What do you do with your community IT centre

1
What do you do with your community IT centre?

• Community IT and its role in social inclusion
• Biographical narratives from the IT hub on a
  large estate with multiple indices of deprivation
• 4-year observer-participant, qualitative,
  ethnographic study
• Thank you Jane Seale
• All the participants at BLITZ
• dont feel like Satan but I am the man Neil
  Young

2
Bluefield Lanes

• Large 1960s social housing estate on the
  periphery of a medium sized city in Southern
  England
• Population of 23,874, 18 of the citys
  population
• Together with the adjacent estates in the Regen
  Arc nearly 1/2 of the citys population, 60,000
  people, live in areas where there are multiple
  indices of deprivation
• Largest concentration of social housing in the
  city
• High unemployment/underemployment and educational
  under achievement
• The most significant issue is education, skills
  training attainment with two SOAs in the top
  third and ten SOAs in the top ten percent most
  deprived areas in England

3
But

• Jo So maybe its not just the family centre that
  gave me that energy and that. I think its this
  place. Thats when I became more energised.
  Moving up here. Coming away from what Id always
  been brought up with, to coming here, where, you
  know Ive got that sense of belonging and my
  childs the happiest I think shell ever be.
• Jean Thats good, because they tend to give this
  estate such a bad name and a lot of people are
  afraid to come onto it. Because they say where
  do you live and you say Bluefield Lanes and
  they aowwooh, how can you live up there.
• Sandra Like you were saying about walking up the
  street you can walk from one place to another. I
  think that everyone can say that. Youre bound to
  run into someone you know and even if you dont
  know theyll all say hello, you know what I mean
• Rosa If you go to other areas you dont really
  get that. People hate that. People in Bluefield
  Lanes because we are such a large community in
  ourselves and what we have here you dont get in
  other places.
• 2008-08-01transcript.doc

4
And, on the other hand

• Shona its like now how many years later down the
  line its kind of transformed itself to be true
  you know like the young people getting involved
  in a lot of drugs and crime and especially this
  whole knives and guns thing at the moment as well
  thats you know really scary You know its like
  for me how many more years is it going to be til
  actually those guns are out because everyone
  knows somebody in the city whos got some kind
  of gun or weapon you know what I mean, I dont
  care what anyone says somebody knows somebody
  thats got something you know and its just like
  because you know were not in London or
  Birmingham, youre not hearing gunshots every
  five minutes its only a matter of time.
• 2008-07-04transcript.doc

5
And

• Joven The community is not the way where people
  thought it was. A lot of changes have happened in
  this place it is no longer the place where youve
  say the criminals live or bad people, its not
  all bad people, theyre good people. This centre
  has helped to contribute to that. Because, I see
  it does have a youth IT hub. The youth will come
  here and help in this centre with the games and
  the computer and all that. And I believe this
  centre since it started has helped to improve
  what you you lay a standard of this community.
  So my story can be long but I also want to
  shorten it by saying that I have really seen,
  Ive benefitted and I believe the community has
  benefitted by people who have passed through here
• 2008-07-24transcript

6
And

• Marie So when I first moved on to , as I say I
  found the experience actually pretty stressful, I
  mean I was very delighted to have my own place as
  I said but I immediately encountered quite a lot
  of sort of anti-social behaviour, people were
  pulling up my garden and throwing stones at my
  windows and that kind of thing, random teenage
  behaviour I did kind of wonder about, you know
  moving here and how it would be
• Ive never been around heroin addicts before but
  well, yeah kind of gatherings of them sometimes,
  Im not sure if I can make any judgment about
  that other than just sometimes theres quite a
  lot of twitchiness I suppose just suddenly brews
  up for one reason or another
• 2008-11-24transcript

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Gaps in knowledge

• The life histories, experiences and voices of the
  users of community IT centres are largely absent
  from the literature
• Users of centres are represented by synthetic
  descriptions and models of the problematic other,
  often culled from the analyses of research into
  the experience of centre managers and evaluation
  reports of various initiatives

8
Gaps in our understanding

• In respect of adult community education policy
  there are gaps in our understanding of
• the relationship between personal development and
  community development
• the relationship between social capital
  development and human capital development
• the relationship between lifelong learning and
  continuous retraining
• and the relationship between an individuals
  responsibility for skills acquisition for
  existing jobs whatever they may be, and a social,
  collective responsibility for development in
  order to create new, worthwhile, forms of
  meaningful social and civic participation.

