Critical Theories in Education
Palestine Under Fire: The Struggle Continues
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25 | 5:00–7:00 PM
LEW FORUM, ALLARD HALL (UBC)
SPEAKERS WILL ADDRESS:
DISABILITY, MAIMING, AND DEBILITATION
LEBANON AND REGIONAL DYNAMICS
ICJ RULINGS ON OCCUPATION AND APARTHEID
MODERATED DISCUSSION TO FOLLOW. ALL ARE WELCOME.
Registration link: https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_82j9T8kEm2VrL7M
#freepalestine #UBC #UBCFaculty4Palestine
F4P is a voluntary association of over 100 UBC full and part-time faculty and staff who share a commitment to support the struggle for Palestinian liberation from Israeli Apartheid and Occupation based on the principles of anticolonialism, anti-racism and social justice. #UBC #FacultyForPalestine
Posted on September 19, 2025
by BCCLA
BCCLA condemns the Liberal government’s unfounded, biased, and authoritarian decision to bar Irish-language rap group Kneecap from Canada, preventing them from performing their scheduled shows in October. In our view, this is another clear example of how Canadian governments are systematically targeting voices speaking out against genocide.
The Canadian government’s decision to smear Kneecap publicly as promoters of antisemitism, terrorism, and hate reflects not only the dangerous conflation of antisemitism with opposition to Israel’s actions, but also a tired, colonial form of anti-Irish bias that has no place in Canada.
Kneecap is a part of a resurgence of Indigenous Irish language and culture, and a powerful voice against colonial violence and for anti-sectarian connection through art.
Although there have been calls from a pro-Israel lobby for several months to ban Kneecap, the Canadian government has made this decision so close to their concert dates that it effectively ensures their artistic expression in Canada is silenced.
Something similar happened to BCCLA this year, when the BC Ministry of Education attempted to sabotage our 20th Youth Conference by spreading misinformation about BCCLA and one of our conference presenters, Teachers for Palestine, a few days before the event.
Without verification, the Ministry claimed that the Teachers for Palestine presenters were associated with Samidoun – an organization listed under Canada’s extremely flawed, opaque, and heavily-criticized terrorist listing apparatus. Canadian governments have used this listing to suppress free expression in support of Palestine by throwing out claims of association.
The Ministry wrote to all high school Superintendents in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, who then wrote to Principals (who passed this message on to teachers and parents) instructing schools not to attend. Over a hundred students were pulled from the event.
Surrey’s Superintendent told BCCLA: “Students can access a variety of learning resources to enhance their learning in relation to civil rights which do not involve a risk of potential contact with members of a terrorist organization.”
Despite BCCLA giving the government a chance to correct their admitted mistake, no real action has been taken to undo the harm they caused. This was an abuse of power, aimed at undermining our efforts to educate youth about censorship, human rights, and community organizing in the face of authoritarianism and government repression.
We know that Kneecap and BCCLA are not the exception. Across Canada, no matter how big or small, acts of free expression in support of Palestine are being targeted and silenced.
Sign BCCLA petition to reverse Kneecap Travel Ban imposed by the Canadian government.
Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research, in collaboration with the Feltrinelli Foundation, invites submissions of critical papers and panel proposals for its upcoming conference and journal issue: Capitalism, Crisis, and Global Reordering.Organizing Committee: Carlo Fanelli, York University; Salvatore Prinzi, National Research Council; Spartaco Puttini, Feltrinelli Foundation; Heather Whiteside, University of Waterloo
When: June 23-24, 2026 Where: Feltrinelli Foundation, Viale Pasubio 5, Milan, Italy
We are living through a time of profound transformation—an era in which the only constant is change and instability. From economic malaise and international uncertainty to political unpredictability, war, genocide, and hunger, volatility now shapes all spheres of social life. As Marx and Engels long ago observed, “All fixed, fast-frozen relations… are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify.” Today, the logic of capital continues to unravel the social fabric, remaking the world at an ever-increasing pace.
Industrial production is being reshaped by artificial intelligence and automation, demanding new raw materials and reorganized global value chains. Free trade orthodoxy is eroding, giving way to a resurgence of tariffs, protectionism, and nationalist economic policy. The geopolitical landscape is shifting rapidly, marked by trade wars, real wars, and a renewed scramble for space— territorial and in orbit. These upheavals are accelerating climate change, fuelling displacements, and sparking new forms of popular resistance – struggles not only for justice but for the survival of all life systems on earth.
Click through to access articles.
Workplace #36 includes the first installment of a series on Teachers’ Work in Contentious Political Times edited by Dana Morrison (West Chester University), Brianne Kramer (Southern Utah University), Lauren Ware Stark (Université de Sherbrooke), Erin Dyke (Oklahoma State University), and Denisha Jones (Defending the Early Years).
Jelena Starcevic (Cornell University) contributes a new article in the Workplace series featuring research from the Global Labour Research Centre Symposium at York University.
