Disrupting fatalism:

what can community-based learning and development do?

Abstract

This contribution draws on a talk I gave at Edinburgh University on 16th May 2025 that was reviewing the role of the Alexander Report on its 50th anniversary. My talk initially drew on the two main underpinning impulses of the Report: to challenge poverty and disadvantage through participation in education and to promote human flourishing. For example, the report argued: ‘We have acted on our belief that education enables man [sic] to increase his understanding of his own nature, to develop to the full his potentialities and to participate in the shaping of his own future’ (Scottish Education Department,1975: 35).