Popular Education Practice for Youth and Community Development Work

Rod Purcell, Dave Beck

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781844452071
• eBook ISBN: 9781844456260
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

Drawing on the legacy of Paulo Freire and the insights of Antonio Gramsci, this book provides new ways of working with communities which put people at the heart of the development agenda. In addition, it offers a strong theoretical basis for action and an insight into the practical application of popular education methods and is based upon strong traditions of practice experience from both the developing and developed worlds.

The book is structured so that the theory and practice are integrated. Each chapter provides key discussion points, practice examples, learning activities and a summary of content and learning points.

Section 1 Theoretical Background

Chapter 1 Why We Need Popular Education: A Critical Review of Current Practice

Chapter Objectives

Youth and community development work has evolved over the decades. The way workers practice today is vastly different than from 50, or even 15 years ago. The development of practice is partly a response to what government and agencies believe works, and responses to changes in social conditions. However, it is also a reflection of the ideological position of governments and institutions which determine the policy and resources for practice; this has taken us to a place where current practice is largely ineffective. This chapter argues that there are fundamental flaws in current practice; hence the need for new approaches to which popular education can make a significant contribution.

The following histories of youth and community development work are intended only as a very brief summary to contextualise the discussion that follows. We have focused on the practice in the UK. In other developed countries the details will be different but the general points raised are likely to be applicable.

Youth Work: A Short History

Youth work practice in the UK has developed from a variety of activities, mainly for young men, in the mid to late nineteenth century: Sunday Schools, the YMCA and other initiatives focused on sports and social activities amongst the children of the poor. The Rev Arthur Sweatman, one of the leaders of this informal movement outlined his motivation for this work. He said, referring to young men:

Their peculiar wants are evening recreation, companionship, an entertaining but healthy literature, useful instruction, and a strong guiding influence to lead them onward and upward socially and morally; their dangers are, the long evenings consequent upon early closing, the unrestraint they are allowed at home, the temptations of the streets and of their time of life, and a little money at the bottom of their pockets.

(Sweatman, 1867 quoted in Smith, 2002)

Towards the end of the century there was a parallel growth in provision for young women. Smith quotes the Girls’ Friendly Society whose purpose was to unite girls and women in a fellowship of prayer, service and purity of life, for the glory of God. Also at this time religious-inspired uniformed organisations started to appear (Jewish Lads’ Brigade, Catholic Lads’ Brigade, Girls’ Brigade and so on). Although often viewed these days as a conservative activity the Scouts and Guides were established by Baden-Powell in the early twentieth century as an educative venture to build fellowship and promote a sense of adventure for young people, in contrast to the regimented activities of the brigades.

Direct state promotion of youth began in the interwar period where local authorities were empowered to establish Juvenile Organising Committees. However it is not until the Albermarle Report in 1960 that youth work significantly moved from a voluntary and amateur activity to a state-funded and paid staffed service. The Report defined the youth work as offering

individual young people in their leisure time opportunities of various kinds, complementary to those of home, formal education and work, to discover and develop their personal resources of body, mind and spirit and thus the better to equip themselves to live the life of mature, creative and responsible members of a free society.

(Ministry of Education, 1960, p36, quoted in Smith and Doyle, 2002)

Even in this manifestation youth work was still primarily concerned with the young person as an individual, focusing on character-building activity and operating within the supposed consensual norms of society. Although issue-based and detached work did develop to some degree in the 1980s, this was as much a response to the decline in popularity and relevance of the youth club as a commitment to more radical conceptions of youth work practice. Jeffs and Smith (1990) amongst others have argued for a more focused and effective youth work service, but the overall range of provision and level of service performance could be said to be patchy at best.

In Scotland the Alexander Report of 1975 led to the integration of youth, community and adult education provision into a new local authority community education service, later reorganised as community learning and development. For many this has been an unhappy marriage. Youth work has tended to be the dominant partner, but the service as a whole has suffered from a consistent lack of clarity of purpose or method.

The Labour Governments from 1997 have refocused youth work as a service delivery operation as part of their social inclusion strategy. In England the Connexions Service attempted to unify services for young people through the transition from school to work period. Recent changes to the service have modified but not fundamentally changed this approach, with increasing emphasis on achieving outputs and meeting service targets.

Community Development Work: A Short History

Community development has a similar history to that of youth work. In the UK it can be traced back to the urban Settlements such as Toynbee Hall in London and other major industrial cities during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Hall (1952) describes the establishments of the Settlements as recognising that a society which truly seeks the welfare of its members is not only concerned that they shall live but that they shall have the opportunities for a more abundant life. The movement accepted that many of the poor were victims of social change and believed that philanthropy and education provided a viable response. Like youth work there were few attempts at any systematic analysis of structural problems within society. The way forward was an individualised approach of enabling people to function within the existing social norms.

From the mid-1940s onwards a number of trends appear. The Ministry of Education produced a booklet extolling the virtues of community centres which stated: Neighbours come together on an equal footing to enjoy social, recreative and educational activities either as members of groups following particular hobbies or on the basis of their common needs or interest as human beings living in the same locality (quoted in Barr et al., 1996a, p180).

