The Activist Craft: Learning Processes and Outcomes of Professional Activism

Abstract

Work as a place of activism is a vast field to be explored in adult education research, particularly within educational, social, and community intervention with people in situations of vulnerability. This qualitative study aims to unveil the richness of activists’ learning processes and outcomes by reflecting on the pedagogy of professional activism, with professionals working in Portugal. Their sharing reveals a thematic influence and interdependence between the dimensions “How?” and “What?” of professional activism learning and the themes composing them—respectively, “political socialization” and “work experience”; and “critical, social and political consciousness,” “sense of (in)justice and empathy,” and “know-how to speak out.” As professionals learn how to become activists, they also construct this praxis, and themselves as professionals, giving meaning and (re)defining their activist craft, through a learning-creative process.