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Research questions

• RQ1 How do people, who associate themselves with
  the community IT centre, use that association to
  make positive changes in their lives?
• RQ2 What factors shape people's use of and
  engagement with the community IT centre?
• RQ3 What do people actually do with the community
  IT centre?
• RQ4 What constitutes positive change in respect
  of people's life histories, identity and values
• RQ5 What, therefore, are the policy implications
  for community IT centres?

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Data collection

• Biographic-narrative interviews Life stories
• Narrative expression is closest to peoples lived
  experience both of conscious concerns and also
  less conscious cultural, social and individual
  presuppositions and processes
• Surfacing mainly invisible experiences and
  contexts of issues that are difficult for society
  and individuals to confront
• Grounding research in bottom-up practice
  (Barnat Walmsley, 2004)
• Appreciative inquiry (AI) focus groups
• the act of undertaking research has a
  transforming effect
• needs-based approaches to community development
  tend to reinforce the circumstances of exclusion
• explicitly avoids the discourse of problems
  allowing people to articulate an empowered
  discourse of alterierity
• Participant observation diaries

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Life stories

• 10, stage-1 life-story sessions
• Please tell me the story of your life, the events
  and experiences that have been important to you,
  from wherever you want to begin, up to and
  including the present time you as a
  user/volunteer/manager/tutor/friend of the
  Bluefield Lanes IT Zone

12
Focus Groups Learning lunches

• 2 groups (6 10)
• Appreciative approach
• attempt to get beyond essentialism, ethical
  foundationalism and hierarchical ordering of
  identity politics (Gergen)
• affirms a sensibility towards the inner
  dimensions of teaching and practitioner research
  that would include the imagination, emotion and
  passion involved in reflective practice
  (Luckcock)
• part of an integrated approach to community and
  particularly community-driven development.
  interviews and storytelling that draw out ...
  positive memories, and on a collective analysis
  of the elements of success. (Mathie Cunningham)

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Rules deciding factors

• In making decisions about using the IT centre
• Domestic family
• Community positive, negative
• Learning, education sophisticated understanding
• of formal-informal, qualifications-learning
• Work , civic engagement, caring not all about
  money
• routes to employment depend only weakly upon
  qualifications
• Feelings, emotion
• confusion, envy, fatigue, fear, gratitude, guilt,
  happiness, hate, humour, loss, love, pride,
  respect, sorrow, success
• Values
• challenging wrongs, respect, making the best of
  what you got, trustworthiness, do what you love,
  integrity, learning together, determination,
  professionalism

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Computers matter?

• Interestingly computer use does not come up very
  much in peoples discussions about their use of
  the community IT centre!
• Why?
• Computers are just a part of life.
• Computers are not that important to me
• Using computers is fun
• I need computers to keep up with my friends and
  family.
• Computers are just about work
• I hate computers
• What does matter?

15
Demographics?

• Variation and individuation is vast
• Classification may inhibit understanding
• Counting and dividing could be part of the
  problem
• e.g. Black, African, Caribbean
• Woman of African heritage, alienated from the
  much larger Caribbean community
• African man, son of the Minister of Finance,
  alienated from his parents
• African man, ex civil servant, retired to England
• African man, refugee, journalist, ex-combat
  officer in liberation wars
• First, second, third generation Jamaican British
• White, Asian, East Timorese, West Papuan,
  Santhelenian, Serbian, Afghan, Yank and many
  others

