COMMUNITY LEARNING. RESOURCES, ACTIONS AND REFLECTION

The author justifies the thesis that community learning applying to territorial communities is based on three elements: local resources, participation and citizens' activity and the ability of the local community to reflect on their activity. And the other way round, according to the author, each educational activity can contribute to enriching the resources, extend citizens' participation or, at last, can strengthen the results of social emancipation. The author emphasizes that the functioning of contemporary local communities depends on the extent of the educational activity undertaken at the local level, not only in the economic and institutional dimension, but also in the cultural and symbolic spheres. This approach to the understating of the learning process constitutes a prerequisite to the development of contemporary local communities. Local education can assume various forms, but it always focuses on problems and needs of the local community, goes beyond institutional education and often formulates its values, goals and structure in opposition to conventional school systems. It takes place mainly in local and informal contexts and is oriented towards the achievement of goals which are important from the local and social point of view (e.g. justice, equality, democracy).