Independent Working Class Education
Independent Working Class Education is an approach to education, particularly adult education, developed by labour activists, whereby the education of working-class people is seen as a specifically political process linked to other aspects of class struggle. The term, abbreviated to IWCE, is particularly linked to the Plebs' League, the British educational and political organisation which was founded in 1908.[1]
Ruskin College
[edit]When Ruskin College was founded in Oxford in 1899, its founders Walter Vrooman and Charles A. Beard declared:
"We shall take men who have been merely condemning our social institution, and we will teach them how, instead, to transform those institutions, so that instead of talking against the world, they will begin methodically and scientifically to possess the world."[a]
Proletcult
[edit]In their 1921 book Proletcult (Proletarian culture), English communist authors Eden Paul and his wife Cedar Paul addressed the question "What ... is the fundamental requirement of the modern working class?"[2] Their response was: "to use the economic power of the workers for the overthrow of the capitalist system, the abolition of wagery and the inauguration of a classless commonwealth."[2] They continued:
"Quite recently, during the last ten years or so, the workers' vanguard has come clearly to recognize that all other efforts will be mis-directed unless guided by knowledge. The workers' demand for education is no longer a demand for graduated doses of bourgeois culture. It is a demand for an education which shall make the workers understand their place in the economic and social system, and shall help them in the successful waging of the class war. It is a demand for Independent Working-Class Education."[3][b]
Paul and Paul (1921) went on to identify the Plebs League as "the most effective exponent of the demand for a distinctively proletarian culture"[3], whereas they described the Workers Educational Association, as making a "parade of impartiality"[4] which masked an "unconscious bias in favour of the institutions of the bourgeois State"[4]. They drew inspiration from Proletkult, an organisation which was set up in the wake of the Russian Revolution. Envisioning an imminent revolution spreading to Great Britain, they saw the development of a fighting proletarian culture as being requisite for social revolution. They opined: "Proletcult is practically synonymous with what is generally known in this country by the cumbrous name of Independent Working-Class Education."[5]
Institutions founded on the basis of IWCE
[edit]- Central Labour College, London
- Scottish Labour College, Glasgow
- Independent Working Class Education Network, England, Scotland and Wales
- Victorian Labour College, Australia
Footnotes
[edit]- ↑ Reprinted in Earsman 1920.
- ↑ Wrigley 2006, p. 37 quoted the observation of Australian historian Stuart Macintyre that the two books of Paul and Paul, Creative revolution (1920) and Proletcult, attracted criticism from the labour colleges for "their obscure vocabulary ... and their generally school marmish tone" (MacIntyre 1980).
Notes
[edit]- ↑ Waugh, Colin (20 May 2014). "Rediscovering Independent Working Class Education by Colin Waugh". Ragged University. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- 1 2 Paul & Paul 1921, p. 10.
- 1 2 Paul & Paul 1921, p. 11.
- 1 2 Paul & Paul 1921, p. 12.
- ↑ Paul & Paul 1921, p. 19.
References
[edit]- Earsman, W.P. (1920). "The Proletariat and Education: The Necessity for Labor Colleges". Australian History. Melbourne: Andrade's.
- MacIntyre, Stuart (1980). A Proletarian Science Marxism in Britain, 1917-33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Paul, Eden; Paul, Cedar (1921). Proletcult (Proletarian culture). New York: T. Seltzer, inc.
- Wrigley, Chris (2006). A.J.P. Taylor Radical historian of Europe. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. ISBN 1 86064 286 1.
Further reading
[edit]- Clarke, Richard. (2014) "‘Really useful’knowledge? The London Mechanics’ Institution and the struggle for (independent) working class education.".
- McIlroy, John (1998). "Independent working class education and trade union education and training". In Fieldhouse, Roger (ed.). A history of modern British adult education (Reprinted ed.). Leicester: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education. ISBN 1 872941 66 4.
- Phillips, Anne; Putnam, Tim (1980). "Education for emancipation: The movement for independent working class education 1908–1928". Capital & Class. 4 (1): 18-42.
- Sharp, Rachel; Hartwig, Mervyn; O'Leary, Jan (1989). "Independent working class education: A repressed historical alternative". Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. 10 (1): 1-26.
- Tompsett, Fabian (2019). "Alexander Bogdanov and Independent Working-Class Education" (PDF). Post-16 Educator 95: 19-21.
- Waugh, Colin (2009). "100 Years on from the Ruskin Strike...'Plebs': The Lost Legacy of Independent Working-class Education". Post-16 Educator.
- Waugh, Colin (2010). "Rediscovering independent Working-Class Education". Post-16 Educator.
Archive
[edit]- Publications Post-16 Educator. Independent Working Class Education Network.