Welcome to Volume 110, our Winter edition. Future editions

• Volume 111 (Spring/Summer 2025) Conference edition
• Volume 112 (Autumn/Winter 2025) Theme to be decided

Any comments about this or other editions or ideas for future content can be sent to journal@rapal.org.uk. Don’t worry if your ideas for an article do not fit one of our themes – there is space in all our Journals for items of interest to our readers.  Most Journal editions contain articles by new writers, including adult literacies learners.  There are guidelines on our website on the Write for Us page and we offer as much support as you feel you need.  We are particularly keen to include peer-reviewed articles, so if you have any ideas about suitable articles, we would ask you to contact us early to allow discussion of your proposal.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the setting up of the RaPAL network in 1984, with the publication of the first RAPAL Bulletin (later the RaPAL Journal) the following year, we are making plans for an event to coincide with our Editorial meeting and AGM on the weekend of 26th and 27th September 2025 at a venue in central England.  Save the date and look out for further information shortly.  We would love to see as many of you there as possible to help us celebrate.  

Yvonne Spare, Journal Coordinator

RaPAL have been publishing topical works in this multidisciplinary field since 1985 and we encourage our members to contribute. Please review past editions and guidance on contributing to the journal.

Next Edition

Our next editions will be: 

• Volume 111 (Spring/Summer 2025) Conference edition
  Volume 112 (Autumn/Winter 2025) Theme to be decided

Volunteers for both of these editions are urgently needed – Enquiries to journal@rapal.org.uk please contact us if you would like to edit either edition.

We would particularly welcome longer academic articles suitable for peer-review and would ask you to contact us earlier than the deadline above to allow discussion of your proposal.  Any comments about this or other editions or ideas for future content can be sent to journal@rapal.org.uk. Don’t worry if your ideas for an article do not fit one of our themes – there is space in all our Journals for items of interest to our readers.  Most Journal editions contain articles by new writers, including adult literacies learners.  There are guidelines on our website on the Write with Us page and we offer as much support as you feel you need. 

We have created another short Taster Journal for publicity and distribution and as the previous version proved very popular. All three can be found here in pdf format:

RaPAL Taster Journal 2017

RaPAL Taster Journal 2013

RaPAL Taster Journal 2006

“This edition of the journal commemorates RaPAL’s thirty years, and the revolutionary social practices approaches to adult literacies education brewing in the eighties. We are delighted to carry commemorative pieces by Mary Hamilton and Brian Street, and some new ‘columns’ and features in the journal, such as contributing online commentary. The articles explore different aspects of the critical nature of people, their lives and contexts in literacies education. The topics range from provision for the Roma community in Spain, excluded young people on London’s troubled estates and community empowerment approaches through the global award-winning Reflect method, to theoretical analyses of motivation and frameworks of context in learning. We share our experimental part-virtual multi-hub Regional Colloquia held across three of the four nations last summer; and encourage you to participate in our Stories of Resilience co-publication with ACAL. Please do give us some feedback via the link on page 4. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Tara Furlong and Julie Furnivall, edition 87 editors

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