Peace and democracy

Adut learning and education is a key tool for the development of critical thinking and a lively and inspired civil society. At the same time, adult learning and education provides safe spaces to develop active citizenship.

Challenges

  • Increasing hate speech, radicalisation, populism, xenophobia, antisemitism, and denial of scientific evidence, often reinforced by social media and fake news.
  • Increasing authoritarian attitudes, a tense geopolitical situation, worrying election results and changes in voting behaviour.
  • Armed conflicts and emergencies in Europe and beyond.

What adult learning and education can do for peace and democracy

ALE is a key tool for the development of critical thinking and a lively and inspired civil society. At the same time, ALE provides safe spaces to develop active citizenship. It has a long tradition of building bridges and connecting people across borders as well as promoting reconciliation. Civic skills and learning can foster trust and counterbalance hate narratives. This needs to be enforced not only within Europe but globally. ALE can promote the understanding and sense of responsibility among Europeans for the colonial heritage and its mechanisms, many of which are still in place.

ALE is also at the heart of understanding the digital world, playing a key role in fostering a high level of media literacy. ALE brings people together and nurtures increased understanding between learners and between different groups of people. ALE therefore becomes a space for exchange, collaboration and respect. ALE strengthens and regenerates civil society by building responsibilities and a feeling of belonging to Europe and the wider world. Democracy is only made possible through broad participation and meaningful contributions to decision-making, as well as critical evaluation of political and societal issues by all citizens and stakeholders.

EAEA and its members stand for a strong commitment to Europe and European values. We believe that peace, democracy, intercultural dialogue, social justice and cooperation are key for a Europe of respect, participation and cohesion. Democracy and European adult learning and education have common roots and a common history. Many ALE organisations were established as a result of emancipatory movements (workers, women, religious organisations, etc.) and have therefore been a key part in the development of democratic structures, the welfare states and prosperous European development.

Preston (2004) analysed the impact of ALE on participants’ civic lives and the formation of values, particularly tolerance. Individual engagement in education is a predictor of engagement in public life because `the more students are engaged in their education, the more willing they are, on average, to play a positive role in public life.´2 Moreover, ALE leads to an increase in racial tolerance and a greater likelihood of voting. Preston found that learning has an impact on informal and formal civic participation.
It helps individuals to build, maintain, dismantle, reconstruct and enrich their social networks.

Additionally, the formation of values is influenced by learning. For example, changes in tolerance, understanding and respect were reported by respondents. Contemporary research by Smith and Duchworth (2023) ‘critiques reductive skills’ policies in further education and illuminates the impact colleges and lifelong learning have on social justice outcomes for individuals, their families and communities.’ Civic and social engagement (CSE) as a learning outcome has also been analysed by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).

Global challenges do not stop at national borders and can only be solved through joint, transnational cooperation – both at the political and societal levels. The concept of “Citizen Diplomacy” informed the Urban X-Change Network, which offers nine German Adult Education Centres (Volkshochschule) and their counterparts in Great Britain, Ukraine and the USA the opportunity to carry out cross-border cultural and educational activities in close cooperation with their respective city administration and local civil society. The 2030 Agenda set the thematic framework and ranges from waste management, peace education and the creation of a welcoming culture for migrants to the experiences of LGBTQIA+ communities. Thus, the project does not only enable peer learning and exchange but also contributes as well to a better understanding of the partner country.

ALE providers in war-torn Ukraine have had to get used to their lives changing overnight since Russian troops began a full-scale invasion in February 2022. But for ALE educators, the main role has remained unchanged—developing skills and supporting communities, increasing the resilience of each person through education and training, be it mental or physical health, survival in conditions of crises, or learning to adapt to a new region of Ukraine or abroad.

The ALE Centre in Nikopol in south Ukraine, just a few kilometres from the nuclear station captured during the first phase of the war, had sewing machines, and they enrolled 40 to 45 women for short courses for a few days and started to sew clothes for the army and the local defence groups, as well as first aid and medicine kits.

ALE providers continue their activities, developing new short-term professional courses for Internally Displaced Persons, war veterans, and those who lost their jobs. They try to provide psychological support through individual sessions and special group sessions using art therapy. Many trainings take place in bomb shelters. The understanding of the important role of ALE in society is growing very quickly, the demand for non-formal ALE programmes is great, and there is a positive experience of continued financing of non-formal ALE from local community budgets.

 

“Hello, my name is Eirini, and I have been at VHS Bochum for over a year now. I originally come from Greece and have lived in Germany since 2015. In the past, I never had good experiences with schools, which is why I dropped out. But since I joined the VHS, my viewpoint has changed. From the beginning, I felt challenged and taught well. Even my experiences with the other participants were almost exclusively positive. I got to know the VHS Bochum through my contact with the Agentur für Arbeit (employment agency). At first, I was scared to go back to school, especially because my German was not perfect. But my teachers at the VHS supported me well, and now my German language skills are much better. The VHS helped me to realize what I can do with my life and how I want to develop. I am really happy that I started coming to the VHS and would recommend it to anyone who has problems in their life and who wants to catch up on a degree. Through the project, which we worked on together for half of a school year, I realized that it makes no difference where people come from or who they are. We all share one world, and our common goal is to preserve it.”