How can community education be a source of hope for a socially just world within this current climate?

Author: Suzanne Kyle

Sometimes it feels like the world is on fire and it can be difficult not to feel despondent when the news is full of images of extremism, hate and rising far-right activity. So how can community education be a source of hope for a socially just world within this current climate? This is one of the questions I wished to explore as part of my PhD research. I hope this blog will be a source of inspiration for all those working towards these goals.

It’s worth noting first of all that community education in Ireland has had a lot to contend with over the past fifteen years. Along with the restructuring of the adult education landscape with the formation of Solas, the ETBs  and QQI, it was significantly impacted by austerity measures following the economic crash of 2008. This led to the dismantling of the Community Development Programme and sharp, disproportionate cuts to the Community and Voluntary sector, which forms the backbone of state funded community education provision. Back in the year 2000, a radical model of community education had been espoused by the Government in their policy document Learning for Life: White Paper on Adult Education. Consciousness-raising and community building were named among the priority areas in this paper for all adult education provision. However, all the restructuring brought with it a new policy focus for adult and community education, one which prioritised individual rather than collective outcomes, and adult education was positioned primarily as an economic tool rather than a social good.

In many ways this context is relevant in seeking to understand the national and global rise of the far-right  and the role of community education in these times of social unrest. In our current climate, consciousness-raising is an important tool in understanding power dynamics and how stoking divisions between groups, rather than looking upwards at the real causes of poverty, is a tactic used to gain support by the far-right. Legitimate grievances are being exploited by agitators who whip up moral panic and scapegoat migrants and other minorities, blaming them for political failures that have led to such grievances.  The vacuum created by cuts in the community development and education space has not helped matters. Many practitioners wish to be responsive but have a lot on their plates juggling multiple funding streams, data collection processes, and the loss of sectoral knowledge as people retire, move to less precarious employment, or simply get burnt out.

My PhD, which I have been carrying out under the supervision of Dr. Camilla Fitzsimons, aims, through the use of focus groups and a national survey, to explore the experience of community educators in these times of social unrest. It has emerged that far-right rhetoric and activity, targeting migrants and other minorities, is penetrating community education spaces. While this is a worrying development, it is also clear that there is an appetite for the strengthening of alliances to work collectively towards inclusive solutions based on community solidarity rather than misdirected anger and divisions. This blog draws on some of the qualitative data captured through the focus groups and the open-ended survey questions. It proposes that community education can nurture relationships between people from diverse backgrounds and build trust and solidarity within and among communities. Where issues and grievances arise in areas of housing, unemployment or health services for example, they can be teased out within community education spaces through the use of dialogue, finding common ground, and identifying collective, inclusive and democratic responses. 

Research findings:

It is evident that community educators are experiencing more divisive rhetoric and open expressions of hostility, and that they are finding themselves navigating the tensions arising within this environment. One practitioner states the following, pointing to the impact of social media:

We always had to deal with an odd person making racist or homophobic comments. Now it is coming from people who weren’t engaging in this before. It is as if seeing this stuff online or hearing it more is giving people permission to say it, or else creating anger in them that they didn’t feel before.

Others, while acknowledging that the expression of racism and far-right views is not something new to contend with, point to a worrying sea change:

Through my work, down through the years, I have encountered many people with what we now term ‘far right’ views.  However, in the past, their views simply felt ‘different’ to mine.  At the moment, there is a sense of that difference being  inherently ‘against’.  There is an angry undercurrent which is worrying. 

As the following quotes illustrate, people are experiencing the challenges of facing misinformation in their work:

[In] my work with refugees I often have to tackle the misinformation and hatred spread by right wing ideology. e.g. ‘why can’t we look after our own first’ narrative.

Participants and staff of the organisation (who live in the city) have heard and spread misinformation originating from far-right sources. They have joined marches without truly understanding the politics of the individuals they are walking with. There have been positives from conversations started, but a far-right influence has been clear in the area generally.

Online learning can pose a particular challenge. Another survey respondent shared the following story:

People I identify as holding far right views have joined various online workshops that I run. We have a statement of values that everyone is required to read and agree with in order to register. Despite this, a small number (3 or 4) joined a recent workshop. They start very reasonably and joined in with the general thrust of what was being discussed. Then they started to conflate social issues of housing and crime with too many migrants in the country (Ireland is full / we need to look after our own first). This required deft handling by the tutor (me!) to bring the topic under discussion back on track, after pointing out the inaccuracies in what they were saying, and they didn’t push it.

Others pointed to increasing polarisation within community education itself:

Adult students who were once happy to mix with students from other countries are now more suspicious of them and less likely to want to interact with them in class.

Fear

A prominent theme to emerge in the research was the prevalence of fear with some saying that they were feeling the impact of anti-migrant protests in the local area:

Protests in the city have stoked people’s fears.

Some respondents feared for groups of people they are working with:

I would have met the residents of [named accommodation centre] recently.  The [anti-migrant protests] there were beyond upsetting  for these people.  I also meet many migrants who are in fear (…) and feeling blamed for the social issues in this country e.g. housing.

