Key Thinkers on Community Education
Community education has many perspectives. Some of the key thinkers on community education include;
Paulo Freire the Brazilian educator has left a significant mark on adult and community education. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed is one of the most quoted books in adult education. Freire's work focused around four main aspects; Dialogue-the importance of conversation that involves people working with each other in learning. Second is praxis-action that is informed and linked to certain values. He stressed the importance of dialogue as a co-operative activity leading to action for social justice and change. Third is-conscientization or developing consciousness that understands how to transform what is into what could be. Freire also called this naming the world. Fourthly is the idea of situating education in the lived experience of the learners and this has influenced how practice is approached in community education. This thinking is used today to describe community education that is empowering and transformative.
Jack Mezirow is called the father of transformative learning theory and he describes transformative learning as the process by which we transform our present mind-sets and ways of thinking (frames of reference) to make them more inclusive, reflective and open to change. This leads to learner empowerment and change in the learner and in the group. This process is based on the ability to question or critically reflect on ourselves and our society.
Stephen Brookfield defines critical reflection as reflecting on the assumptions that underpin our ideas and actions. This requires being self-aware, making sense of experience, deconstructing and reconstructing meaning with critique and analysis. Critical reflection focuses on the empowerment and autonomy of the learner to explore alternatives to current ways of thinking and working. Critical reflection means asking "why?" in such a way that the learner questions not only their learning, but also the assumptions that have underpinned their actions to date. This is done in a space that supports the learner to engage in exploring their ways of thinking and their experiences.
Jurgan Habermas is one of the most dominant figures in critical theory today. For Habermas, civil society comprises a "network of associations that institutionalises problem-solving discourses on questions of general interest inside a framework of organised public spheres" Habermas (1996, p.367). This concept of public sphere is somewhere people can discuss matters relevant to themselves and their communities and learn about the ideas and perspectives of others. They can then reach informed decisions and influence the political system.
Carol Gilligan developed a more feminist perspective and challenged what she regarded as the "dominant male" perspective. She regarded terms like "separateness, autonomy and independence" as male values and that female values such as "relationship, empathy and attachment" were missing. Relationship and trust certainly are essential to women's community education.
bel hooks, a black American feminist theorist, gives us new meaning for teaching adults in any setting. She talks of teaching as a performance. "...our work is meant to serve as a catalyst that calls everyone to become more and more engaged, to become more active participants"
hooks draws on Freire's theory of "conscientization", which she translated to critical awareness and engagement.
hooks believes that it is the responsibility of the educator to create the learning environment needed for democratic education. She states that "conversation is the central location of pedagogy for the democratic educator".
Anne B Ryan and Bríd Connolly (1999) suggest that community education needs to move towards creating the kinds of learning spaces, and providing the kinds of content and learning opportunities which enable groups of people facing oppression and discrimination to identify what would be really useful knowledge for them, in order to better understand their situation and to take action in pursuit of a change.
Adult and community education can be studied at third level in NUI Maynooth, UCD and Waterford Institute of Technology.
