of structuring the reality and our construction of it. We think this framework can be very useful to adult education in several ways: (citizenship, Theo Jansen)
2) it can be part of the content and goals of the adult education program. We have tried to linkup the theory of O. Schäffter and the one of J. Spinthourakis about intercultural communication and multicultural education. We will first present an example and analyse it in terms of the theory. Then we will situate it into a scheme and we will end with some remarks concerning the set up of a learning-program. Example of cultural differences: The following situation occurs in a doctor’s practice: A Turkish woman comes in with the following problem. She wants to marry an Islamic man, but she has lost her virginity already. She has to bleed on that specific night. So she asks the doctor to restore her virginity. What does the doctor have to do? In this example there are different levels of strangeness (surfaces of irritation) involved: On the personal level the doctor does not want to hurt a healthy person. It is against his own norms and values, which are cultural defined. But if he does not help her, she will be hurt by her family (excluded or even murdered). Virginity is a very important issue in the Islamic culture, in the European culture it isn’t that important anymore. On the political level that custom is in conflict with the human rights. There are different possibilities in which the doctor can experience the feelings of strangeness in confrontation with this woman. We will describe only the thinking-process of the doctor because we are from the same ‘western culture’.
Possibilities of experiencing strangeness: 1) Sounding board: 2) Counter image: 3) Supplement: 4) Complementarity: If situation 1 or 2 are applied to the doctor’s ways of thinking, probably he doesn’t want to do the surgery. If 3 or 4, the doctor is more likely to do the surgery. By putting the modes of experiencing strangeness above each other (vertical), it seems like there is a sort of hierarchy. We don’t think you have to go through all the stages (modes) in a particular situation. Every person has its own way of thinking and one mode will fit this way better than another one. So maybe it is also an important task for adult education to make people aware of the other modes, so they can make responsible decisions. Possibility to set up a learning-program for the doctor: -what does he already know about the background of the patient?
2.5. Some information about multicultural education in our different countries 2.5.1. Situation in Spain (Catalunya) We should start by saying that Catalunya is a region in Spain. It is naturally multicultural not only by the migrant processes but also because there are two cultures living together. There are two official languages, Spanish and Catalan, and also different traditions in there. Adult Education has a really important job to do with it. Around 50’s there was a migration of Spanish people from the south coming to Catalunya, and also to other regions from Spain that were more industrialised. Since Catalan language has become a need to be able to work, study and live in Catalunya, Adult Education has become also more important. There was the need of teaching Catalan to all this adult migrants who need to learn this language to be able to live in there. There are some of these courses of Catalan that are being paid by the Catalan Government and others that are private courses. If there has to be a classification we could say that there are different reasons because the migrants are living in Catalunya (Spain): 1.migrants well-established: Japanese, American, German, English and others who have good careers and good jobs. 2.migrants with problematic lives, who want to come to improve their possibilities of surviving. There are a lot of migrants from Marocco and Algeria who came to Spain during the last years. The majority of them do not find a good place to stay or a place to work. They have done much work to come to our country to find just a way to survive, because they didn’t have enough ways of obtaining a right life in their countries. And when they can come to our countries, what they find is not a really nice situation. It makes us think about the solidarity and tolerance that is not being showed a lot of times. Most of the migrants are working in the jobs that other people don’t want, and they don’t get paid well for their work. That makes that their situation doesn’t become better. Because this, there are a lot of associations to give an answer to the problem of their integration and also try to stop the latent racism that is still alive in Spain. There are some organisations that do things to integrate the migrants and others that work with bigger problems that are happening with the migrants (vandalism, violence). Multicultural education for the minorities:
-Education -Social work -Cultural actions -Social-cultural animation
They have different areas of work: -incidents, agression, violence with migrants. -political cases, like changing the law of strangeness. That law is cold "llei d’estrangeria" and it defines the entrance to the country and who can get a permission of residence. There has to be a labour contract to be able to enter in the country, and then again it is a bit contradictory because you have to have good contacts or be well established to have it already before coming into the country. Nowadays there are a lot of movements and claims against some points of this law and towards to change it to become a little bit more flexible about the openness of the country. The strangers that get affect of this law are once more the ones who really need the opportunity of a new life in a new country, let’s say that migrants who has real problems and struggles to survive in their own places. -educational, social and cultural actions (Pedagogical area) -popular information, with courses of multicultural education for the majority group, to give them the sensation of an enrichment coming from the other cultures. These courses are also given to teachers who want to follow these programs like an optional course of training. There are some guides and information given and also the necessary tools to be self-critical with the material that they choose to do the classes, and also the way of doing them, and so on. The objective of these courses is to start introducing some aspects about multiculturalism and interculturalism from the primary school, and start to see this fact like a quotidian aspect of our lives. Another way of introducing multicultural education is by the optional subjects in the secondary school. There is one subject that the students can choose about multicultural societies, and it tries to prevent the racism between adolescents, between 11 and 15 years old. So, the multicultural education, in a formal way of education, is trying to handle also the problem of racism. A need of multicultural education to the majority group. There is a really big need in Spain to resolve all these problems of racism (a lot of times passive racism) for majority groups. These old generation of migrants from the 50’s came for the same reason as the migrants from Morocco, Algeria and other places are coming now. But anyway, sometimes, they don’t like to have new migrants coming, even if the new migrants are doing the same as they did before! That is not the only group of people that is against the migrants, but maybe is the most curious, because it is the same as before but changing the place of origin. So we live in a Multicultural society and we need an Intercultural education, starting in the school to prevent some actions and thoughts of the population, that wouldn’t let the migrants have a good quality of life in our country. Thus, we need to think not just about giving them a place of work, but also the rights that they have to have and the respect and self-confidence that everyone needs. This kind of integration it’s very difficult because you have to try to integrate different cultures, but then again, but without forgetting that the new culture already have their own culture and we can not suppress it. It has to be a combination, and that is where the biggest problem is arising.