At the same time community development workers from the ex-colonies were returning to the UK and bringing their methods with them. Their perspective promoted the ideas of participation, self-help within a normative framework and, crucially, a focus on very local contexts. The idea of restricting activity to a specific geographical area continues to operate in British community work practice. Partly this approach is due to the need to concentrate limited resources in areas designated as in greatest need. It also has the advantage from the government's perspective of limiting the analysis of needs and problems to particular estates. In this way overall structural analyses of social and economic problems can be sidestepped.

In 1968 the Gulbenkian Foundation reported on ‘Community Work and Social Change’. The report identifies three main activities for community work:

• the democratic process of involving people in services that affect their lives;
• the personal fulfilment for those involved of belonging to a community;
• as an aid to community planning.

The report went on to stress the need to protect the interests of groups with special needs, especially in new communities, and for the redevelopment of ‘twilight areas’.

Also in 1968 the Home Office established the Community Development Projects (CDPs). This was a response to a number of pressing political problems including what is known as the ‘rediscovery of poverty’ in a country that according to a Conservative party slogan had never had it so good, and increasing social tension in areas experiencing large-scale immigration from the Commonwealth.

A Home Office briefing stated that the CDPs were:

A modest attempt at action and research into the better understanding and more comprehensive tackling of social need … through closer co-ordination of central and local, official and unofficial, informed and stimulated by citizen initiative and involvement.

(quoted in Barr et al., 1996a, p183)

The initiative was based on the then current US social policy of focusing provision on designated areas, with the emphasis on improved planning, local partnerships and re-including people back into the mainstream of society. This policy, with various adaptations and public relations faces, still underpins current governmental thinking.

During the time of the CDPs a variety of practices were developed, often reflecting the ideological position of the workers involved. Three main approaches to community development work were identified within the CDPs, which continue to underpin practice debates in the UK. These approaches are as follows.

• Amelioration, based largely around the Oldham CDP. The project accepted the view that only major socio-economic change could remedy some of the problems in the local project area. This being so, many problems could not be resolved. The Project team therefore adjusted its practical work programme to the local context and to largely self-help and ameliorative activities.
• Traditional responses where action was designed to effect changes in the controllers of resources rather than in those who receive them. The way to achieve significant change at the local level was to increase access to, and democratic control over, the resources that were already available. The operational goal was to radically change the organisation of resources within the local authority, not to act as an outside pressure group. Inevitably this method of practice leads to the involvement of local people into various manifestations of community planning and partnerships.
• Radical responses which rejected previous definitions of community work and attempted to evolve new forms more fitting with economic realities. The projects saw the interconnection between the problems encountered in the local project areas and the uneven nature of capitalist development. Rather than just accepting this as a given, or responding eclectically, these projects tried to develop along with input from effective local practices at the national level.

The radical group produced two major publications. The first, Gilding the Ghetto (CDP Inter-Project Editorial Team, 1977), argues that urban deprivation is not caused by the deprived themselves but rather that the problems of urban poverty were the consequence of fundamental inequalities in the economic and political system. Government development programmes were not about solving the problem of poverty but about maintaining the status quo and managing the poor. The Costs of Industrial Change (also 1977) argued that poverty was caused by unemployment through business decisions taken elsewhere, thus providing an early analysis of the effects of global capitalism on local communities.

This class analysis continued as an undercurrent in community work. Increasingly the feminist movement and workers operating within a Black perspective introduced a more critical awareness and ideological perspectives on gender, race, sexuality and ethnicity into radical community work practice.

By 2003 the National Occupational Standards for Community Development Work could outline the key purposes of the profession as being

• to collectively bring about social change and justice by working with communities to identify their needs, opportunities, rights and responsibilities;
• to plan, organise and take action;
• to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the action.

… all carried out in ways which challenge oppressions and tackle inequalities (PAULO, 2003).

This is a laudable statement of intent; however, it was the amelioration approach and traditional responses which continued to dominate community work practice.

Practice in the 1980s and 1990s remained localised, and focused on a mixture of self-help and linking people into local planning processes. Community work became an increasingly professionalised and technocratic activity. This is illustrated by the market-leading community work textbook of the time, Skills in Neighbourhood Work (Henderson and Thomas, 1992, reprinted 2002...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword from the Authors
• Critical Pedagogy
• Foreword from the Series Editors
• Acknowledgements
• Section 1 Theoretical Background
• Chapter 1 Why We Need Popular Education: A Critical Review of Current Practice
• Chapter 2 Social Change
• Chapter 3 The Legacy of Paulo Freire
• Chapter 4 Gramsci
• Chapter 5 Youth and Community Work as Transformational Practice
• Chapter 6 Global Popular Education
• Section 2 Practice
• Chapter 7 Overview of how Groups Work
• Chapter 8 Developing Generative Themes for Community Action
• Chapter 9 Using Codes: Critical Reflection for Practice
• Chapter 10 Participation
• Chapter 11 Theatre of the Oppressed
• Chapter 12 Practice Examples
• Section 3 Resources
• Chapter 13 Internet Resources
• Index