Mark Smith: Creators not consumers. Introduction

The introduction to Mark Smith’s exploration of youth work and social education – Creators not Consumers. Rediscovering social education (1982).

This booklet has been written to promote discussion about social education. In the twenty years or so since the term first came into common usage there have been a number of developments in youth work thinking that have not been fully reflected in writing about social education. To show what this thinking means in practice I have looked at how a group of young people organised a club skating trip and from that developed a view of social education.

With stocks of the book once again running low, I have taken the opportunity to make some major additions to the text and update the reading list. Whilst the views expressed are my own, Bernard Davies, Angie Forster, Gina Ingram, Cathy Kirkwood, Rod Moore, Alan Rogers and Tony Taylor gave valuable advice and help. The Politics Association also allowed me to include part of an earlier article first published in Teaching Politics.

Mark Smith

November 1981

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