Abstract
This article argues for the continued importance of adult education in communities, an approach to adult education which has been maligned and ignored in policy that has, instead, incessantly prioritised employability skills training. The significance of adult education in communities is that it seeks to build the curriculum from the interests, aspirations, and problems that people experience in their everyday lives by providing opportunities for individual and collective change (more below). We draw on data taken from a study by one of the authors, which used a life history approach to explore the outcomes for 14 people from the deindustrialised North East England of participation in either employability skills training or community adult education. We document several themes through these stories: churning, surveillance, precarity, demoralisation, ontological insecurity, and personal renewal.
Highlights
The context for our argument is the historical experience of deindustrialisation in North EastDurham
The number of referrals for Adult Mental Health Professional (AMHP) assessments for adults with mental health needs increased by 40% when comparing 2010/11 figures with 2014/15, and by 26.9% when comparing
Allowance for themselves and, in some cases, for their families. It is a conditional requirement of the welfare state that claimants attend these programmes in return for a meagre welfare payment if they have not succeeded in finding a job within a limited time period, as set by the state. Those attending the Employability programme are prohibited from attending daytime community adult education courses as they must make themselves available for work by being present in the programme on a daily basis
Summary
The context for our argument is the historical experience of deindustrialisation in North East. These were once thriving, working class communities that were dependent on the coal and steel industries for their livelihoods until the 1980s. 120–35) argue that “communities were created around these industries and became dependent on them”. These industries had always been subject to the turbulence of global markets, but not to closure and wholesale job loss. In 1947, the East Durham coalfield was nationalised and in 1967, the steel industry in North West. During the post-war period, the Ministry of
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