Quick overview to Finland as a multicultural society makes it clear fast that when it comes to number of refugees or migrant people, those amounts are clearly the smallest when comparing to European Union in general. In 1996 (Statistical yearbook of Finland, Tilastokeskus 1997) applicants for asylum by nationality was 711 while the estimated number of refugees in the whole country was 14 265 and numbers of foreigners around 60 000. The numbers are tiny even when related to population which is around 5 million. The nationalities with most of the applications for asylum in 1996 were Iran (72), Irak and Russia (63). Why are those numbers so small compared to the situation in European Union countries in general? Part of the answer lies in the geological fact and in the small refugee quotas, which are around 500 on yearly basis. Since the amount of immigrants in Finland is relatively small seems the topic of multiculturalism seems more or less distant or even strange for an average citizen. The globalisation process and impact of European Union legislation are some factors which will due the increasing of migrants in Finland. So far even the term «second generation« migrant is more or less irrelevant since the number of such people is small, for example like in comparison to Sweden where the amount of immigrants is nearer to the European average. This fact that Finnish society is still in some sense virgin and "mono-cultural" means that it has a lot to learn from other cultures while other cultures have not yet influenced the cultural heritage. Hence the question of integrating migrants into society is so far been solved, or if not the consequences do not yet appear that visibly because of the small numbers. What it comes to multicultural education in Finland basic research has been made about multicultural education from the empowerment point of view; in praxis the education is organised from this point of view hence referring to the conflict paradigm (Roy Killen, Seppo Tella and Kaarina Yli-Renko. Multicultural education: Towards social empowerment and cultural maintenance. The University of Turku 1997, The Faculty of Education, Research A: 180). Although the word multicultural is somehow irrelevant then again Finland is a bilingual country, so from the language point of view this fact ought to be stressed that Finland has two official languages, that is Finnish and Swedish. Studying Swedish is mandatory for people having Finnish as a mother tongue and oppositely the Swedish speaking minority which is 5 % of the whole population has to study Finnish as well. So depending the mother-tongue students are taught these two official languages during the mandatory regular nine year school period. The language is mainly organised from the functionalist point of view, since it is mandatory and done more from a policymaking point of view.
2.5.3. Situation in Flanders about multicultural education As far as we know there are no specific adult education programs with a multicultural content or a multicultural perspective for learning in Flanders. In the field of adult basic education there are some multicultural aspects in the programs for Dutch as a second language. There are so-called ‘integration-centres’ on a regional and local level. They organise activities and learning programs for migrant-groups from Marocco, Turkey, Italy, Spain and Greece, those are already in Belgium since the 60’s and 70’s, but their main focus is on new-incoming migrants from these countries (and others like Bosnia,…..) to help them integrate. In this way it is in a sense not so much about intercultural education, but more about cultural education and the centres are not educational institutes as such, but even more a kind of social service where people of the target group can come with all kinds of administrative problems. Besides those «integration-centres« there are also «self-organisations« for migrants and these are often multicultural in themselves. They organise more social-cultural activities but also some learning programs like getting a driving-licence,… Their focus lays on the cultural identity of their members and integration in society. In a way there is also a certain competition between the integration-centres and the self-organisations. This can be seen as a lack because they have similar goals and work with the same target groups, so it would be fruit-full to work together on certain levels in a more coordinated way. In neighbourhoods at risk with inhabitants of a lot of different cultures there is often community work organised which tries to use the multicultural richness of these neighbourhoods and organises all kinds of activities with the inhabitants of the whole neighbourhood. In these activities are also more implicit learning processes involved with a more intercultural encounter perspective. For students who want become a teacher or a social worker a small piece of their curriculum has multicultural aspects in it. Also for some professionals in the welfare field (police, nurses, social-workers, community-workers, professionals in integration-centres,…) there are occasionally intercultural training-programs. Professional training programs about other cultures and intercultural encounter-activities should be more broadened, in some extent maybe to everyone because we all have or will have sooner or later experiences with people of other cultures. If we have a quick look to this picture one can say there is not so much explicit multicultural education involved but rather cultural education. In this sense it is the dominant society that defines ("dictates") what the migrants have to learn to become "sufficiently integrated" in this society. But if we look more closely on the local level of every-day-life, especially in multicultural neighbourhoods, it appears that there are a lot of intercultural encounters and people learn a lot from each other in a more implicit way. That is why it is so important to work on a local level with the daily experiences of people and to support and make use of the already existing informal social networks and learning opportunities. In this way not only migrants (have to) learn, but also the native inhabitants to let the multicultural society become not only a reality in figures of people of different cultures, but also a «living-reality«. And maybe this is a real challenge of adult education, not only in Belgium, but in each of our countries.
