Transcript What do you do with your community IT centre?

What do you do with your
community IT centre?
Community IT and its role in social inclusion
Biographical narratives from the IT “hub”
on a large estate with multiple indices of deprivation
4-year observer-participant, qualitative, ethnographic study
Thank you Jane Seale
All the participants at BLITZ
“… don’t feel like Satan but I am the man…” Neil Young
Bluefield Lanes
• Large 1960s social housing estate on the periphery of a
medium sized city in Southern England
• Population of 23,874, 18% of the city’s population
– Together with the adjacent estates in the “Regen Arc” nearly
1/2 of the city’s population, 60,000 people, live in areas where
there are multiple indices of deprivation
• Largest concentration of social housing in the city
• High unemployment/underemployment and educational
under achievement
– The most significant issue is education, skills & training
attainment with two SOAs in the top third and ten SOAs … in
the top ten percent most deprived areas in England
But…
Jo So maybe it’s not just the family centre that gave me that energy
and that. I think its [this place]. That’s when I became more
energised. Moving up here. Coming away from what I’d always
been brought up with, to coming here, where, you know I’ve got
that sense of belonging and my child’s the happiest I think she’ll
ever be.
Jean
That’s good, because they tend to give this estate such a bad
name and a lot of people are afraid to come onto [it]. Because
they say where do you live and you say [Bluefield Lanes] and
they: aowwooh, how can you live up there.
Sandra Like you were saying about walking up the street you can
walk from one place to another. I think that everyone can say
that. You’re bound to run into someone you know and even if you
don’t know they’ll all say hello, you know what I mean…
Rosa
If you go to other areas you don’t really get that. People hate
that. People in [Bluefield Lanes] … because we are such a large
community in ourselves and what we have here you don’t get in
other places.
2008-08-01transcript.doc
And, on the other hand…
Shona it’s like now how many years later down the line it’s
kind of transformed itself to be true you know like the
young people getting involved in a lot of drugs and crime
and especially this whole knives and guns thing at the
moment as well that’s you know really scary… You know it’s
like for me how many more years is it going to be ‘til
actually those guns are out because everyone knows
somebody in [the city] who’s got some kind of gun or
weapon you know what I mean, I don’t care what anyone
says somebody knows somebody that’s got something you
know and it’s just like because you know we’re not in
London or Birmingham, you’re not hearing gunshots every
five minutes it’s only a matter of time.
2008-07-04transcript.doc
And…
Joven The … community is not the way where people thought
it was. A lot of changes have happened in this place it is no
longer the place where you’ve say the criminals live or bad
people, it’s not all bad people, they’re good people. This
centre has helped to contribute to that. Because, I see it
does have a youth IT hub. The youth will come here and
help in this centre with the games and the computer and all
that. And I believe this centre since it started has helped to
improve what you… you lay a standard of this community.
So my story can be long but I also want to shorten it by
saying that I have really seen, I’ve benefitted and I believe
the community has benefitted by people who have passed
through here
2008-07-24transcript
And…
Marie So when I first moved on to […], as I say I found the
experience actually pretty stressful, I mean I was very
delighted to have my own place as I said but I immediately
encountered quite a lot of sort of anti-social behaviour,
people were pulling up my garden and throwing stones at
my windows and that kind of thing, random teenage
behaviour … I did kind of wonder about, you know moving
here and how it would be
I’ve never been around heroin addicts before but well, yeah
kind of gatherings of them sometimes, I’m not sure if I can
make any judgment about that other than just sometimes
there’s quite a lot of twitchiness I suppose just suddenly
brews up for one reason or another
2008-11-24transcript
Gaps in knowledge
• The life histories, experiences and voices
of the users of community IT centres are
largely absent from the literature
– Users of centres are represented by synthetic
descriptions and models of the problematic
other, often culled from the analyses of
research into the experience of centre
managers and evaluation reports of various
initiatives
Gaps in our understanding
• In respect of adult community education policy there
are gaps in our understanding of
– the relationship between personal development and
community development
– the relationship between social capital development and
human capital development
– the relationship between lifelong learning and continuous
retraining
– and the relationship between an individual’s responsibility for
skills acquisition for existing jobs whatever they may be, and a
social, collective responsibility for development in order to
create new, worthwhile, forms of meaningful social and civic
participation.
