Can adult education and learning be understoodwithout reference to community and people's daily lives? The response to befound in the chapters of this volume say emphatically no, they cannot. Adultlearning can be best understood if we look at the social life of people incommunities, and this book is an attempt to recover this view.
The chapters of this volume reflect ongoingresearch in the field of adult education and learning in and with communities.At the same time the work of the authors presented here offers a very vitalreflection of the work of the ESREA research network Between Local and Global -Adult Learning and Communities. The chapters showcase the broad range ofprofessional practice, the variety in both methodology and theoreticalbackground, as well as the impressive scope of field research experience theauthors bring to bear in their papers.
The first section provides the broad view ofresearch into adult learning and community development emphasising how socialmovements are at the heart of local and global change and that they are criticallyimportant sources of power. The second section focuses in on the practice ofeducators/mediators working in local and regional contexts in which thetensions of the wider policy and discourse environment impact on adultlearners. The third section privileges the view at the close level of researchinside local communities in the field.
International researchers and practitioners,particularly young researchers, who are active in adult learning and inlocal/global communities will be interested in this book. The emphasis of thechapters is on participatory and emancipatory social research. Empowerment ofwomen in rural communities, involvement of communities in social andenvironmental movements, power-sharing in community research projects and theexposure of hegemonic, globalising forces at work in ethnic communities areamong the themes developed in this volume.