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• Shona (African) Theres the black issue. The
  black issues always been an issue anywhere. I
  even remember when I was like 20 or 21 there were
  a lot of West Indians here and stuff so its kind
  of like they never really had a high opinion of
  Africans then. Do you know what I mean, then it
  was all kind of like, Im African. Im African
  quickly da da da. And if you try to say
  anything about the African ancestry, you know,
  its like, Im Jamaican! Im Jamaican! de de
  de! So you know. people just automatically
  assume that I am West Indian. They wont even
  consider the fact that Im African. They just
  straight-away assume that I am West Indian. And
  even down to the elders in the West Indian
  community Whos your mum and dad? You know
  like, You wont know my mum and dad.
• 2008-07-04transcript.doc
• Sandra (West Indian) English. Oh yes, I am
  definitely English.
• 2009-06-04SandraRnd2

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But

• Jo In place it was all about cliques. It was
  all about fitting in with certain people. But,
  coming to Bluefield Lanes everyone just got on
  with everyone. Everyone had a sense of belonging.
  You werent just the white person or the black
  person. You werent the older person or the
  younger person. You were all together, all
  united. I had a strong sense of belonging after
  moving to Bluefield. I made really strong
  friendships and I still have them. And, I keep
  making more friendships through, thing IT hub,
  here.
• 2008-08-01transcript.doc

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People

• Jean Black, British, Jamaican arrived as child,
  female, 50-60, community nurse
• Alexandra White, British, 30-40, lone parent,
  community development officer, FD (MA)
• Allen Black, British, 1st gen WI, 30-40,
  married (to head of English), youth worker
• Angela White, British, single parent of 2,
  30-40, RGN
• Anna White, British, 60-70, lone parent, serial
  employment travel, HND
• Catherine White, English, 30-40, parent,
  part-time creche worker
• Haidar Asian, British Pakistani, unemployed,
  lone parent, 40-50, electro-mechanical engineer
• Jamie White, Irish, part time employed care
  worker, ex drugs, ex prison, 20-30
• Jo White, British, female, 20-30, lone parent,
  unemployed
• Joven Black, Kenyan, male, 60-70, retired civil
  servant, studying theology, BA
• Marie White, English, 30-40, lone parent,
  counsellor
• Matt White, British, male, 40-50, single,
  community development worker
• Patricia White, British, female, 20-30, single,
  part-time adult community tutor, BA
• Philippe Black, Ivorean, arrived as student,
  40-50, married, 2 children, PO clerk, MSc
• Robert White, English, 50, single, unemployed,
  writer
• Rosa Black, British, female, 30-40, 1st gen WI,
  British youth pentathalon champion
• Sandra Black, British, 1st gen WI, 30-40, lone
  parent, unemployed, IT centre volunteer
• Shona Black, British, African arrived (Zambia)
  as child, 30-40, lone parent, HND

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Counting and dividing (tbc)Superficially
representative sample?Information emerged from
life stories

• Gender
• Female 11
• Male 7
• Colour
• Black 7
• White 10
• Asian 1
• Heritage
• British 9
• Irish 1
• African 3 English??
• WI 4
• Pakistan 1

• Age
• 20-30 3
• 30-40 8
• 40-50 3
• 50-60 2
• 60-70 2
• Employment
• No
• P/T
• Yes
• Retired
• Other

The already educated continue to participate in
PCDL
20

• Alexandra I was really kind of always having this
  dream about having some amazing job one day and
  never really actually having one. And I think
  that that happened because um I left school when
  I was 14 and I had like .. a bit like school
  phobia and I used to have panic attacks and not
  go into classrooms. And that was why I didnt do
  really well when I was at school. And then
  they got me on to an A-level course which I had
  to abandon because I was pregnant with my first
  child. So that was when I was 18.
• and when I realised that I could not write a
  letter I felt quite awful I thought how can I
  ever be somebody that does jobs and works and
  stuff so um Its kind of interesting to remember
  that but I do remember sitting, sitting and
  staring at that screen thinking that I cant
  write this letter I really cant do that laughs
  Im useless, Im no good, Im never gona make it.
• 2008-05-16transcript.doc