Research questions
RQ1 How do people, who associate themselves with
the community IT centre, use that association to
make positive changes in their lives?
RQ2 What factors shape people's use of and
engagement with the community IT centre?
RQ3 What do people actually do with the community IT
centre?
RQ4 What constitutes positive change in respect of
people's life histories, identity and values
RQ5 What, therefore, are the policy implications for
community IT centres?
Data collection
• Biographic-narrative interviews: “Life stories”
– Narrative expression is closest to people’s lived experience both of
conscious concerns and also less conscious cultural, social and
individual presuppositions and processes
– Surfacing mainly invisible experiences and contexts of issues that are
difficult for society and individuals to confront
– Grounding research in “bottom-up practice” (Barnat & Walmsley,
2004)
• Appreciative inquiry (AI) focus groups
– the act of undertaking research has a transforming effect
– needs-based approaches to community development tend to reinforce
the circumstances of exclusion
– explicitly avoids the discourse of problems allowing people to articulate
an empowered discourse of alterierity
• Participant observation diaries
Life stories
• 10, stage-1 life-story sessions
• Please tell me the story of your life, the events
and experiences that have been important to
you, from wherever you want to begin, up to and
including the present time: you as a
user/volunteer/manager/tutor/friend of the
Bluefield Lanes IT Zone
Focus Groups: Learning lunches
• 2 groups (6 &10)
• Appreciative approach
– attempt to get beyond essentialism, ethical
foundationalism and hierarchical ordering of identity
politics (Gergen)
– affirms a sensibility towards the inner dimensions of
teaching and practitioner research that would include
the imagination, emotion and passion involved in
reflective practice (Luckcock)
– part of an integrated approach to community – and
particularly community-driven – development.
interviews and storytelling that draw out ... positive
memories, and on a collective analysis of the elements
of success. (Mathie & Cunningham)
Rules – deciding factors
In making decisions about using the IT centre
– Domestic – family
– Community – positive, negative
– Learning, education – sophisticated understanding
• of formal-informal, qualifications-learning
– Work , civic engagement, caring – not all about money
• routes to employment depend only weakly upon qualifications
– Feelings, emotion
• confusion, envy, fatigue, fear, gratitude, guilt, happiness, hate,
humour, loss, love, pride, respect, sorrow, success
– Values
• challenging wrongs, respect, making the best of what you got,
trustworthiness, do what you love, integrity, learning together,
determination, professionalism
Computers matter?
Interestingly computer use does not come up
very much in peoples discussions about their use
of the community IT centre!
Why?
–
–
–
–
–
–
Computers are just a part of life.
Computers are not that important to me
Using computers is fun
I need computers to keep up with my friends and family.
Computers are just about work
I hate computers
What does matter?
Demographics?
•
Variation and individuation is vast
•
Classification may inhibit understanding
– Counting and dividing could be part of the problem
•
e.g. Black, African, Caribbean
– Woman of African heritage, alienated from the much larger Caribbean
community
– African man, son of the Minister of Finance, alienated from his parents
– African man, ex civil servant, retired to England
– African man, refugee, journalist, ex-combat officer in liberation wars
– First, second, third generation Jamaican British
•
White, Asian, East Timorese, West Papuan, Santhelenian, Serbian,
Afghan, Yank and many others
Shona (African) There’s the black issue. The black issue’s always
been an issue anywhere. I even remember when I was like 20 or
21 there were a lot of West Indians here and stuff so it’s kind of
like they never really had a high opinion of Africans then. Do you
know what I mean, then it was all kind of like, “I’m African. I’m
African [quickly] da da da.” And if you try to say anything about
the African ancestry, you know, it’s like, “I’m Jamaican! I’m
Jamaican! de de de!” So you know. … people just automatically
assume that I am West Indian. They won’t even consider the fact
that I’m African. They just straight-away assume that I am West
Indian. And even down to the elders in the West Indian
community: “Who’s your mum and dad?” You know like, “You
won’t know my mum and dad.”
