Some definitions

1. Learning City in a multiscale perspective: researching the practice of lifelong learning in Bristol Magdalena Buchczyk and Keri Facer

2. Some definitions “Learning city mobilizes human and other resources to promote inclusive learning from basic to higher education; revitalizes learning in families and communities; facilitates learning for and in the workplace; extends the use of modern learning technologies; enhances quality in learning; and nurtures a culture of learning throughout life. In so doing it will create and reinforce individual empowerment and social cohesion, economic and cultural prosperity, and sustainable development” (UNESCO 2015)

3. Learning city continuum “At one end of this continuum lies an economic focus on creating an infrastructure of educational opportunity that might attract inward investment from business. (…) At the other end of the continuum a learning city/region refers to the creation of learning networks that promote and enhance social cohesion and inclusion” Osborne 2014

4. Bristol approach “Learning city is a place which uses its resources to promote inclusive, lifelong learning in education, families, communities and the workplace. Learning Cities aim to create social cohesion, economic and cultural prosperity and sustainable development. Empowering individuals is central to the approach, both in Bristol and worldwide.’ Learning for work Learning in education Learning in the community

5. Destined for success? “Glasgow and Bristol offer effective examples of the value of a learning cities approach to motivation and engagement more locally.” Foresight Report for the UK Government Office for Science “Factors and motivations affecting attitudes towards and propensity to learn through the life course” (Tuckett and Field 2016)  

6. Project objectives To produce an account of multiple aspects of learning in the city To rethink the learning city in theory and practice To test out and demonstrate the utility of different research methods for documenting and understanding the learning lives of a city

7. Research design Multi-sited ethnography in East Bristol (from October 2016) Community researcher scheme (Nov 2016 – March 2017) Art workshops and exhibition (July – August 2017)

8. Fieldwork activities and sites • Participant observation • Walks and visual documentation of learning • Collecting learning trajectories and individual stories • Interviews with organisers, activity leaders, frontline staff, volunteers: Barton Hill Settlement, Easton Community Centre, Hamilton House, Refugee Women of Bristol, Barton Hill family centre, St Mungo’s classes, ESOL classes, Somali after school club, Dhek Bhal meetings, Wild Walks for Wellbeing, Workers’ Educational Association, Ashley Housing, Bristol City Council Learning Communities and School safeguarding team, Bristol City Office

9. Locating learning in the city

10. Local understandings of the Bristol Learning City “I heard of the Bristol Learning City … there must have been a PPT presentation” – Ex-Councillor “We tried to engage and it was pointless (…) for us learning, we are immersed, we gotta be continuous” “Like the green thing, it has no sustainability”– director of drug charity delivering courses “Occasionally, there would be a one off thing (…) At the same time, a lot of things in the city is done by chance” volunteer at mental health charity “The real learning city is more localised” – Adult Ed Provider

11. Learning encounters The city is a vital space, making possible human and non-human learning encounters

12. Everyday spaces of learning

13. City as a provider of directions “both as a means of finding a way around an increasingly complex spatial order, and in the way that the city literally directs its inhabitants’ lives, allowing them access to, and egress from, some spaces, while simultaneously banning them from others” (Amin and Thrift 2017: 4) The city is channelling movement and learning – As people navigate through the city, they are in the process of wayfinding, becoming and learning

14. City as an entangled configuration Cities hold networks of people and skills The city brings together people, resources and materialities

15. City is contested and eventful “learning is often neglected in work on urban politics and everyday life – marginalised as a background noise to the stuff of ‘real politics’ (…) learning as a political and practical domain through which the city is assembled, lived and contested” (McFarlane 2011)

16. Learning resources and affordances “contexts which afford selected opportunities for perception and action” (Ingold 2000: 354)

17. Cities hinder learning “cities stick to us: like it or not, we are part of them” (Amin and Thrift 2017: 60) “This area in the winter months… there is fear of women coming on their own” “crèche, crèche, crèche … I mean women who are desperate to learn, they don’t want to isolate themselves, they want to be part of the community but they have got small children and it is so expensive to run a crèche nowadays” “My hijab covers my head not my brain (…) sometimes parents are scared to talk about these barriers … parents get aware about their children but there are ashamed”

18. Working across scales How does a Learning City mobilise resources? How much do we know about ‘actually existing’ learning city on a local or global scale? Where do we position ourselves in the debate, epistemologically and politically? How do develop a nuanced theory of the learning city that can be used across scales? What opportunities arise for the discipline of lifelong learning from understanding the fine-grained, the nitty gritty, everyday experiences of adaptation, and change?

19. Thank You Magda Buchczyk magda.buchczyk@bristol.ac.uk Keri Facer keri.facer@bristol.ac.uk Project blog: www.learningcitiesproject.org