2.5.4. Situation in the Netherlands The most important groups of migrants are: Africa, Antillen; Aruba; Bonaire; China; Curacau; Indonesia; Irac; Iran; Ex-Yougoslavia; Marocco; Middle-east; Poland, Somalie; Soviet-Union; Turkey, Vietnam and South-America. They enter with different levels of education. Some people have had no education in their own country. Some have only primary education and some years of secondary education. Others successfully completed secondary education in their own country. There are different goals for further study. One is to learn Dutch (Dutch as a second language), another is to get a job. Some foreigners want to study at a college or university on a part time basis. The majority of these education is organised by Regional Education Centres, which implies formal education, basic education, adult vocational education and social cultural work. Private centres also organise education for foreigners, often with help of volunteers. There are special chain-courses organised for people from other countries that are higher educated and want to follow a further study in Holland. The teacher-academies in Holland pay attention to the multicultural aspects of the society and of the conflicts that can evolve from it. A good point of the multicultural system in Holland is the financing. Most of the programs are subsidised. There should come more forms of multicultural education in Holland, because now the majority of education takes place in an institution or school. There should come more education in forms of cultural encounters, so that the cultures can learn from each other. Some small projects are already established, they are organised to get the migrants more integrated and to learn them the necessary skills to «survive« in the society (like how to maintain the contact with the schools of the children, how to ride a bike, etc). There are a lot of misunderstandings about foreign people. That may be one of the biggest reasons for discrimination and racism. It is very important to learn the native inhabitants that other cultures can also mean an enrichment, and that their view can be broadened. The whole country has, according to us, to try to get the foreign people more integrated, but there are some contradictions given by law. The migrants are not allowed to work or to study, till they have a licence to stay. So often a couple of years are lost, and the opportunities to integrate are decreased, because they have less opportunity to practice the language and they will stay in places where a lot of people from their own culture are. They will take less pains to get integrated, because they are insecure about their stay. The other contradiction is a more fundamental one. Since the pacification (1901), the end of the school fight which implemented equalisation of the financing for public and religious schools, there was a law made: «All people have the freedom of founding, direction and arrangement to set up schools«. So, the difference in financing between religious and non-religious (and schools with a specific background or conviction, like Jenaplan, Freinett, etc) is becoming less or is even faded. Nowadays with all different cultures and different wishes concerning education, schools with another cultural background are established, like islamic schools. Is this really a benefit for social integration? We agree that it is a good point to have respect for their own cultural entity (pride in own culture), but we see also that the learners are surrounded by people of their ‘own’ culture and have less opportunities to build social contacts with the ‘new’ culture. In Holland there is a need to discuss the four different educational opportunities to get the migrants more involved and to combat discrimination.
We can see that the four countries all have to do with the elements of the multicultural society. Speaking about adult education we can divide it on the basis of the subjects or the groups education is meant for. In Spain there is multicultural education for the minorities and for the majority-group. These forms of education are given in a preventive and constructive way. Sometimes it is not real education, but just giving the migrants advice and help them to cope with the situation. In other countries this distinction (between multicultural education for the minorities and the majority-group) is not so clearly made. In Finland it is even more used to talk about a mono-cultural society. The programs for migrants organised are very marginal. Just some cultures are recognised and some projects are organised. This is because of the small refugee-quotas and the geological position of this country. The similarity between Catalunya and Finland is the bi-linguality. In Finland there are two official languages: Finnish and Swedish, in Catalunya: Spanish and Catalan. Also Belgium can be seen as bi-lingual, here the main languages are French and Duth. In Belgium there is not so much known about specific multicultural adult education programs, but there are some organisations as: integration-centres and self organisations for migrants, where social-cultural activities are organised. In the welfare and educational professions there are some intercultural training programs organised. Every country mentioned is known with such programs and we can agree that it is the dominant society that decides what has to be learned by migrants to become ‘sufficiently integrated’ in the society. In Holland the migrants have the opportunity to keep the norms and values of their original country. They have the rights to establish schools with their specific background. In general in all countries we can see the impact on the organisation of the society.
Chapter 3: COMMUNITY WORK AND ADULT EDUCATION
We will set up a case first and then explain the theoretical backgrounds around that. After that we will clarify some contradictions and reflections we have about our case and the module as a whole. Our case is based upon the case-study of the River District and two of the field visits we had during this program (CFI-Olympe and IFAD-la Paillade).
3.2. Case Study: The set-up of an network-embedded individual learning trajectory centre. In the community of River District there exist several sub-communities and even some sub-sub-communities. A lot of them overlap each other. We as community-workers/ adult-educators choose a target group for this case: the unemployed people, 20% of the inhabitants. Who is belonging to this target-group/community of unemployed people? (analysis of the target-group) We would define our target-group as follows: everybody (between 18 and 60 years old who lives in the local neighbourhood of River District and who has no job. We can see the unemployed people as belonging to the disadvantaged people or people at risk. Often the unemployed people will belong to more then one subgroup: unemployed, homeless, depending on social welfare, people with a lot of personal and social problems (alcoholism, criminality, abuse, vandalism, agressivity, …). We can also see different levels involved for the unemployed individuals: person-citizen, family-friends, neighbourhood, society. On these levels there are several influences: religious, political, economical and environmental influences. So we can see both the individuals belonging to this group and the group as a whole (community) in a multi-problem context. Because the group of unemployed people form a sub-community within RD (these people are all living in River District and it is such a high percentage of the inhabitants), this will have influences on the whole community-life in River District. The next figure visualises the complexity of communities within other communities. Here we have the unemployed individuals in the main focus. The unemployed are not named as a community but as a group of individuals because it is not so evident that the unemployed individuals really have so clear community feeling. The only sure common factor for them is the unemployment factor but we cannot be sure that they share a (strong) uniting community feeling among themselves. The circles represent some of the subcommunities into where the unemployed people have connections or contact surfaces. There are/can be also other communities but here we have taken only the most obvious ones. One could also locate "cybercommunities" or «virtual communities« within the new media framework on the Internet. In the scheme there are also other influences mentioned which have significance to the situation and position of the unemployed within the Riverside District community framework which we use as an example in our chapter. 3.2.1. What is our project about and what is the final aim? Our starting-point is the following thesis: the problems where the individuals and the communitie(s) are confronted with, will be less if these unemployed people become more involved in the community and by this also in society. So this will be our goal: social and professional integration of the unemployed inhabitants in River District. That is why we want to set up a program that works on these both sides. We think a kind of individual-guidance-trajectory – project will be appropriate to do this. Although this looks at first sight only a strategy for individual development, the project we want to set up will be situated in the bigger community of River District. We will make this more clear further on in the text. We will now describe the set up of the community-building process that will take place in our project. Starting-point: what competencies of the existing community of RD can be used?
