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Seeing and Doing: Learning in Community Groups

Supporting Community Action: Lessons from Australia and the UK

Angus McCabe: Third Sector Research Centre25th September 2013

How People Learn in Community Groups

• Experiential learning: seeing and doing• Peer to peer learning• Drawing on other work/life experiences• Networked learning: face to face – but on line/social

media?• Opportunities for collective reflection and

development• Not formalised training – except when required – eg

safeguarding (cf Capacity Builders etc etc)

Challenges to Community Learning

• Emphasis on individualised/vocational learning: the ‘death of a radical tradition’? (Westoby and Shevellar: 2012)

• A false divide between ‘learning’ and ‘training’?• Accreditation of ‘the individual’ versus the collective or

‘complimentary skills’ in group development• Ability of peers to share knowledge and expertise effectively• Lack of opportunity• The ‘value’ or ‘currency’ of collective learning• Complexity – political systems, legislation, management….• The personal risks of learning for action……..

Personal Challenges

• From seeing/learning to ‘doing’; community groups outside the state and community development agendas

• ‘There’s a lot to learn from wasting time. There’s a heart that burns. There’s an open mind’ (Neil Young)

• ‘Rise up with me against the organisation of misery’ (Pablo Neruda)