Third-sector community organisations are important sites for learning, especially for the most excluded groups in society. However, scant attention has been paid to the various factors shaping educational provision in community contexts, and how these interact to shape the provision available to marginalised populations. This article presents new evidence addressing this gap, through drawing on interview data from practitioners working in the UK homelessness sector. It identifies a range of factors shaping educational provision in these community contexts. These are: service user need and demand; staff roles and capacity; organisational purpose and structures; national policies; support from other adult education providers; non-governmental finance; and volunteers. With some modification, and placed within an overarching critical realist framework, it is argued that these findings are consistent with Boeren’s comprehensive lifelong learning participation model. The article concludes that so long as government policy and related funding continues to ignore and fails to support educational provision in these settings, it will remain piecemeal and highly contingent on the contribution of volunteers and short-term funding.

中文翻译：

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理解社区环境中的成人教育：批判现实主义视角

第三部门社区组织是重要的学习场所，尤其是对社会中最受排斥的群体而言。然而，很少有人关注影响社区环境中教育提供的各种因素，以及这些因素如何相互作用以影响边缘化人群可获得的教育。本文通过借鉴在英国无家可归者部门工作的从业者的访谈数据，提出了解决这一差距的新证据。它确定了在这些社区环境中影响教育提供的一系列因素。它们是：服务用户的需要和需求；员工角色和能力；组织目的和结构；国家政策；其他成人教育提供者的支持；非政府融资；和志愿者。经过一些修改，并置于总体批判现实主义框架内，有人认为，这些发现与 Boeren 的综合终身学习参与模型是一致的。文章的结论是，只要政府政策和相关资金继续忽视和未能支持这些环境中的教育提供，它将仍然是零碎的，并且在很大程度上取决于志愿者的贡献和短期资金。