Taking the existing situation in accordance, how can we reach our aim? (strategy) First we have to do some outreaching work to get in touch with our target-group. Some possible strategies to do this are: to organise some streetcorner work (personal and informal contacts, e.g. in local pub) search for the informal leaders and activate them for outreaching others (snowball-method, Tupperware-model), to set up an advertisement-campaign to inform people with help of the media about the new programs and individual guidance trajectory centre and a rewarding-system for the participants (see later*), to inform people about a free phone-number and bureau where they can tell their ideas, complaints, and problems; to co-operate with the existing social services who have already contacts with the unemployed people. *To motivate the people there can be a rewarding-system for participation in some of the projects and maybe for bringing in good ideas to help the unemployed people to become more involved in society. The rewards can be some free food, money or childcare.(this idea is based upon some community-projects with parents, children and schools in USA: the reward is not seen in a paternalistic way but as a salary for the time they participate in the program = a kind of ‘job’). We think it is very important to use a lot of different strategies to reach different kind of people. Secondly, we have to make use of different institutions to involve the broader community of River District and to guarantee some multi-actor/dimension-approach to the complex issue of unemployment. We have to arrange special meetings between the social services, neighbourhood-centres, schools, and the municipality, industrial companies, workers associations. By this way we want to try to build some kind of network. All of these actors can have representatives in a kind of steering-committee that will act on one hand as a forum for ideas, and exchange of know-how to support the organisation and content of the individual-guidance-trajectory-project (IGT). And on the other hand can be a kind of feedback-system for both the IGT and the other actors in the network. Thirdly we will try to set up the IGT. This will be a tailor-made training program for each unemployed participant:
So we want to work with the person as a whole and in his context.
We will now place this case in a framework that is based on several of the models that were presented during this module. Our target-group consists of a kind of sub-community within the local, territorial community of River District; the unemployed inhabitants. We can define this group as a community in the perspective of two entries (D. Clarck):
Because of the stigma that rests upon "being unemployed" and the link with social exclusion, we do not think that the other three entries are dominant: unemployed people do not want to be recognised and do not want to be identified as such. So we expect they will not have a lot of shared activities (only looking for a job, or going to social services perhaps). The sense of solidarity will also not be very strong (everybody works for his own good, more competition then solidarity perhaps). By consequence we expect there will not be a network of close knit relationships between them. So if we see this community of unemployed people clearly and we link it with the definition of the competent community (Cottrell) we can conclude that we are confronted here with an incompetent community. So that is why the purpose of our project was to build up a more competent community. This means by empowering the individuals belonging to this community, by making them more competent on the personal, social and professional level, we will break down the existing incompetent community of unemployed inhabitants. In the mean time by doing this these individuals get socially and professionally integrated in the larger community of River District and so the whole community of River District can become more competent. So by working on the level of the individuals belonging to the community of unemployed, the level of the community becomes more competent. We can now put our target-group in the political, economical and demographical context of River District (see statistical facts and figures in the given case study). This context has a large impact on the individual experiences of the community-life. The final aim of our project is to get the unemployed socially and professionally integrated. First of all we had to reach our target-group and because of the specific characteristics of this group, this is a very difficult but crucial first step in our strategy. By doing this outreaching-work we not only want to reach as many people as possible but also we can try to find out what their experiences of community-life are. Our next step is to set up the IGT, we think this fits in a strategy of community-development projects, more than in the locality-development approach because: - The problem-statement is in terms of problems of distribution of opportunities, we see the unemployed inhabitants of River District as under-privileged individuals rather than the disadvantaged area or territory. - The basic strategy for change is focused on fact-gathering about problems. - The medium of change is in a way the steering-committee with key-persons and representatives of the local actors in our network. - In this network the representatives of the power structures are involved as sponsors and resource-controllers. - The basis for working is the network (can be seen as a private/public agency delivering project-support). - The role of the community worker is that of a "community planning consultant". At the same time the community worker is a kind of coordinator, enabler/catalyst and partner, and a fact-gatherer, analyst, planner, facilitator. So this is more a combination of the role one has to play in locality-development and in community-development. However, this project can not exist on its own. It will not be efficient to work only on the individual level to build a community on itself, it really has to be embedded into River District - the community-context. That is why we think it is necessary to build a kind of network, partnership between all the different actors involved in the community-building process and who are dealing with unemployment issues. By creating such a network we try to make a link with the bigger community and improve the social solidarity-responsibility and the social-professional integration. In each step of our project we can recognise some of the 4 principles of social learning to a certain degree: reflexivity, action-centredness, multi-actor orientation, dialogue or public debate. - In the outreaching-work there can be a first level of reflexivity about the problems of the unemployed themselves, because we not only want to reach them, but also want to find out what their experiences of the community-life are. By doing this the unemployed inhabitants can become aware of the causes and influences of their problems. We can also recognise action-centredness in this approach because the goal is to get them participating in the project. - In the network-building we try to work on the reflexivity of different community-actors (representatives of the public services and the power structures) about the unemployment issue in the community as a whole. The network idea in itself fits in a multi-actor orientation. We have stated before that this is a very important key towards change in respect to unemployment because of the multi-problem context we are confronted with. Maybe out of this all there can be a kind of public debate. Anyway there have to be some kind of dialogue in the network to let it work. - Finally in the IGT-setup we want to stimulate reflexivity on the individual level much deeper with the intake and the goal-defining. The whole purpose of the learning-trajectory is to help people to get socially and professionally integrated and to find a job so it is mainly focused on action. Also the multi-actor approach can be a part of this IGT because it is embedded in the network. We think the position of our project in the social midfield of market, citizens, government/public administration, and associations/services is somewhere in the middle of the frame, because our goal is both oriented towards the citizen-side (social integration) as to the market-side (professional integration). Another reason to put it there is because in the strategies we use to reach this goal (outreaching, IGT, network), there are different actors involved: industrial companies (market), school-system, workers associations, social services (associations and services) and the municipality (government, public administration). But, we guess, in a less idealistic view our project would be more situated towards the market-side because this is the dominant discourse in the unemployment issue. The models of decision-making (for a policy to provide community-development and action) we can recognise are: - The forum-model in some strategies of outreaching work like the idea of a phone-line for ideas, suggestions, complaints. - The emancipation-model is probably the most dominant one because the whole project is on the one hand focused on the personal and professional development, empowerment of the unemployed and on the other hand it builds a network of a kind of 'collective care' in a strategy for combating deprivation. - Within the network we see the partnership-model.
