Learning for Social Change

In March 2006, an international workshop and two e-fora on "Facilitating Learning for Social Change (FLASC)" were organised by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) of Sussex. The focus was participatory development and the role of culture, knowledge, and communication in the learning process that facilitates social change. Concepts, methods, and practices were shared and analysed. This document gives an overview of the workshop background and FLASC processes, and then focuses on key outcomes in the following four dimensions: conceptual, personal, organisational, and methodological.

Strategies for facilitating dialogue in these dimensions include:

• sharing learning from real-life examples of individual change agents and organisations;
• exploring the potential of new and existing institutions to facilitate learning for social change;
• developing a range of methods and approaches; and
• inquiring cooperatively into theories of knowledge, worldviews, and assumptions that underlie methods of facilitating change.

In the analysis section of the document,

summaries of each dimension include dialogue

results, individual reflective responses, and

related questions. In the conceptual dimension,

terminology is defined, followed by a visual

representation of the relationship between

knowledge, learning, and social change. It

suggests that if the nature and quality of

dialogue significantly shapes the nature and

outcomes of social change, attention should be

paid to the dialogic process.

In the section on the personal dimension, there

is recognition that personal and interpersonal

competencies, motivational transformation, and

self understanding need to be addressed for

potential social change agents to become actors

in the field. In the third, the organisational

section, shifting the way organisations

support/facilitate social change is the focus.

The role of civil society groups and social

movements is recognised as having some

capability of holding larger organisations

accountable. Smaller organisations might

respond to a "change" leadership team, to

constituency pressure, to external models, and

to assessments and new organisational learning.



Lastly, the methodological dimension summarises

the challenges of finding methodologies that

give form to emergent organisations while

allowing for individuals to flourish, create

learning cultures, enable learning and

unlearning, and offer transparent views of the

underlying sources of knowledge, worldviews, and

assumptions.

The document concludes with action suggestions

for horizontal and spontaneous change,

organisational innovation at the grassroots,

pockets of learning, and individual learning

enabling change agents to be reflective, aware

of rapidly changing contexts, and capable of

learning continuously.