This project works to bring together a network of international and interdisciplinary researchers, practitioners, and artists to contextualise and make tangible an existing theoretical perspective on ‘literacies’ – practices which allow us to make sense of and meaning in the world.

This project starts from the observation that participation rates in Adult Learning and Education (ALE) have significantly declined over the past 15 years. This has caused significant concern to many stakeholders in the areas of economy, business, education and wider social policies. Apart from facilitating economic and societal benefits at a larger scale, research has also demonstrated individual benefits of learning in the areas of health and wellbeing. Within the UK, devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are in charge of education and training and design their own policies in finding answers to their own countries’ economic and societal needs; within England, adult learning has in some areas been devolved as part of regional government ‘settlements’.

This visiting professorship funded by the Leverhulme Trust consists a one-year programme of work being undertaken by Professor Nematollah Azizi from the University of Kurdistan under the supervision of Professor Michael Osborne, Director of CR&DALL.

This project investigates the role of informal language educators working in refugee settings in Lebanon and Jordan, and pilot ways of co-creating professional development with the language educators themselves, nurturing agency. It will support educators in examining and articulating their vision for refugee language education through providing connections and opportunities for discussion with refugees and those working with refugees in their own and other contexts, including host communities.