2008-07-04transcript.doc
Sandra (West Indian) English. Oh yes, I am definitely English.
2009-06-04SandraRnd2
But…
Jo In [place] it was all about cliques. It was all about fitting in
with certain people. But, coming to [Bluefield Lanes]
everyone just got on with everyone. Everyone had a sense
of belonging. You weren’t just the white person or the black
person. You weren’t the older person or the younger
person. You were all together, all united. I had a strong
sense of belonging after moving to [Bluefield]. I made
really strong friendships and I still have them. And, I keep
making more friendships through, thing [IT hub], here.
2008-08-01transcript.doc
People
Jean
Black, British, Jamaican arrived as child, female, 50-60, community nurse
Alexandra
White, British, 30-40, lone parent, community development officer, FD (MA)
Allen
Black, British, 1st gen WI, 30-40, married (to head of English), youth worker
Angela
White, British, single parent of 2, 30-40, RGN
Anna
White, British, 60-70, lone parent, serial employment & travel, HND
Catherine
White, English, 30-40, parent, part-time creche worker
Haidar
Asian, British Pakistani, unemployed, lone parent, 40-50, electro-mechanical engineer
Jamie
White, Irish, part time employed care worker, ex drugs, ex prison, 20-30
Jo
White, British, female, 20-30, lone parent, unemployed
Joven
Black, Kenyan, male, 60-70, retired civil servant, studying theology, BA
Marie
White, English, 30-40, lone parent, counsellor
Matt
White, British, male, 40-50, single, community development worker
Patricia
White, British, female, 20-30, single, part-time adult community tutor, BA
Philippe
Black, Ivorean, arrived as student, 40-50, married, 2 children, PO clerk, MSc
Robert
White, English, 50+, single, unemployed, writer
Rosa
Black, British, female, 30-40, 1st gen WI, British youth pentathalon champion
Sandra
Black, British, 1st gen WI, 30-40, lone parent, unemployed, IT centre volunteer
Shona
Black, British, African arrived (Zambia) as child, 30-40, lone parent, HND
Counting and dividing (tbc)
• Gender
Superficially representative sample?
Information emerged from life stories
• Age
– Female
– Male
11
7
–
–
–
–
–
• Colour
– Black
– White
– Asian1
7
10
British
Irish
African
WI
Pakistan
3
8
3
2
2
• Employment
• Heritage
–
–
–
–
–
20-30
30-40
40-50
50-60
60-70
9
1
3
4
1
}
}
} English??
}
}
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–
–
–
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No
P/T
Yes
Retired
Other
The already educated continue to participate in PCDL
Alexandra I was really kind of always having this dream about
having some amazing job one day and never really actually
having one. And I think that that happened because um I left
school when I was 14 and I had like .. a bit like school phobia and
I used to have panic attacks and not go into classrooms. And that
was why I didn’t do really well when I was at school. And then …
they got me on to an A-level course which I had to abandon
because I was pregnant with my first child. So that was when I
was 18.
…and when I realised that I could not write a letter I felt quite
awful I thought how can I ever be somebody that does jobs and
works and stuff so um It’s kind of interesting to remember that
but I do remember sitting, sitting and staring at that screen
thinking that I can’t write this letter I really can’t do that [laughs]
I’m useless, I’m no good, I’m never gona make it.
2008-05-16transcript.doc
Philippe My sole purpose for being here was to study all the way to post
doctoral level because my father, my father, this was how he seen things …
so I embarked onto a long project with financial support from home
because that was tradition until I sent to him a letter and said to him:
look, I am a grown-up man, you have to understand that things aren’t as
they were; we suffered a heavy currency devaluation; therefore there was
no need for you to stretch your financial means and send me money; not
just that, I could fly by myself.
