Social Purpose Education

Social Purpose Education was developed at The Northern College for Residential and Community Adult Education by Lou Mycroft and the TeachNorthern teacher education team in 2010. The Workers Educational Association also use the term to describe a similar, empowerment approach to adult education.

Social Purpose Education as a pedagogy is concerned with social change via the growth in confidence, agency and self-belief of individuals. As such, it can be said to be in the tradition of transformational leadership, rather than the transformational learning of Jack Mezirow, as the desired impact is intended to be on communities, rather than remaining within the individual. This makes it a particularly effective pedagogy for workforce development programmes. Social Purpose Education combines pro-social pedagogies such as The Thinking Environment, Restorative Practice, Community Philosophy and Non-Violent Communication with open digital approaches, designed to build "communities of praxis". It comprises four cornerstones of praxis:

1. Teaching (to) Your Values Social Purpose Education is explicitly values-based. Participants are invited to regularly check in with their personal values and how these connect with practice principles. The language of values continues to be explicated throughout. Values work is the cornerstone of any transformational education programme, such as the Thinking Environment, Training for Transformation, and Freirean based education (see, for example, the Paulo Freire Institute and Highlander Center).

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