Reinventing Learning Cities
Years active: 2016-2018
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council
This project explored the different ways in which ‘cities’ learn through social, material and digital processes. In particular, it aimed to experiment conceptually and methodologically with the question: how might the learning infrastructure of a city be made visible in ways that render it available for critical analysis, experimentation and further development towards more inclusive and equitable learning practices?
The project adopted a multi-sited ethnographic approach, over 18months in order to explore the circulation of cultural meanings, objects and identities across sites of learning, to map and visualize activities spatially, to follow individuals, things, metaphors, plots, conflicts across different sites of the city.
The ethnographic work took place in a range of sites across the city including refugee centres, co-working spaces, city council offices, voluntary organisations, bike projects, activist networks, community kitchens, informal learning centres and city farms as well as in elite learning organsiations, city festival offices and mayoral initiatives (not discussed here). During this time we interviewed over 60 individuals, including both organisers and participants in learning activities in the city, with 7% of respondents aged 18=25; 60% aged 25-49; 27% aged 50-75 and 7% aged over 75.
Principal investigator
- Keri Facer
Co-researchers
Senior Research Fellow
- Magda Buchczyk
Community research partners
- Liz Bishop
- Helen Bolton
- Zehra Haq
- Jackie Gilbert
- Gideon Thomas
- Jessica Tomico
- Xiujuan Wang
Publications:
- Walking the city: A method for exploring everyday public pedagogies (Word, 63 kB)
- Towards a research agenda for the ‘actually existing’ Learning City (Word, 54 kB)
- Learning in the Cat’s Cradle: Weaving learning ecologies in the city (Word, 4MB)