3.4. Contradictions and reflections 3.4.1. Contradiction of dissolving and building communities Some communities, like the unemployed community in our case, will not become better as a community after the individuals are empowered. In the case of unemployment the individuals that will profit from the empowerment will leave the community and they will join another community. So community education can also dissolve and break a community and in this respect we can ask ourselves if it is then maybe more adult education in stead of community education, because you work on individuals in a specific community (and not on the community level). But than again, we see community education as a part from, as one of the different fields of adult education. In a certain way there is always a community aspect involved in adult education because adult education can be seen as an instrument to cope with problems of individuals which live in a society, together with other individuals in different and several communities. On the other hand we believe community education can also focus on individuals and individual education in a sense because communities consist of individual members.
3.4.2. Contradiction of the competent helpless people In order to get and find some help the disadvantaged people must know and be clever enough to find help. So it is really hard to find and give help to the ‘real’ disadvantaged people. Adult educators must find ways to reach those people and make help more accessible and easier. (importance of outreaching work)
3.4.3. Dilemma to set up projects on a small or big scale (idealism versus realism) We found that a lot of plans and ideas we have used in our case for community education are quite idealistic and that it would be more realistic to plan smaller projects. Also because then it is maybe more easy to motivate the state to become involved (financial aspect). But on the other hand it may not be realistic at all that the state only wants to finance small projects. Because when you work with small projects it seems to be more difficult to involve the whole context that surrounds the problem. It seems logical to say that the bigger projects (which may be very expensive, intensive and work on the whole context) will be more effective on the long term and bigger investments will be useful to deal with the complex problems in risk-society, also because in small, local projects there is often not enough continuation guaranteed. But at the same time this way of thinking is in some way idealistic because in reality adult education often gets or has not enough resources to set up big projects and it has not immediately visible results. A possible way to cope with the reality of adult education is to set up several smaller projects but linked together in a kind of network rather than apart from each other. This can also important to deal with the multi-problem context. Another important thing is to guarantee some kind of continuation in the projects because we think this is one of the key-factors to have more lasting effects. We are aware there are a lot of different conditions and factors that influence the efficiency of small or big projects. This makes it more difficult to decide but often we are not in the position to choose and we just have to work in the situation we are confronted with.
3.4.4. Reflections about reducing unemployment With the project we set up we want to involve the unemployed inhabitants of River District more into community by increasing their professional and social competence. But is education enough in to reach this aim? To reduce unemployment is basically a question of how to increase the amount of jobs, how to activate people in the community and how to increase their competencies to take actively part into communal life. What kind of mechanisms are the cause of the high amount of unemployed people and what underlying mechanisms need to be seen to be able to solve this high unemployment? Can we already find some competencies in the community which could be strategically used for this common goal of reducing unemployment? What are really the goals of this project? How can our case empower the citizen? What should be done to help the individuals to see the common objectives so that they would understand the benefits of the project for their self actualisation as well as for the common good? What are the external strategies, should we inspect the question of unemployment from neo-liberal (utilitarian) point of view, since after all the question of reducing unemployment is more or less redistribution of labour. The target group can be seen as a group at risk. How can they be activated into labour market instead of living with social welfare? But then again is the question merely neo-liberal one? Since activating people at risk doesn’t merely mean: getting their new jobs. We can see politically vitalising aspects also in civil society as well as in communitarism. To activate those people into volunteer organisations (as in civil society) and getting them participate into organising festivities for instance (communitarism), is also important from the community’s cohesion point of view. Exclusion from the daily life of the district because of unemployment is surely more costly for the community than activity in the community in general. So it is a matter of passivity versus activity.
3.4.5. Reflections about the position and task of adult/community education During this module it appeared that adult education (AE) in the sense of community education (CE)/-work (CW) /-development (CD) has a task in constructing new forms of social solidarity, integration and co-operation. With respect to this task or role AE/CE has to play or which challenges it is confronted with in the context of risk society, we can and must ask ourselves the following questions:
3) In how far is it playing this role already? 4) What are other possibilities or options? If we agree upon the first question, we can look more closely, deeper to the task and the components that are involved in fulfilling it. If AE wants to succeed in it, it has to be able to reach, influence and involve two major actors in learning and change processes: individuals living in communities on the one hand and representatives of structural systems in society (economic, social, political, ...). On the other hand, if we look at AE in the position of CE, we can see it as a «go-between«, a kind of mediator between citizens and society. In this role AE has a very crucial function in social change but also a very difficult one because CE will always be confronted in this position with a lot of different and often opposite interests on each level. So AE has to find a way how to handle or to cope with this. We will now look a bit closer on the two different actors and will discuss what tasks AE has in respect to each of them. 1) The individual level: Community building (CE, CD, CW) means on this level empowering citizens, individuals in the communities (and by doing this also empowering the communities itself) through some kind of education. By setting up learning-processes with the individuals, these individuals can learn a lot of different knowledge, skills and attitudes for problem solving, social action and change on a broad spectrum of domains (communication, perspectives, organisation and planning, information,...). This in a more or less informal, implicit way (by experience, by doing). But CE has also its limits; this kind of AE cannot solve a lot of structural problems. Therefore are other forms of AE necessary and also changes in social and economical policy. Although CE tries to influence mechanisms of social exclusion in our society, it cannot change them on her own and not at once. And at this point we arrive to the other level involved. 