An exploration of how societal conflicts are mediated in the experiential group setting

This paper explores lessons learned from twenty five years experience of courses in community development and youth work, which have a focus on democratic social change, and racial and sexual equality. Aimed at mature students, our approach, has developed and refined a model of education and training by combining group work techniques and experiential learning, enabling students to reflect critically on their life experience, process feelings, and attempt to develop a conceptual understanding of their experience. Many of our students have negative experiences of formal education. Thoughtful recruitment ensures that our students are culturally diverse, and that women and recent refugees to the U.K., are strongly represented, which provides the diversity of backgrounds and experience key to anti discriminatory work and the experiential learning process. -- The paper sets the course in a wider social and economic context, and identifies phases experienced by students in the group work setting.