Adult literacies in Scotland: is social practice being buried alive?

Citation

Galloway S (2016) Adult literacies in Scotland: is social practice being buried alive?. In: James N (ed.) Adult Education in Austere Times: SCUTREA Conference Proceedings 2016. SCUTREA, 45th Annual Conference, July 2016, Leicester, UK. Leicester: Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Leicester, pp. 95-101. http://cradall.org/sites/default/files/Final%20SCUTREA%20Proceedings%20July%202016_0.pdf

Abstract
This paper summarises what is meant by a ‘social practice' approach to literacy learning and associated policy development in the UK. I then present and critique the ‘midway report' relating to progress with Scotland's adult literacies strategy for 2020 and how this informed the design of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests aimed at obtaining more robust data relating to the capacity of adult literacies education in Scotland. Whilst the resulting data was incomplete, it indicated strongly that there has been a significant decline in learner and tutor numbers across a wide range of Scottish Councils, raising two questions. In Scottish Councils that have protected adult literacies learning from austerity, what strategies were employed and could they inform leaderships in other Councils? Secondly, have significant falls in the delivery of adult literacies learning impacted a decline in expertise relating to social practice approaches, with consequences for programme quality?

Keywords
Adult education; adult literacies learning; social practice; Scottish adult education policy

People

Dr Sarah Galloway

Lecturer, Education

• Galloway SCUTREA 2016.pdf