2) The structural level: Because individuals and communities are situated in a political, economical, demographical, ... context, this context has a lot of influences not only on the experiences individuals have of the community life but also on the construction and deconstruction of communities (embedding and dis-embedding processes). That is why making partnerships and constructing networks with other (more structural non-educational systems in society) is very important to be successful in community-building. For example in our case, we are focused on the unemployed inhabitants of River District, unemployment is not (only) a matter of low education but also (mostly) a structural problem, so AE/CE can not solve it on his own. Network building is a crucial task of AE too. We have now described tasks AE has to fulfil on two levels to be successful in community-building, construct forms of social solidarity and co-operation: not only individuals/citizens/ communities have to be empowered and changed but also society itself-the structural systems. We will now go a bit deeper into what we think is a crucial first step to start any community-building process: the definition of the relation between individual and community. With this definition we mean: try to find out how is the relation experienced by the individual and what are the influential components or factors involved (in both the community and the individual) that have a positive/negative influence on and can be influenced. This ‘defining’ is an ongoing process during the community-building process itself, because the definition is always changing. This step is very important for involving people in the process / motivating them to participate (opening or constructing channels for participation). The individual can experience the communities he is living in in several ways: feeling of involvement, engagement, belonging to; feeling of exclusion, not belonging to; feeling of resistance; feelings of strangeness (Schäffter, see further on). We can clarify these relations even more by putting it in the framework of O. Schäffter about «Modes of experiencing strangeness, patterns of interpretation in encountering "foreigness". We can identify each individual and each community as a sphere of selfhood. Each individual belongs to different communities (at the same time) and gets there confronted with other individuals, each with his/hers own universe of meaning. So there are a lot of surfaces of irritation that can appear and people can have very different experiences of strangeness in very different communities within very different contexts. We can draw a complex picture of this field of interrelations between individuals and communities. It will get even more complex if we try to involve the change-processes within, because this field is a very dynamic one, constantly changing and evolving through the confrontations between and changes in each sphere of selfhood. Individuals are constantly pulled between altering feelings of inclusion and exclusion and conflicts between the different levels/universes of meaning or communities they belong to. This complexity can cause feelings of uncertainty and people can become very lost in this spider-web. They have to make decisions about what frame of reference they can or must apply when, ... In all of this we can see an important task for AE to make people aware of it and help people to find ways how they can handle this all, cope with this complexity. By doing this AE can help people to find some kind of balance between individuality and communality. It can people empower to become responsible individuals: this means learn them skills to be able to see what is ‘good’ for them as an individual and a member of community and to act upon this. With respect to the dilemma between individual and community, the adult educator or community worker finds himself in a very difficult position. Because, who are we (the adult educators) to decide what is «good« for a person or a community? Even by interviewing people in a neighbourhood, you assume that they want to change things, that there has to be changed something. So isn’t AE always a form of decision-making for ‘objects’ even though you want to treat them as subjects later on? Do we have to motivate people and pressure them to take part in some community life even if they don’t want to, don’t feel any bond? Wouldn’t this be like breaking into the private life? Wouldn’t this be more an invasion than education? Or is there always some kind of invasion involved in education? How far can/may we go as an adult educator in our intervention? How can we help the individuals to see the benefits of the collective good and at the same time respect the individual’s ‘freedom to choose’? Because of this tension between individual and communality, between individual freedom of choice and social responsibility, between rights and duties, we need a kind of ethical, deontological code for AE, because we also have to be able to make responsible decisions and act upon it in a responsible way!
CHAPTER 4: ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT Within society organisational field forms "a species" on its own. You can find all sorts and conditions of organisations, and also different kinds of classifications. Is to divide them into profit or non-profit organisations. But what they all have in common to a certain degree is the fact that they are confronted with the ever-changing society where they exist in, and by coping (from within the organisation) with this changing (outside) context, organisations maintain and contribute to this process of change. Today organisations have to survive in the so called post-modern society that is characterised by processes of reflexive modernisation (individualisation and globalisation), where human capital, knowledge and learning is emphasised and where the market-ideology is one of the dominant organising principles. In this context adult education has a place. Whether we look to adult education that takes place in an organisational context or to adult education in a specific role of change-agent in an organisation, the adult educator is always confronted with a dynamic and diverse context. There are not only different kinds of organisations with their own specific missions, goals, cultures, structures, strategies, and so on; but within each of those organisations there are also a lot of different actors involved with their personal learning needs, goals, expectations, interests, life-world, learning-styles and so on. Adult education/educator is operating in a grey zone, a kind of midfield between society and organisation or between organisation and the individual participants. Within this position adult education/educator has to deal or to cope with a lot of different, conflicting and opposite interests. So decision making will be a crucial but complex task. There are books full of theories, perspectives and frameworks about all aspects of organisations that give meaning and structure to this complex reality of organisations and can facilitate the decision making process. But because of the diversity, criteria has to be looked for in each specific situation (but how is this possible if the situation is constantly changing?). Therefore in planning, organising any adult education program or intervention the only basic guiding-principle can be to re-activate or stimulate a relational process, between all different actors involved, where negotiation is the central issue to deal with the pressure of change processes from the outside and the inside. In the following case we want to explain in what way we tried to make the specific organisation more effective and more attractive (by stimulating the mutual relations of the collaborators). We will start by presenting the case study where we focus our work, by analysing the situation of the association and also doing an intervention to change the situation. In the next part we want to link up the concrete case and the theories that we received in class, to help us to clarify this real case and also to find the importance of adult education on it. We will end the chapter by including a specific conclusion of our intervention and a general reflection of the module on its own.
