Concerns with the divisive impacts of ‘culture wars’ provide the starting point for thinking about the decolonisation of community education and development. Where have these ‘culture wars’ come from, and how do they relate to long-standing debates about the role of ideas in processes of social change? The development of critical consciousness has been centrally significant here, with particular relevance for community education and development. How to unpack these debates about cultures, the role of ideas and critical consciousness in movements for social justice and equality?

While these debates are centrally important in theoretical terms, there are also major implications for community education and development practice. Attitudes towards slavery and colonialism in the past can so readily blend into attitudes towards racism now, along with attitudes towards the desirability or otherwise of living in a multicultural society. Racism and xenophobia represent some of the most challenging issues for professionals and community activists alike in the context of increasing social polarisation fanned by politicians from the Far Right.

Cultural warriors have also been engaging with religious fundamentalist debates, whether to celebrate their traditional values or to deplore their apparent decline due to increased secularism or supposed threats to Christianity from Islam. There are potential implications here for those concerned with human rights issues such as women's sexual health and LGBTQ rights, divisive enough already in so many contexts. The toxicity of cultural warriors’ interventions on such topics is not to be underestimated, with significant consequences for those concerned with building support for more socially just alternatives.

This is why this chapter sets out to explore the notion of culture itself and the role of ideas, critical consciousness and human agency, along with the idea of ‘cultural Marxism’ and the ways in which this term has been applied as a term of abuse by the Far Right (Finlayson et al, 2022). The chapter sets the framework for the discussion of cultural racism and the legacies of the past, focusing on the need to address these challenges via the decolonisation of adult community education and development curricula for the future.

Cultures, ‘culture wars’ and racisms, past and present

Cultures have long been the subject of contestation and challenge.