The research also uncovered a fear among community educators of speaking out against far-right rhetoric or, as one respondent put it, “fear of hosting culture specific events, fear of being targeted for being ‘helpful’ and encouraging intercultural events on the premises”.

Another shared the following:

My safety has to come first and foremost. There are times when I really strongly feel I should challenge it yet  do not feel safe to do so.

Community educators from underrepresented groups, those often targeted by the far-right, shared their feeling of vulnerability:

…as a migrant and someone who belongs to an ethnic minority it has been incredibly difficult when communities I have worked in are being fed misinformation. I have felt scared to interact with my own community as well as communities I would have previously worked with.

One of those organising courses also expressed fears for such people:

(…) our tutor pool has diversified a little bit and we are getting people in who have (…) different cultural backgrounds, and it’s brilliant. But, I’m also conscious that we’re sending those tutors out (…) in to a community that has been kind of torn apart by that conflict, and then I have to think about that tutor’s safety in that environment.

The role of community organisations in calming local fears was highlighted with one respondent sharing:

The arrival of 120 young men to this city centre hotel raised some fears but were allayed by the action of this organisation through meeting and greeting (of IPAs), linkage to services etc and reflecting this in local media.

Another points out the importance of dialogue within community education as a tool to allow for the airing of grievances:

People have legitimate fears and concerns and they need to be listened to or those people feel their opinions don’t matter and that creates more of a divide.

Capacity:

It was evident from the research that many practitioners felt there was a need for more training and support for community education practitioners if they are to be responsive to challenging dynamics when they arose within groups. One survey respondent shared the following:

It is difficult to refute wild claims (i.e. through fact-checking) because the far-right encourages people to believe that all information from official sources is wrong. Conspiracy theories thrive on making people feel that they have the inside story, while their tutor in the education centre is naive!

Even very experienced practitioners highlighted the type of challenges that can be encountered, with one stating the following:

It’s never straight forward, like I remember working with a tutor, and (…) I would have a lot of background and information around anti-racism. And I did one session with a class and it backfired so horrendously (…). It just went the wrong way and they became, I could actually see it, they became more entrenched in a particular viewpoint.

Continuous training and upskilling was seen as essential if educators are to be equipped to embed dialogic practices in their work:

Time for conversation is required, where discussion and debate is facilitated and fears are expressed in a healthy way on both sides of arguments.  This is a skill and practice which requires nurturing, in my opinion.

Resources of hope:

A worrying trend to emerge was linked to the sense of isolation that some community educators feel.

I expect many practitioners feel they are sole workers in this regard and perhaps don’t feel part of a community of practice.

It’s important therefore to look at where we can find resources of hope and opportunities for building alliances and strengthening community education through collective action.

For one thing, a values-led approach to community education, which focuses on what we support, and what kind of world we wish to see, rather than what we’re against, was promoted by many educators. This approach is supported by the Hope and Courage Collective, an organisation committed to strengthening communities in the face of rising far-right extremism, who develop useful resources around this.

We can also look to the power of the arts in promoting our common humanity. This inspiring story shared by one responded is something from which we can draw hope:

In March the organisation I worked for put on a play in Dublin city (…) focused on the things that bind us. The group included a young man from Eritrea and a young woman from Ukraine. On the way to the theatre, we walked past a far-right demonstration with approx 150 attendees outside store street garda station. The Community Drama about solidarity stood in opposition to far-right misinformation that night. The play was written, directed and performed by the group.

Another focus group participant, working in the area of addiction recovery, spoke about how community education can nurture empathy, rather than division, between marginalised groups:

(…) they understand what it is to be stigmatised, victimised and excluded so you can bring in some degree of (…) empathy (…) the like with like.

This empathetic engagement can be nurtured also through the means of storytelling:

Sharing stories and insights (including intersectional insights) and giving accurate information about the community is one of the ways in which we hope to build solidarity.

While many educators feel a pressure to diffuse tensions when the arise, or to have all the counter arguments at hand, an approach which facilitates dialogue can be more effective and empowering for groups. The experience of this respondent highlights the importance of having faith in the knowledge, experience and capacity among learners within groups:

I’ve heard what I would regard as bigoted and discriminatory opinions expressed by a handful of individuals but in most cases these are countered or challenged by other learners.

While it can seem at times like hate and racism are overshadowing positive forces in the world, it is useful to remember that, as one respondent stated it’s ‘usually it’s a very few expressing anti-minority sentiments’. This is true also of social media which amplifies negative stories. Recent research carried out by the Hope and Courage Collective indicates however that, while the voice of the far-right may at times be loud and overbearing, it is actually representative only of a minority of the population. Community education can therefore be a powerful force for amplifying voices committed to social justice, particularly if nurtured through the building of networks and creating spaces for shared learning and collective action.

Author: Suzanne Kyle

Suzanne Kyle is a PhD student in Maynooth University and a recipient of the John & Pat Hume Doctoral Scholarship. Her PhD research examines the factors which enable community education practitioners to embed inclusive, democratic and social justice focused values in their work at a time of rising far-right extremism. She has worked in the area of community development and education for over twenty years at local, regional and national levels.