2008-07-05transcript
Sandra I like working with people, I like working in my own community but
kind of didn’t have, had recent qualifications but didn’t have any work
experience so I kind of just volunteered here to pick up stuff, pick up and
learn more stuff, so I kind of basically self-taught myself a lot of stuff I
knew on computers but like I knew certain stuff but maybe didn’t know
the jargon , no didn’t know the jargon actually but knew how to do it but if
someone said to me “Do you know how to do such and such?”, I’d be like
“no”, but then I’d see them do it and then “Oh yeah, I can do it”, but didn’t
know what they were talking about.
2008-07-24transcript
Community learning
• Community education is a small
backwater in the Learning and Skills
Sector
• “… a vast and complex world which is
restructured so frequently that it has
become a full-time job just to read about
the latest turns and twists of policy, never
mind respond to them.”
(Coffield 2006)
Funding policy
•
Adult Community Learning is not currently to be included in the
demand led funding models although there is no clarity about
what is meant by ‘community learning’” (Slowey 2007)
•
“Funding of Personal and Community Development Learning
(PCDL) will remain outside these funding models for the time
being.” (Learning and Skills Council 2007)
•
“Leitch Review of Skills has recommended that all publicly-funded
adult vocational skills in England, apart from community learning
and programmes for those with learning difficulties and/or
disabilities, should go through demand-led routes by 2010.”
(Learning and Skills Council 2007)
– Note the collocation of community learning with “programmes for those
with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.” The third leg of this stool is
prison-based learning and the rehabilitation of offenders
Who is policy for?
• Policy enacted not from concern for the excluded
– except to the extent they can be reformed, remediated –
socially integrated – through training
• The principal audiences for policy are voters and employers
– The excluded are
• a social disorder cost to the taxpayer
• a supply of compliant workers to an insecure labour market
• People may therefore see themselves in the mirror of policy
as problems to be solved for and by others, rather than
agents of their own world
Voices
Shona
The other thing I was going to say, I
suppose, is that I’m here but I don’t know how
much that’s got to do with the IT Hub or even the
learning champions.
2008-07-04transcript
Sandra I like community learning because it fits
around people and whatever’s going on with them,
you know what I mean. Universities and colleges
are, you know: this is what we got to offer, take it
or leave it, whereas with the learning champion
type of stuff we’ve been talking to people: what do
you want. It can be so varied, you know what I
mean?
2008-07-24transcript
Voices
PhilippeSee so it means what that these facilities can change
people’s lives because I can testify for that. If I did not have these
facilities well I wouldn’t say that I would not have achieved this
but how can I tell? Because I did not fail so how could I tell? If I
did not have these facilities and I failed I would conclude, well
because I didn’t have the facilities then I fail. .. But I had the
facilities and I made the best out of the facilities and I achieved
this
2008-07-10transcript.doc
Jamie I’ve got a sister on the estate down the road as well who
never really used computers, you know like from seeing me
coming here she’s started accessing this computer hub too.
Eventually given my brother sorts himself out, you know, get him
maybe on a couple of short courses here just to give him that self
esteem, you know and… you know it’s just that ‘access to’ I think
that the principle of that is the most important
2008-11-21transcript
Voices
Haidar but you know, over here you won’t find alcoholics and
drinking in the IT Centre (laughs), it’s quite, you know, a very
civilised community… when I come here there is a bit of calmness
in me …this IT Centre is also like a safe haven for me, where I can
come and (coughs) and maybe talk to someone about my
problems
2008-11-21transcript.doc
Jamie I’ve got a sister on the estate down the road as well who
never really used computers, you know like from seeing me
coming here she’s started accessing this computer hub too.