21

• Philippe My sole purpose for being here was to
  study all the way to post doctoral level because
  my father, my father, this was how he seen things
  so I embarked onto a long project with
  financial support from home because that was
  tradition until I sent to him a letter and said
  to him look, I am a grown-up man, you have to
  understand that things arent as they were we
  suffered a heavy currency devaluation therefore
  there was no need for you to stretch your
  financial means and send me money not just that,
  I could fly by myself.
• 2008-07-05transcript
• Sandra I like working with people, I like working
  in my own community but kind of didnt have, had
  recent qualifications but didnt have any work
  experience so I kind of just volunteered here to
  pick up stuff, pick up and learn more stuff, so I
  kind of basically self-taught myself a lot of
  stuff I knew on computers but like I knew certain
  stuff but maybe didnt know the jargon , no
  didnt know the jargon actually but knew how to
  do it but if someone said to me Do you know how
  to do such and such?, Id be like no, but then
  Id see them do it and then Oh yeah, I can do
  it, but didnt know what they were talking
  about.
• 2008-07-24transcript

22
Community learning

• Community education is a small backwater in the
  Learning and Skills Sector
• a vast and complex world which is restructured
  so frequently that it has become a full-time job
  just to read about the latest turns and twists of
  policy, never mind respond to them.
• (Coffield 2006)

23
Funding policy

• Adult Community Learning is not currently to be
  included in the demand led funding models
  although there is no clarity about what is meant
  by community learning (Slowey 2007)
• Funding of Personal and Community Development
  Learning (PCDL) will remain outside these funding
  models for the time being. (Learning and Skills
  Council 2007)
• Leitch Review of Skills has recommended that all
  publicly-funded adult vocational skills in
  England, apart from community learning and
  programmes for those with learning difficulties
  and/or disabilities, should go through demand-led
  routes by 2010. (Learning and Skills Council
  2007)
• Note the collocation of community learning with
  programmes for those with learning difficulties
  and/or disabilities. The third leg of this stool
  is prison-based learning and the rehabilitation
  of offenders

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Who is policy for?

• Policy enacted not from concern for the excluded
• except to the extent they can be reformed,
  remediated socially integrated through
  training
• The principal audiences for policy are voters and
  employers
• The excluded are
• a social disorder cost to the taxpayer
• a supply of compliant workers to an insecure
  labour market
• People may therefore see themselves in the mirror
  of policy as problems to be solved for and by
  others, rather than agents of their own world

25
Voices

• Shona The other thing I was going to say, I
  suppose, is that Im here but I dont know how
  much thats got to do with the IT Hub or even the
  learning champions.
• 2008-07-04transcript
• Sandra I like community learning because it fits
  around people and whatevers going on with them,
  you know what I mean. Universities and colleges
  are, you know this is what we got to offer, take
  it or leave it, whereas with the learning
  champion type of stuff weve been talking to
  people what do you want. It can be so varied,
  you know what I mean?
• 2008-07-24transcript

26
Voices

• Philippe See so it means what that these
  facilities can change peoples lives because I
  can testify for that. If I did not have these
  facilities well I wouldnt say that I would not
  have achieved this but how can I tell? Because I
  did not fail so how could I tell? If I did not
  have these facilities and I failed I would
  conclude, well because I didnt have the
  facilities then I fail. .. But I had the
  facilities and I made the best out of the
  facilities and I achieved this
• 2008-07-10transcript.doc
• Jamie Ive got a sister on the estate down the
  road as well who never really used computers, you
  know like from seeing me coming here shes
  started accessing this computer hub too.
  Eventually given my brother sorts himself out,
  you know, get him maybe on a couple of short
  courses here just to give him that self esteem,
  you know and you know its just that access to
  I think that the principle of that is the most
  important
• 2008-11-21transcript

27
Voices

• Haidar but you know, over here you wont find
  alcoholics and drinking in the IT Centre
  (laughs), its quite, you know, a very civilised
  community when I come here there is a bit of
  calmness in me this IT Centre is also like a
  safe haven for me, where I can come and (coughs)
  and maybe talk to someone about my problems
• 2008-11-21transcript.doc
• Jamie Ive got a sister on the estate down the
  road as well who never really used computers, you
  know like from seeing me coming here shes
  started accessing this computer hub too.
  Eventually given my brother sorts himself out,
  you know, get him maybe on a couple of short
  courses here just to give him that self esteem,
  you know and you know its just that access to
  I think that the principle of that is the most
  important
• 2008-11-06transcript

