Critical Links: We have nothing to lose but our chains!

On this page you will find a list of links to web sites for which we've got a lot of time. None of these are sycophants of ours! Indeed some would disagree deeply with our stance.

Nevertheless they are places where you will find unsettling and thoughtful pieces about Youth and Community Work, social, political and informal education, radical and revolutionary change. Once again we welcome your advice on links which ought to be added.

All of them offer sustenance to Chatting Critically!

Informal Education :Creators not Consumers The Informal Education site co-ordinated by Mark Smith has been a refuge of critical thinking over the last two decades. We hope that our efforts will complement its endeavours.

National Coalition for Independent Action The National Coalition for Independent Action is at an early stage in its life. It seeks to celebrate the power of voluntary and community action to challenge and change the world. We look forward to working  with them in forging a radical youth and community praxis.

CONCEPT CONCEPT stands for The Journal of Contemporary Community Education Practice Theory - quite a mouthful! To be honest we are embarrassed that we've only made contact with its thinkers and activists this year. With its roots firmly in the Scottish Community Education tradition this journal born in 1991 has clearly been chatting critically for many a year. An extract from an editorial in 2006 should give you a feel for its direction. 'We live, it seems, in a precarious world, amid war and the threat of war - both internal and external. Fear, risk and the necessity of choice have become the mantras which dominate political priorities and policy discourses. We have become all too accustomed to the exigencies of 'risk assessment', 'best value' and all the other jargon associated with the market and the managerial state. I use the term jargon here deliberately because it is, in my experience, too often equated quite wrongly with theoretical language - usually as a means of deriding and dismissing theory - with profound consequences for our ability to think about what we do and why we do it. The function of jargon is to confuse, obfuscate and elide. The proper use of theory is the opposite: to analyse, explain and illuminate. The articles in this issue are firmly for theory and determinedly against jargon. Community, like partnership or diversity for that matter, can be theoretical idea to be explored, or it can simply be coded jargon to be accepted without question. The former can lead to an open and critical exploration of its potential strengths and weaknesses, whereas the latter is more likely to confuse, obfuscate and elide issues of power'. Mae Shaw, Executive Editor You can subscribe through the NIACE web site at http://www.niace.org.uk/Publications/Periodicals/Concept/Default.htm

Youthworker.uk.net Forums We've just tripped over and signed up to this range of Forums related to the purpose and delivery of Youth Work.  The site has been going for a couple of years and has 270 members. We've been warmly welcomed and will report back on how the forums are working. Why not sign up yourself at http://www.youthworker.uk.net ?