Eventually given my brother sorts himself out, you know, get him
maybe on a couple of short courses here just to give him that self
esteem, you know and… you know it’s just that ‘access to’ I think
that the principle of that is the most important
2008-11-06transcript
Voices
Marie [no internet at home] I guess it was a money saving thing
and then I was going to get a cable package, but then when I was
heavily pregnant I had to get a new phone sorted out, basically it
was just too much hassle to try getting out of my Orange contract
and buying a separate mobile and then getting cable sorted out,
so I sort of still don’t have it.
And in the meantime I’ve sort of been off on maternity leave and
gone back to trying to be frugal so having the IT centre there has
sort of stopped me having to get it.
Although I think, you know I will make that leap in the not too
distant future just because while the IT Centre is absolutely great
there are times when it’s you know obviously not available. IT
access in the evening now particularly having a child. Rachel and
the IT Centre together don’t seem to mix very well.
2008-11-24transcript
Voices
Sandra I got involved in Facebook quite recently, it’s only in the last
eight weeks I think because everyone’s like “You should get on
Facebook, you should get on Facebook”, but the people that said
to me “you should get on Facebook”, they are addicted to it and
they spend hours on it and I’m just like, I’m trying to stop the
amount of time I spend on computers, I’m not getting involved in
Facebook because people spend a lot of time on there, my
computer when I’m at home, I’ve got a work laptop and then I’ve
got my PC as well and my computer is on all the time, we’re
playing games, I’m really big on Sims 2, I play that all the time,
so me and my son as well we’re game freaks, we play a lot of
games and I keep setting myself these goals
2008-07-24transcript
Voices
Robert it just occurred to me a few minutes ago, that I can remember being
frightened by computers, not very many years ago. I can remember
seeing people on TV using them, in drama or in documentaries or
whatever, and it being a mixture of fear and an envy that they were using
a computer and I wasn’t, because it would be very useful. I mean years
ago, a computer would have been very useful for me.
2008-11-10transcript
Jamie
So that was at the first point I starting accessing this centre and
what it had to offer. So I was going for a court case, I was having to
document phone calls, visits, you know for the first time in my life I was
having to keep evidence for my own purposes … Like I have got a
daughter you know and I am constantly, you know I’m coming here to
email, to jolt the mother, you know like can your daughter, can your
daughter see her real father now,
2008-11-06transcript
Haidar she wants to come on Saturday to do homework, she wants to be
part of the community team, while Dad’s doing his PC Maintenance
Course, she’s very keen to come and do her homework and really wants to
know what’s going on (laughs) so it’s, I think it’s a very good bonding
station would I say where people are free to talk and exchange
information and experiences (laughs) at times.
2008-11-21transcript
Relationships
more than just the family or community
• Third spaces
– Civic
– Domestic
– The space between, beyond, outside,
ulterior, where identity projects take place
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Freire: practice-theory => praxis
Foucault: knowledge-power => discipline
Bhabha: oppressor-oppressed=> third space
Giddens: collectivism-individualism => third way
Voxpop: civic-domestic => bars, malls, sports
Tentative thoughts
• Conceptualising community IT centres as places
where formal education and “learning” takes
place is at least problematic
• Funding based on simplistic models of education
may serve to embed social divisions
• Seek community development or local economic
development support not linked to educational
attainment
• Assisted or supported voluntarism may be a way
forward: provide facilities in a location where
multiple agencies and social enterprises operate
CIC: Research Impact!
• The primary aim of the BLITZ Community Interest
Company (CIC) is to develop digital literacy and reduce the
effect of the digital divide for adults, by making available
and promoting the use of C&IT by providing a social
learning space together with formal and informal learning
and development opportunities.
• Objectives
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Free internet access
Formal learning opportunities
Computing for complete Beginners to Intermediate
Bridge to NVQ and ITQ
– complementary offer
Thank you!
George Roberts
Southampton University
Oxford Brookes University
[email protected]
[email protected]
07711 698465
http://www.slideshare.net/georgeroberts/community-it