The organisation that we choose is a local radio station from a small village where one of our members was taking part in. The radio station is paid by the city council so it is a non profit organisation. What we are going to develop is a plan to improve their "organisational development". We will act like a group of four consultants: Before we entered the radio station we already had information about their structure, way of working, social contacts and timetables, because one of us was involved in the company, in this case the radio-station. So we had some ideas about the problems we could expect when we intervene in the case. When we entered in the company the first problem we saw came from the communication and interrelation between the collaborators (the volunteers). The situation is as following. The radio station is composed by a group of 15 collaborators, all of them are students at the university, which are working on a voluntary basis. They don’t have much time to spend on it because they have to study or they have to work in other places as the main profession. The students had no strong relation with each other, in other words, they didn’t spend so much time together, even some of them didn’t know each other. So, the social contact was on a low level. The feeling of responsibility was not very high because they didn’t feel like a group and the majority of them didn’t have feelings of solidarity within the group. Therefore there is a need of compromise from the individual to the group. We recognised a lot of strong points that could be useful to improve their situation. The collaborators had a lot of connecting points. All of them were studying at the same university so they were members in a same community. They were working as volunteers because they liked the job, so the starting motivation was very strong. The majority of them came from the same area and they had some common feelings of territorial belonging. The age was similar, they were active and they wanted to improve the social situation of the radio station but they didn’t know why it wasn’t working in the old manner and what the problem was. All these characteristics made it easier to solve the problem because it showed that there was only a need of organisation and that it could be improved by an intervention plan from our side, working together with the same collaborators. It is not the structure that has to be changed, but the social contacts and co-operation between that structure. Changing processes always happens within the structure. What do we have to do with the following dyad: individual - organisation? There exists a mutual interdependency between the individual and the organisation. The individuals together form the organisation and the organisation supposes the co-operation of these individuals. In this case one has to be aware of the specific language that the company uses in order to know what is happening in the organisation. An organisation will be more effective if the contact between the people involved is better; if there are messages that will be sent and received in a clear and interactive way. Model of Dr. Schäffter:
The question for the consultant/facilitator is: How to improve the way of communication/contact between the individuals and how to deal with the existing problems? In the following part we will describe our social inquiry and intervention-project. We will take into account that symbolic actions and all forms of linguistic coding are the essence of organisational life.
There are different elements of learning and problem-solving involved. If we look at Kolb’s model (David A. Kolb 1976) the learning-style of the consultant is between concrete experience and active experimentation. The consultant in general is good developed on the sensitive/social level and knows what to do in a specific situation. He/ she has the role of an accomodator/mediator. It is useful to look at the following model for designing intervention, this model is made with reference to the model for designing instruction. ( W.Dick and L.Carey). We will use this scheme the rest of this module to set up our own intervention.
First of all we will set up our general and specific goals. The general goals are: first improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the radio station and second to adjust the individual and the radio station like an organisation. The specific goals are to: a) increase the relations between the collaborators (inside and outside the radio station). b) introduce the workgroup like a way of co-operative work. c) construct a common culture in the organisation. d) increase the feeling of belonging to the group. e) make their jobs more dynamics. f) help the collaborators to identify their own skills. To reach the goals we will be focus ourselves on the collaborators like members of a group with individual needs and interests, because we think that starting by them the organisation will also work better. Our intervention in the organisation was easier because one of us was already involved in it. So, the difficulty of the new group coming into an organisation was lower. A strong planning was made before the first visit to be used during the intervention in a flexible way, taking care of the individual needs and interests. The first thing to do was a reunion to inform the people that we would be around there and we would do some interviews to them. The intention of the reunion was to make them aware of our staying. We didn’t tell them that we were consultants because it could create feelings of pressure, so we said that we were students doing observations on the work floor. The reactions, as we already expected, were negative because the majority of the volunteers didn’t come to the reunion. The reason was that they were not used to this kind of acts in the radio station. We started to collect some information, by going there and observing the way they work, the relations between them, the climate of the association, the culture they had, and so on. We gathered the information also with the use of the member from our group (direct information) and from some interviews that we did with the volunteers, director and sub director. We have to say that at the beginning there was some resistance from their side but it was solved soon by themselves. The intention of the interviews was to find out some aspects that we needed to know before we could start with the plan ( identifying entry behaviour characteristics). We were trying to know what was the level of relations in the organisation and also if there were established some groups between the collaborators or if they had a predisposition towards some changes and innovations. Another reason was to know more about the institutional aspects, if they agreed with our observations about their feelings of belonging to the group and if they do or did some activities together etc. We had an analysis of the interviews and we found that there were some differences between the collaborators, and also with the director and sub-director. They had different opinions related to the place of work and the time that they had been working there. But the feelings about the communication and relationships between them were generalised. All of them felt that there was a need to establish and vitalise relationships between them and they were ready to do something about that. On the other hand, all the collaborators were satisfied with their own jobs and that facilitated our task, because they really wanted to give their collaborations to the radio and they wanted to do something to improve their situation. The next thing we did was organising a drink for everyone, because after the interviews, we saw that individually all of them realised that there was this problem of communication, but nobody talked about it in a group discussion. Our intention was to connect people with each other and to help them to realise how important the communication and the group ideology was for the effectiveness of the people as an individual, group member and member of the association. That was one of the most important specific goals to achieve. (as they already noticed). After this they started to see the common characteristics between them and they were ready to hear our proposals. That was the time that we choose to tell them that we were doing an observation of their «organisational development« and that we were there to work together with them to improve their situation. We started by giving them some feedback about their existing positive points to make their relationship towards their job better. The interventional strategies that we decided to introduce in their organisation were as follows. - Short but interacting reunions, to give the opportunity to express their feelings about their job and to change opinions about the work and practices with each other (it could be twice a month, and the possibility of exceptional reunions when there is the need of it). In this reunions they can talk about new ideas, innovations, the clarification of tasks that they have to do, maybe some work in commissions (party, excursion, newspaper, for instance), the relation within the other programs and the new structure of work and so on. - The proposal of an informal newspaper where everybody can write his/her own ideas, remarks etc. Also the birthdays, weddings and cultural events. In the newspaper there has to be a summary of the reunions and other activities for people that are not able to join in these. - A board to hang up some interesting things, some remarks, events and even greetings. - A card-catalogue, with one part for each, where they will have small pieces of paper that they will fill up every day when they record a program. In one side there will be the proposal of the following program and in the other side there will be the result of the program after they have recorded it. So, they compare what they had in mind before they do the program and what they really did. In that way, everybody can go there and read about the other programs and know what is going on in the other days. That can be a good way to keep them informed about it and to make them aware about their collegues’ tasks. That can also help them to find what other programs they are interested in and may increase their co-operation and peer support within the group. We want to stress that all these previous activities were offered in a voluntary way instead of a compulsory way. We choose these practical actions because they were easy to apply and they didn’t take so much time, otherwise there could have been more resistance to do them. We couldn’t follow all the processes of the planned change because it takes a long time until the change is established, but we were always introducing some group dynamics to their way of work, that they can keep using after our intervention. Some of them were: Phillips 6.6 to promote the integration of the members of a group; the participation of them and the communication within a group; the Nominal Group, to promote the integration and participation; Brainstorming, to make them find out their creativity and some new ideas that could be useful to innovate some aspects of the radio station and also to facilitate their work sometimes; The Interchange of experiences, to see different opinions and have contrasting viewpoints about the same question and also to make them more critical about their work. In the project we were continuously concerned about the relationship between the volunteers and the relationship between them and the consultants. We were all the time trying to understand the reason of their resistances, and also motivating them by telling the positive things about themselves. Our role was totally defined by ourselves and also identified by the collaborators. We tried to work with energy to increase their feelings of motivation and participation. We want to remark that planned change has to be done carefully. There are a lot of aspects to take care of and the main thing to respect and work on are the persons, as individuals and as group members.
