Session Information
29 SES 01 A, Parallel Paper Session
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper will examine how a university-community partnership incorporated creative, non-text based approached in to adult literacy work to contribute to the efforts of creating greater equality and peacebuilding .
The university-community partnership, known as the Literacy and Equality in Irish Society project (LEIS), was based on the fundamental belief that low levels of literacy amongst adults is a factor contributing to inequalities and therefore, literacy practice have to be re-contextualised within an equality and peace building agenda.
Northern Ireland’s conflict is a tangle web of interrelated questions around how social and economic inequalities especially in the field of employment can be tackled, religious and cultural differences accommodated and diverse political aspirations understood and worked through in a deeply divided society. Darby (2003) noted four issues - politics, violence, community relations and inequality - as having become particularly intractable. As a result Northern Ireland and indeed other parts of the islands of Ireland and Great Britain have over the last three decades experienced rioting, street fighting and bombing between ‘hostile’ groups in various religious, cultural and political camps.
The paper draws on experience from a European funded project which sought to explore how more creative approaches to literacy practice can assist literacy educators and learners explore more deeply and provocatively, the inequalities that negatively affect people’s lives in divided societies. As arts-based adult educators around the world have argued the arts - and I will refer to these as creative methodologies or practices - are powerful means to deal with embedded, problematic cultural, political, social and/or religious beliefs. They can also provide imaginative and creative alternatives to normative literacy approaches that often simply revolve around reading print texts. I will argue that in the case of societies where there is political or social conflict around the world literacy educators should understand and learn to use these new methods.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Baker, J., Lynch, K., and Cantillon, S. (2004) Equality from theory to action. Dublin: Palgrave Macmillan. Boal, A. (1979) Theatre of the oppressed. New York: Urizen Books. Clover, D. and Stalker, J. (2007) The arts and social justice: Re-crafting adult education and community cultural leadership. Leicester: National Institute of Adult Continuing Crowther, J., Hamilton M., and Tett, L. (2001) Powerful literacies. Leicester: NIACE. Darby, J (2003) Northern Ireland: The background to the Peace Process. Available at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/peace/darby03.htm Fegan, T. (2003) Learning and community arts. Leicester: NIACE. Freire, P. and Macedo, D. (1987) Reading the word and the world. PLACE: Bergin & Garvey. Freire, P. (2004) Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum Books Gardner, H. (1999) Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books Greene, M. (1988) The dialectic of freedom. New York: New York Teachers College Press. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination. Essays on education, the arts and social change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Hamber, B., and Kelly, G. (2004) A working definition of reconciliation. Belfast: Democratic Dialogue. Lamb, T., Mark, R., Murphy, P and Soroke, B. (eds.) (2006) Literacy, equality & creativity. A resource guide for adult educators. Belfast: Queen’s University Belfast. Lederach, J. (2005). The moral imagination: The art and soul of building peace. Oxford: Oxford University Press Lederach, J. (1997) Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies. , Washington DC: USIP Press Morris, C. (n/d). What is peacebuilding? One definition. Available at http://www.peacemakers.ca/publications/peacebuildingdefinition.html Norton, M. (2005) ‘Welcoming spirit in adult literacy work’. Research and Practice in Adult Literacy RaPAL Journal, Volume 58, Winter 2005/6 Issue p.3-7
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.