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Editorial

Volume 32, Number 2, October 2000

Scholarly conversations?
Richard Edwards, Open University, UK

Editors of Studies are appointed by the Editorial Board for a period of three years. This is the last edition of the journal to appear under my first term of office, although the Board has asked me to carry on for a second term, to which I have readily agreed. However, I want to reflect critically on my first three years as Editor and point towards the future.

In my first Editorial for Studies (Edwards 1998), I talked about the 'identity crisis' that had been set in play by the insurgence of a notion of lifelong learning into what, at some point, might have been constructed as a field of adult education. This crisis has a number of aspects, raising questions of what is to be researched, how it is to be researched, the appropriate genres of writing and who is doing the research. These were posed as challenges to be played out in the pages of Studies through the slow conversations that tend to characterise academic debate. The Board's aim - my aim - has been to 'encourage greater dialogue across the terrain rather than the sense of small groups huddled in corners talking to each other' (Edwards 1998, 3). Readers will have to make up their own minds as to how successful or otherwise we have been in achieving that goal - and can send their views to me at the address at the front of the journal. However, from my perspective, there are two things I want to say about this.

First, the use of the 'crisis' metaphor. Crises are realms of possibility as well as risk, yet I suspect in terms of the original editorial and the content of Studies, the emphasis has been on the risks, dangers and downsides of contemporary trends in the education of adults and the need for more resources and different approaches. This is understandable and an important part of scholarship and research, yet the stance of critique can result in a positioning that allows limited possibilities for engaging productively with the processes at play. Further, there are many different responses to crisis. Some of them reflect denial more than engagement with the issues. These need to be factored into our understanding of the emerging debates in and around lifelong learning.

Second, I feel that the desire to foster dialogue and conversation is in need of further attention. Conversation, dialogue and debate are essential if we are going to get beyond the 'soundbites' of lifelong learning, the ever proliferating discourses and texts that invoke it as a sign of virtue and the good or the embodiment of bad. It is also important if the academic discourse of lifelong learning is to engage with policy-makers and practitioners, however problematic a two-way process that may be. It was in this spirit that Studies organised a debate in May on the motion that experience + reflection = learning in the attempt to provide a different way of communicating about research to the more conventional seminar. Yet again, of course, it demonstrated the difficulties as well as the possibilities.

Creating conversations and conversational styles across different communities of practice is not easy. The imperatives of research, policy and practice can differ and different genres of talking and writing are associated with each of them. It is difficult enough to converse within the academic community with its differing subject and research traditions. Conversing with those involved in researching schooling can be seen as denying the difference that supposedly marks out the education of adults. Conversation is also crucial if we are going to learn from each other's experience in different parts of the globe. Engaging with different contexts and concerns from different theoretical and cultural positions remains a significant challenge for any journal that espouses itself as 'international', as Studies does. This is before one engages with the issue of language.

Yet, as Editor - and I am aware not all members of the Board would agree with me - I feel this to be more problematic than I had initially envisaged and this is fully demonstrated in the pages of Studies and other academic journals that publish research and scholarship in lifelong learning. Many scholarly articles have one or more elements that close down or interrupt conversation. For example, the setting up of straw people, over-generalisation, lack of evidence, failure to locate sufficiently in existing literature, repeating old arguments as though they are new and parochialism are all to be found in recent published work. Rather than building conversation, making a stand seems more prominent as a rhetorical device, even when that involves tilting at windmills. It is certainly not always conducive to conversation. Contributions often interrupt the flow, return to a point, take tangents. Perhaps then, we need to bring in some of the understandings from conversational analysis and rhetorical analysis to help to understand the processes at play in our own scholarly practices of knowledge construction. This might displace any desire for the truth to be told in and through research with more consideration for the persuasiveness or otherwise of scholarly texts, although the one cannot be entirely separated from the other. Persuasiveness is built on appeals to the emotions and morality as well as reason. Pondering these issues has made me more aware of these processes in my own supposed contributions to the conversations in and about lifelong learning. Conversations are built in many strange and unexpected ways.

This might be seen as an outcome of the inadequacies of the refereeing processes in journals and/or the pressure to publish or perish. Certainly, the latter has resulted in a proliferation of research and scholarly texts. There is an incitement to discourse. As to the issue of refereeing, there is no doubt that it is not rocket science. For example, articles submitted to Studies are refereed by a member of the Editorial Board and an external referee with expertise in the area covered by the paper. The criteria for refereeing are derived from the 'Notes for Contributors' printed at the back of Studies. Yet it is rare for referees to agree completely. Indeed the Editorial Board recently went through an exercise where everyone refereed the same paper and there was as much discrepancy in the responses as I often receive from the referee reports for specific papers. I know from conversations elsewhere that I am not the only editor who experiences the dilemmas this causes. Refereeing is meant to provide a benchmark of quality, but quality is not a single thing and reading is a culturally located practice. The result may be the continuation of the many huddled conversations that characterise lifelong learning for some time yet. Perhaps this is to be expected. However, while that is the case, it seems inappropriate to talk of a community of practice or even communities of practices in relation to lifelong learning. Many different discourse communities would appear to be at work.

I expressed the fear in my first editorial that a journal could end up contributing to 'meaningless babble' (Edwards 1998, 3). This over-stated the issue. However, as Editor of Studies I have read a lot of texts closely in the last three years. And I do feel there is a lot more work to be done on fostering and encouraging slow conversations that help to build understanding. The issues I raised in 1998 remain as pertinent now as they appeared then. Perhaps more so, as we hope to learn as we go on, but this is not always apparent. The Editorial Board of Studies will be reviewing its own refereeing criteria and processes this Autumn, the results of which will be found in the Spring 2001 edition.

The above is a self-critical and open attempt to explore some of the issues in editing an academic journal. For those of us based in the UK, this is the last edition of Studies to be published before the deadline for our Research Assessment Exercise. The latter will determine the quality of research in the different institutions, the results of which will affect the funding in future years. Some may feel that it is unhelpful to have engaged with some critical reflection on my own views of the quality of research in the arena of lifelong learning. However, I feel that if the 'emperor' is less than fully dressed we need to be able to say so without fear of execution. It is part of building the conversations and democratic communities of practice to which many in this arena are rightly committed. To say that this is a difficult and unclear process is not to say that good conversation is completely lacking. If that was the case, I would give up being an academic in this arena and return to the record shop where I began my working life.

There are many joys to be the Editor of Studies. One of them is to interact with so many colleagues in different parts of the globe. More immediately, there is the stimulus of working on these issues with colleagues on the Editorial Board. However, good things do not necessarily last forever. In Spring 2000, Jane Mace of South Bank University, UK resigned her position on the Board. Jane has been a member for a number of years and brought her expertise, passion and compassion to the issues we face, both in and out of Board meetings. The Board extends its thanks to Jane. I will miss her guidance. Jane's resignation was followed quickly by Jo Nixon who has acted as my secretary since I became Editor. Jo has set up the systems that have allowed my editorship to be relatively smooth. Once again, she is sorely missed.

Studies continues to be a space of exploration. In its authorship and readership it is increasingly an international space. The cartography of the space it maps will no doubt continue to be drawn and redrawn in many ways - familiar and unfamiliar. It is good that so many wish to contribute to these processes. Even if conversation is difficult, I hope it is always convivial, but never complacent. And maybe at times persuasive!

Reference

Edwards, R. (1998) Editorial: Avoiding Icebergs. Studies in the Education of Adults 30(1) 1-6.