We recognise the different parts of the process of a planned change in our case study: Scouting, Entry, Diagnosis, Planning, Action, Evaluation and Institutionalisation. Our planning was really useful because we could link some theories that we were studying before and introduce them in a real case. The evaluation was done from two sides of the case, the first one immediately after the intervention (formative evaluation) and second two months after (summative evaluation). We also introduced the idea of an evaluation by themselves like a continuous feedback in a group discussion, to receive positive and also negative evaluation, because we think that not only the positive feedback helps them to improve their work, but also the negative. The resistance of changing was observed at the beginning of our intervention. This resistance came from their fear towards a new way of working and breaking their own way of working. With the practical actions mentioned before we wanted to introduce some of the characteristics of the learning potential that we saw during our intervention. The open communication, referring to the reunions, group work, newspaper, and so on; the confrontation of differences by using the reunions and discussion groups; feedback possibilities were facilitated with using all these changes; make the results visible for everybody, to keep them well informed. About the images of organisation (scheme from Mintzbergh) we saw it like a mixture between ideological, adhocracy and professional. There were some aspects about co-operation and competitiveness together when we first observed their way of working. They were doing their work individually and in a competitive way because they weren’t working like a group. At the same time, all of them were working on a voluntary basis and only for their own satisfaction and for the radio’s benefit, so it was a kind of co-operation at the same time. Some principles of innovation were showed at the same time, by the way that they were motivated to change ways of working and to introduce new ideas in the company. At the beginning before we entered the organisation, our way of working and thinking was more related to the expert model because we saw ourselves like professionals with knowledge and also with some power. The process that we were planning was structured. When we started our intervention directly with the collaborators, we saw that we couldn’t be that much rational and structured, otherwise the collaborators wouldn’t answer properly to our propositions. So, we changed our way of acting to a more confrontation model, where we were more facilitators than professionals, trying to make organisation members themselves work on it and discuss their differences, make them critical about it and work like consultants and initiators of the change. Like a summary we can say that the most important points that we tried to achieve were the following:
4.4. Importance of adult education in this real case: The consultants as adult educators play the role of facilitators or conflict solvers. Therefore adult education has a really important role on it because it works as an instrument for the improvement of the organisation and its situation. How crucial is the importance of the consultant for the development of the organisation? It is obvious that the labour habits and the organisation customs would have probably stayed the same if the consultants wouldn’t have been intervened to the organisation. Or maybe a very visible problem in the organisational labour structure would have opened the eyes of the workers to react somehow against the conflict by asking outside consultancy help for example. Was the change really needed in this case if the organisation was getting on anyway? What is then the role of the adult education in general? In this case the field of adult education is to be seen from limited sector since it takes a specific methodological viewpoint as a science; it is not value free in that sense since it is being just one operationalisation of the many interests of adult education. The individual and the organisation are seen from the development point of view, which means that in the case itself the role of adult education was to be the instrument (as mentioned) for empowering and development of the individual and the organisation. The organisation became more empowered through the individuals’ greater understanding about the organisational facts.
We will set up the conclusions like an evaluation of the evolution process by the two sides of the planned change: the collaborators and the consultants. The participants started being strange and a little bit close to the proposals, becoming more collaborators of the change and feeling helped about the proposition of change, being really active and finishing ready to change their structure. Before intervening the radio station the consultants were scared about it, because it seemed really a big change with a lot of difficulties to solve and problems to find. That could be because they already had some expectations and the main goal for them was to solve things as if there was a problem. The other feeling, after entering the company, was totally different because they saw it more relaxed and flexible than before. So, they started feeling frustrated about the feeling of resistance which they first found, but it ended quickly to evolve to a more affective feeling to the collaborators. Then they were ready to change and collaborators and consultants were working together to improve the situation. The consultants felt efficient and useful, and they cared about their job and principally about the collaborators’ feelings, needs and interests.
Making an intervention in the organisation is a complex issue, where many components have to be taken into consideration. The case itself shows one inside view into an intervention process, the methodology and philosophy behind the praxis is broad and sometimes blurry, therefore some remarks about intervention, organisational change, organisational culture and experiential learning should be made: The Kolb’s model which was used in our exercise is after all about experiential learning, therefore it is peculiar why this topic was left out from deeper discussion. Where does these models come from and what is the background and contradictions of Kolb’s model for instance? When talking about development the question of «our« and «their« development should be posed: Who defines the development (on this case the change)? Is it the outsider consultant or the insiders, the employees, itself? Can the consultant really define from outside what is the situation in the organisation? Obviously the answer is no, therefore the voice of the employees must always be heard, but there lie |
