Mark K Smith edits infed.org – the encyclopaedia of pedagogy and informal education. Formerly the Rank Foundation Research Fellow and Tutor at the YMCA George Williams College, London (1992-2013), he was also a visiting professor in community education at the University of Strathclyde.
Among his books are Creators not Consumers (1980, 1982), Developing Youth Work (1988), Local Education (1994), Informal Education (1996, 1999, 2005 with Tony Jeffs), The Art of Helping Others (2008, with Heather Smith), Youth Work Practice (2010, edited with Tony Jeffs), Journeying Together (2011, edited with Alan Rogers) and Youth Work and Faith (2015, edited with Naomi Stanton and Tom Wylie). Currently, Mark is working on a new book with Tony Jeffs that explores the need to re-imagine education.
Nearly all of the books that he has been involved with have been digitized and are available online. [Click for a full listing and links to epub (kobo etc.), mobi (kindle) and pdf versions where available].
Details of the articles he has written can be found here. Outlines of the various research programmes he has undertaken are here.
Educated at the Cavendish School, Hemel Hempstead and Lancaster University (Furness College), Mark K. Smith undertook his doctorate at Goldsmiths, University of London.
He has worked in careers advice, youth work, community work and education projects. The first of these was based at the National Association of Youth Clubs (1978-1981). Mark was the coordinator of a Department of Education and Science (DES) developmental project concerned with political education.
A second DES project took him to the YMCA National College. It entailed joining a team to develop a distance learning programme focused on the professional training of youth and community workers. He left thirty-nine years later. Major reductions in government support for community learning and development, as well as for work with young people, meant the programme and the College were headed for closure.
Other activities have included chairing the Two Towers tenants’ cooperative in Bermondsey (which managed the tower blocks pictured above). He has also been the chair of the Community and Youth Workers’ Union (now part of Unite), served on the editorial board of Youth and Policy and been a Resident Friend at Westminster Quaker Meeting House.
Since 2019, he has lived in South Ronaldsay (part of the Orkney Islands). There, he is a member of a community-led affordable rental cohousing initiative (Hope Cohousing). It will be the first such development in the UK.
For more about South Ronaldsay: Exploring South Ronaldsay.
Opening picture: Richard Hills