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Heidemann argues that two scholarly fields—adult and popular education research and social movement theory—remain too disconnected despite close thematic overlap. It proposes “free space” as a bridging concept to study community-based popular education sites and explain how local educational practices reproduce movement strategies, meanings, identities, and broader socio-political influence. The essay reviews historical and empirical evidence for education’s role in resistance, solidarity, and social transformation while highlighting the lack of systematic research linking popular education to social movement scholarship.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/australian-journal-of-adult-learning-volume-59-number-3-close-yet-so-far-apart-bridging-social-movement-theory-with-popular-education/592774/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/australian-journal-of-adult-learning-volume-59-number-3-close-yet-so-far-apart-bridging-social-movement-theory-with-popular-education/592774.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Marglet","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":29},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does the essay claim the two fields are “close” yet “so far apart” from each other?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It points to thematic proximity between adult/popular education scholarship and social movement research—such as concerns with resistance, solidarity, and social transformation—yet notes that systematic dialogues and exchanges between the literatures have generally not developed.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What concept does the author use to build a bridge between the fields?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The essay proposes theorising community-based sites of popular education as “free spaces,” drawing on work cited in the text to connect educational practices with movement-based strategies and identities.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does popular education at the local level relate to broader social movement influence?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"By conceptualising these sites as free spaces, the author argues researchers can examine how participants’ educational practices actively reproduce movement strategies, meanings, and identities, thereby strengthening broader-level social movement impact in society.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},592774,1792172117,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":29,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":52,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144,"preview_page_count":4},2336477982702,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_9964176cb1d06d4a9deccf72a44ae3dc","Australian Journal of Adult Learning Volume 59, Number 3, November 2019  \nClose, yet so far apart:  \nBridging social movement theory with popular education  \nKai A. Heidemann  \nUniversity College Maastricht, Maastricht University, Netherlands  \nThis special issue of the Australian Journal ofAdult Learning is a great opportunity to bridge two areas of scholarship that are inclose proximity to one another, but have generally failed to establish systematic dialogues and exchanges. These domains, of course, are comprised of educational scholarship devoted to the study of‘adult’and‘popular’education on the one hand, and sociological scholarship on‘social movements’on the other. While the study ofpopular education1 has thematic proximity to the social movement literature, it is not a terrain of systematic research and theorising by social movement scholars. A recent search of the terms ‘popular education’,‘community education’and ‘adult education’in both the titles and keywords of two leading social movement journals over the past two decades, for example, yielded zero hits2. On the other side of the equation, while scholars ofpopular education may frequently invoke terms such as‘social movement’and ‘activism’, the tools of social movement theory are rarely put to use within this literature (cf. Kilgore, 1999). That these two literatures are so close, but sofar apart is rather astonishing  \n310 Heidemann  \ngiven their overlapping concerns for issues of resistance, solidarity, democratisation and social transformation. In this essay, I briefly address the gap between social movement studies and popular education studies, and then proceed to engage in some initial bridge-building work by discussing the concept of‘free space’(Groch, 2001; Polletta, 1999; Polletta, & Kretschmer, 2013). In particular, I suggest that by theorising community-based sites ofpopular education as ‘free spaces’, scholars can better investigate the ways in which the participants within these sites engage in educational practices that actively promote the reproduction of movement-based strategies, tactics, meanings and identities. From such a conceptualisation, researchers can explore the question of how local-level sites ofpopular education bolster the broader-level influence of social movements in society, thus shedding important light on the socio-political outcomes ofpopular education programs.  \nSearching for popular education in social movement scholarship  \nThe absence of systematic research on popular education in social movement scholarship is both unexpected and unfortunate. It is perhaps most surprising given the unambiguously strong historical role played by‘radical’ forms of community-based adult education in progressive social movement campaigns across so many parts of the world (e.g. Edwards,& McCarthy 1992; Hall, Clover, Crowther and Scandrett 2011, Lovett, Clarity, & Kilmurray 2018, Ollis 2012). In LatinAmerica, for instance, the links between progressive social movements and the ‘emancipatory’forms of popular education inspired by the legendary Paolo Freire have been thoroughly documented by educational scholars, such as Liam Kane (2001, 2010) and Adriana Puiggros (1984). Such work has shown that community-based sites of‘radical’ adult education from Argentina and Brazil to El Salvador and Mexico frequently serve as a hub of social movement activities for historically marginalized peoples in both urban and rural settings. Additionally, comparative research on the labour movement in Western Europe and the United Kingdom during the 19th and 20th centuries has persistently shown how sites of popular education played an important role in generating class consciousness amongst impoverished workers, thus fuelling labour protests and strengthening progressive strands of labour unionism (e.g. Antikainen, Harinen, &  \nClose, yet so far apart: Bridging social movement theory with popular education 311  \nTorres, 2006; Jansson, 2016). Historical scholarship","cbCaif9611slR62m","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaif9611slR62m","pdf",163582,"English","# Bridging social movement theory with popular education\n## Searching for popular education in social movement scholarship\n## Conceptual bridge-building: free space and reproduction of movement strategies","[{\"question\":\"Why does the essay claim the two fields are “close” yet “so far apart” from each other?\",\"answer\":\"It points to thematic proximity between adult/popular education scholarship and social movement research—such as concerns with resistance, solidarity, and social transformation—yet notes that systematic dialogues and exchanges between the literatures have generally not developed.\"},{\"question\":\"What concept does the author use to build a bridge between the fields?\",\"answer\":\"The essay proposes theorising community-based sites of popular education as “free spaces,” drawing on work cited in the text to connect educational practices with movement-based strategies and identities.\"},{\"question\":\"How does popular education at the local level relate to broader social movement influence?\",\"answer\":\"By conceptualising these sites as free spaces, the author argues researchers can examine how participants’ educational practices actively reproduce movement strategies, meanings, and identities, thereby strengthening broader-level social movement impact in society.\"}]","Australian Journal of Adult Learning - Volume 59 - Number 3 - Close, yet so far apart - Bridging social movement theory with popular education | PDF",1792075503,25]