ADULT LEARNING AND EDUCATION DYNAMICS IN THE SOCIAL WORK TERRITORY - EXPLORING HYBRID CONTEXTS OF EDUCATIONAL POLICY AND PRACTICE

This article presents the foundations of an ongoing case study research designed to identify and analyze the reciprocal regulatory dynamics occurring in the politically hybrid practice space of social intervention for social integration and development, and adult learning and education dynamics. The case defined is the implementation of the Social Insertion Income measure in a Portuguese socially disqualified urban territory. The research focus sets local development as the structurant field of the emerging adult learning and education dynamics, attempting to 1) understand how educational and learning processes are locally constructed when associated with specific concepts for social development and social work shared within the social partners’ network for local intervention against social exclusion and poverty; and 2) how this local construction contributes to the configuration of the adult learning and education system in Portugal. The analytical approach is hybrid, integrating dimensions from both the field of Education Sciences and the field of Social Work Theory, as is typical of a Social Education approach, privileging the exploration of the possible relations between 1) the contemporary organizational and pedagogical dilemmas that surround the development of the adult learning and education system in Portugal, and the globally identified tensions that condition the local implementation of public social intervention by the third sector organizations; and 2) adult learning and education as a response and a product of both the challenges that the modernization processes imply and the development paradigm pursued by social-democrat and neoliberal policy trends, and the contemporary social work perspectives as the background that sets the context for the conception and implementation of adult learning and education dynamics by educators/facilitators, social workers and promoting organizations.