Centenary Commission on Adult Education: Research Circle on fostering community, democracy and dialogue - May 9th 2025, 10.00 to 12.30 online

Spaces and place of diverse arts, and the cultural imagination in lifelong and life wide dialogical learning. The contemporary and historical Potteries: A CASE STUDY

The Research Circle on fostering community democracy and dialogue emerged from the work of the Centenary Commission on Adult Education, which reported on the current state of British adult education in 2019 and made recommendations for its reconstruction. Since 2020 the Research Circle has been motivated by the need for democratic and community-based egalitarian lifelong education as part of, and in association with, a range of working class and social movements in Britain and globally.

In our event on Stoke-on-Trent we engage with its recent history, inspirational historic role in the development of adult education, and contemporary experiences of culture and the arts. The event combines presentations from Professor Linden West and Clare White, members of the Research Circle, with discussion groups on making change and re-imagining lifelong learning. We will ask: ‘How do different forms of the arts – music, film and videomaking, photography, literary and poetic expression, storytelling, dance, drama, painting, sculpture, including their expression in the digital world - enrich the possibilities of lifelong and life wide learning?’ ‘What are the spaces and places – actual and desired - for these different forms of practice?’

To book a place please reply to iain_jones@icloud.com