Reclaiming Common Purpose

Originally produced as a collaborative edition of three journals: "Adults Learning", "Concept", and "The Adult Learner", this special issue celebrates the part played by adult education in community education, democratic renewal, citizenship education and combating social exclusion. "Reclaiming Common Purpose" is an attempt to take stock - to assess the potential for progressive educational practice.

But, perhaps more importantly, it is a call for solidarity which, in educational terms, means a commitment to relating learning to collective engagement with common struggles and concerns.

It also represents a commitment to developing curriculum from experience by stimulating 'communal thinking', to repairing damaged alliances and building new ones and, critically, to working with people as subjects in politics rather than simply as objects of policy interventions.

The space this distinction creates will be essential if the cutting edge of common purpose is to be reclaimed. Keynote contributions from across the UK, Ireland, Scotland, South Africa and Brazil provide analytical, powerful and inspirational accounts for adult educators everywhere who want to make a progressive difference to people's lives.

There is much to learn from struggles that are not necessarily our own about the complex relationship between vision, political culture and transformation.