Featured articles include studies of: shared governance in academic libraries by Sarah Fitzgerald, Therese Kaufman, and Jaime Taylor (University of Massachusetts Amherst); how activist resistance on campus produces a shared sense of community by Kefaya Diab (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), Andrew Bowman (Independent Scholar), Bruce Kovanen (North Dakota State University), Liz Miller (The Ohio State University), and Jonathan Isaac (University of Washington); the relationship between social-well being and multi-locational work in a Finnish university by Maija Nyman, Satu Uusiautti, and Timo Aarrevaara (University of Lapland).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14288/workplace.v36i1
Published: 2025-08-05
The article “Towards an Ideal Model of Education for Critical Citizenship. An Analysis of the Spanish Curricular Change in Social Sciences” published in January 2025 in the European Journal of Education is now available under Open Access license.
The article examines the integration of citizenship education in Spain’s new social sciences curriculum, focusing on primary and secondary education. It highlights the importance of fostering critical citizenship, which involves questioning societal norms, challenging injustices, and engaging in transformative social action. The study uses the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) framework to analyze the curriculum, revealing a stronger emphasis on cognitive skills and content knowledge compared to attitudes and engagement.
Key findings include:
The study concludes that while the curriculum incorporates cognitive and content domains effectively, it falls short in promoting critical social action and engagement. Future efforts should focus on aligning curriculum elements and fostering interdisciplinary approaches to empower students as active participants in democracy. Researchers are encouraged to examine the practical implementation of these curricular changes to advance education for social justice.
Navarro Medina, E , Ross, E. W., Pérez-Rodríguez, N., & De Alba Fernandez, N. (2025). Towards an ideal model of education for critical citizenship. An analysis of the Spanish curricular change in social sciences. European Journal of Education, 60(1), e70010. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.70010
It has been a great honor and a learning experience for me to have connected with history education researchers in Brazil in recent years.
Prof. Dr. Luis F. Cerri (State University of Ponta Grossa, Brazil) contributed a chapter for the book Social Studies Education in Latin America: Critical Perspectives from the Global South , which I edited with Sebastián Plá .
Cerri’s chapter presents outcomes of an international project researching young peoples’ view of teaching and learning history, historical awareness and culture, political position and culture. The chapter presents comparative data on political position and views regarding history from young people across Latin America, including Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Colombia.
Subsequent to the book project, I had the opportunity to speak at the National Meeting of Researchers on the Teaching of History in Brazil and then last summer participated in a video interview with Dr. Cerri as well as Prof. Dr. Maria Lima (Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul) and Prof. Dr. Juliana Andrade (Federal Rural University of Pernambuco).
The interview has just been published in Revista Docentes:
Ross, E. W., Cerri, L. F., Lima, M. A., & Andrade, J. (2025). Entrevista com o professor E. Wayne Ross. Revista Docentes, 10(35), 99-111. https://periodicos.seduc.ce.gov.br/revistadocentes/article/view/1474
E. Wayne Ross, together with Sebastián Plá, organized a collection on the teaching of Social Studies in Latin America, resulting from the understanding that the Global South is rapidly changing its role in the various spheres of contemporary life, and among them, the debate on the teaching and learning of subjects such as History. In 2022, he opened the proceedings of the National Meeting of Researchers on the Teaching of History held at UFRPE, reflecting on the impacts of neoliberal policies on the teaching of History and other human and social sciences. In this interview, conducted by videoconference on July 14, 2024, three leaders of the ABEH Associação Brasileira de Ensino de História spoke with the professor about their experiences of civic and professional resistance to the advances of militarism, the business perspective and reactionism in education, themes that are older there than here, which resulted in a fruitful debate.
New issue launch Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor #35 (2024-2025)
Articles in Workplace #35 address a variety of labour issues on campus and beyond, including the first in a series of articles by graduate student participants in the Global Labour Research Centre Symposium at York University.
Find the Workplace #35 here: https://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/index
Consider the thoughts below as part of your May Day activities:Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt Euch! – Marx & Engels
“Think! It ain’t illegal yet!”
—George Clinton [“Lunchmeatophobia”]
“… the most urgent expression of freedom is the destruction of idols, especially when they claim to represent freedom.”
— Guy Debord et al [“Position of the Lettrist International,” 1952]
“Only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible.”
—Karl Marx
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin
“The state is nothing but an instrument of oppression of one class by another—no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy.”
—Marx & Engels
“When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I am the friend of happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and government. Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good.”
– Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
—Henry David Thoreau
“People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth.”
—Raoul Vaneigem
“In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.
— Guy Debord [Society of the Spectacle, Thesis 1, 1967]
“[In The Power Elite (1956) C. Wright Mills quoted] Sophie Tucker (without either approval or disapproval in the context) ‘I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and believe me, rich is best.’ For a radical, the corollary of the this attitude is that it is not wealth that is wrong with America but poverty, and that what is reprehensible about the rich is not that they enjoy the good things of life but that they use their power to maintain a system which needlessly denies the same advantages to others.
—Paul M. Sweezy, “Power Elite and the Ruling Class,” Monthly Review, September, 1956
“Let every dirty, lousy tramp arm himself with a revolver or a knife, and lay in wait on the steps of the palaces of the rich and stab or shoot the owners as they come out. Let us kill them without mercy and let it be a war of extermination without pity.”
—Lucy Parsons quoted in Women Building Chicago, 2001, p. 671