28
Voices

• Marie no internet at home I guess it was a
  money saving thing and then I was going to get a
  cable package, but then when I was heavily
  pregnant I had to get a new phone sorted out,
  basically it was just too much hassle to try
  getting out of my Orange contract and buying a
  separate mobile and then getting cable sorted
  out, so I sort of still dont have it.
• And in the meantime Ive sort of been off on
  maternity leave and gone back to trying to be
  frugal so having the IT centre there has sort of
  stopped me having to get it.
• Although I think, you know I will make that leap
  in the not too distant future just because while
  the IT Centre is absolutely great there are times
  when its you know obviously not available. IT
  access in the evening now particularly having a
  child. Rachel and the IT Centre together dont
  seem to mix very well.
• 2008-11-24transcript

29
Voices

• Sandra I got involved in Facebook quite recently,
  its only in the last eight weeks I think because
  everyones like You should get on Facebook, you
  should get on Facebook, but the people that said
  to me you should get on Facebook, they are
  addicted to it and they spend hours on it and Im
  just like, Im trying to stop the amount of time
  I spend on computers, Im not getting involved in
  Facebook because people spend a lot of time on
  there, my computer when Im at home, Ive got a
  work laptop and then Ive got my PC as well and
  my computer is on all the time, were playing
  games, Im really big on Sims 2, I play that all
  the time, so me and my son as well were game
  freaks, we play a lot of games and I keep setting
  myself these goals
• 2008-07-24transcript

30
Voices

• Robert it just occurred to me a few minutes ago,
  that I can remember being frightened by
  computers, not very many years ago. I can
  remember seeing people on TV using them, in drama
  or in documentaries or whatever, and it being a
  mixture of fear and an envy that they were using
  a computer and I wasnt, because it would be very
  useful. I mean years ago, a computer would have
  been very useful for me.
• 2008-11-10transcript
• Jamie So that was at the first point I starting
  accessing this centre and what it had to offer.
  So I was going for a court case, I was having to
  document phone calls, visits, you know for the
  first time in my life I was having to keep
  evidence for my own purposes Like I have got a
  daughter you know and I am constantly, you know
  Im coming here to email, to jolt the mother, you
  know like can your daughter, can your daughter
  see her real father now,
• 2008-11-06transcript
• Haidar she wants to come on Saturday to do
  homework, she wants to be part of the community
  team, while Dads doing his PC Maintenance
  Course, shes very keen to come and do her
  homework and really wants to know whats going on
  (laughs) so its, I think its a very good
  bonding station would I say where people are free
  to talk and exchange information and experiences
  (laughs) at times.
• 2008-11-21transcript

31
Relationshipsmore than just the family or
community

• Third spaces
• Civic
• Domestic
• The space between, beyond, outside, ulterior,
  where identity projects take place
• Freire practice-theory gt praxis
• Foucault knowledge-power gt discipline
• Bhabha oppressor-oppressedgt third space
• Giddens collectivism-individualism gt third way
• Voxpop civic-domestic gt bars, malls, sports

32
Tentative thoughts

• Conceptualising community IT centres as places
  where formal education and learning takes place
  is at least problematic
• Funding based on simplistic models of education
  may serve to embed social divisions
• Seek community development or local economic
  development support not linked to educational
  attainment
• Assisted or supported voluntarism may be a way
  forward provide facilities in a location where
  multiple agencies and social enterprises operate

33
CIC Research Impact!

• The primary aim of the BLITZ Community Interest
  Company (CIC) is to develop digital literacy and
  reduce the effect of the digital divide for
  adults, by making available and promoting the use
  of CIT by providing a social learning space
  together with formal and informal learning and
  development opportunities.
• Objectives
• Free internet access
• Formal learning opportunities
• Computing for complete Beginners to Intermediate
• Bridge to NVQ and ITQ
• complementary offer

34
Thank you!

• George Roberts
• Southampton University
• Oxford Brookes University
• gbr_at_soton.ac.uk
• groberts_at_brookes.ac.uk
• 07711 698465
• http//www.slideshare.net/georgeroberts/community-
  it