Category Archives: Education theory & research

Documentary on East Van’s Purple Thistle Centre – Common Notions: No Handbook Required

Carla Bergman, Corin Browne and John Collins have made a film about The Purple Thistle Centre, which will be screened at the DOXA film festival:

Common Notions: No Handbook Required
Wednesday, May 11, 2016 – 5:00pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St)

For almost 15 years, the youth-run arts and activism space, the Purple Thistle, has been home for a variety of activities, from guerilla gardening to DIY publishing and screen-printing. Common Notions: Handbook Not Required is not only a celebration of the Thistle’s achievements, it’s a manifesto for the youth liberation movement. An array of alternative education advocates and scholars including Astra Taylor, Gustavo Esteva, and Madhu Suri Prakash, as well as local organizer Khelsilem, make a compelling case for democratizing knowledge and re-imagining our current systems of education. They argue that institutionalized schools, as we currently know and understand them, offer an extremely narrow and commodified definition of what it means to teach and to learn. Consensus decision-making, inclusivity, and a strict “noassholism” policy are just some of the Thistle’s guiding principles. Last year, the Thistle officially closed its doors. But this isn’t necessarily all bad news. Youth members and staff facilitators say the spirit of the collective will carry on in different permutations. After all, the Thistle was never meant to be an institution, but a path to a different way of experiencing the world. -SC

 

Common Notions: Handbook Not Required Trailer from John Collins on Vimeo.

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CALL FOR PAPERS: Special issue of Policy Futures in Education: Lefebvre’s teachings

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CALL FOR PAPERS:

Special issue of Policy Futures in Education

Lefebvre’s teachings

Lefebvre’s teachings

Guest editor: Derek R. Ford, PhD

Although the person of Henri Lefebvre has been gone since 1991, the exploration of the implications of his thought for a variety of disciplines and social movements is still in its infancy. And it is likely to be a long life, as Lefebvre wrote over 60 books throughout his life, in addition to numerous articles, edited volumes, and lectures. Not only is the translation of his work into English still incomplete, but new manuscripts are still being discovered, Towards an Architecture of Enjoyment being the most recent.

Lefebvre’s thought has been most influential in geography and urban studies, animating key debates around, for example, the primary and secondary circuits of capital, industrialism versus urbanism, and spatial production more generally. It is primarily this body of secondary literature that has helped Lefebvre’s thought spread outward. Relatedly, his work on the right to the city has sparked a whole host of academic debates and policy formulations, and even some political coalitions. The growing importance of struggles over space in protest, social, and resistance movements across the globe has, to be sure, energized this interest.

Educational theory, research, and policy, however, have yet to engage with Lefebvre’s vast body of work in a sustained manner. There are just a handful of articles deeply engaging Lefebvre (e.g., Atasay and Delavan, 2012; Christie, 2013; Ford, 2013, in press; Taylor and Helfenbein, 2009) and one dedicated monograph (Middleton, 2013), although his work is referenced in and gestured toward quite a bit more often, primarily in sociology of education.

This special issue of Policy Futures in Education will be the first journal issue to focus specifically on Lefebvre’s thought and its import for educational theory, research, and policy. While authors need not be in the field of education proper, we seek submissions that represent sustained educational encounters with Lefebvre. Papers might examine Lefebvre’s work on everyday life and sociology, the state, rhythmanalysis, architecture, Marxism, dialectical materialism, Nietzsche, modernity, cities, space, or urbanism, and how this work relates to educational philosophies, practices, research, and policies. We are open to papers that explore Lefebvre’s relevance for education as well as papers that explore education’s relevance for Lefebvrean thought. If you are unsure if your topic will fit with the issue, please e-mail the editor for feedback.

Timeline:

An early expression of interest and a 200-300 word abstract is preferred by April 1st, 2016. Manuscripts—which should adhere to normal journal requirements—will be due October 1st, 2016. The expression of interest and abstract should be sent to drford@syr.edu. Authors of successful expressions of interest/abstracts will be directed to submit full manuscripts at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pfie.

About the guest editor:

Derek R. Ford is a teacher, organizer, and writer living in Philadelphia, PA, USA. He received his PhD in cultural foundations of education from Syracuse University in 2015. He has published several articles on Lefebvre and education and recently co-edited a special journal issue on education and the right to the city. His most recent books are Marx, capital, and education: Towards a critical pedagogy of becoming (with Curry Malott) and Leaders in critical pedagogy: Narratives for understanding and solidarity (with Brad Porfilio). His latest book, The secret and struggle of study: Political economy, alterity, pedagogy, will be published this year by Lexington Books.

References:

Atasay, E., & Delavan, G. (2012). Monumentalizing Disaster and Wreak-construction: a case study of Haiti to rethink the privatization of public education. Journal of Education Policy, 27(4), 529-553.

Christie, P. (2013). Space, Place, and Social Justice: developing a rhythmanalysis of education in South Africa. Qualitative Inquiry, 19(10), 775-785.

Ford, D.R. (2013). Toward a Theory of the Educational Encounter: Gert Biesta’s educational theory and the right to the city. Critical Studies in Education, 54(3), 299-310.

Ford, D.R. (in press). A Pedagogy for Space: teaching, learning, and studying in the Baltimore Rebellion. Policy Futures in Education.

Middleton, S. (2013). Henri Lefebvre and Education: space, history, theory. London and New York: Routledge.

Taylor, H. L., & Helfenbein, R. J. (2009). Mapping Everyday: gender, Blackness, and discourse in urban contexts. Educational Studies, 45(3), 319-329.

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New Book: Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom

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I am pleased to announce a new book just published by Peter Lang, Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom: A Community of Students, Teachers, Researchers, and Activists, which I co-edited.

Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom delivers critical counter-narratives aimed at resisting the insatiable greed of a few and supporting a common good for most. The book reflects the efforts of a hopeful community, the Rouge Forum, which has been working against perpetual war, corporate education reform, the destruction of our natural environment, increasing poverty, and social inequalities as they fight to preserve democratic ideals in a just and sustainable world. Written teachers, researchers, and activists, this collection is a tapestry of social justice issues woven in and out of formal and informal education.

The Rouge Forum has endured for two decades, a group of educators, students, parents, organizers, and activists who persist in working for social justice, democratic education and a common good. Founded by social education teachers, scholars, and activists, the Rouge Forum moves like waves that, once set in motion, are unstoppable. This remarkably inclusive community has been sustained with hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Rouge Forum website, annual conferences held throughout the United States and Canada, and many of the original founders continuing to ride the waves of change.

The Rouge Forum is uniquely inclusive. Educators, scholars, students, writers, union organizers, artists, and many more gather each year for dialogic interaction and learning together. Membership crosses cultural, national, racial, and class boundaries in the struggle for a just and sustainable world.

Rouge Forum conferences aim to foster dialogue among participants rather than stand-and-deliver speeches. Panel and roundtable discussions are encouraged. As one student said after presenting on a panel at the 2014 Denver Conference, “As we went one by one, you could tell that our confidence continued to rise. When we completed our panel, the crowd kept the conversation going with questions …about our ideas…on how to have dialogic discussions and [build] communities….” She continued saying that the participants were not asking questions about what they knew, how much they had prepared for their panel presentation, instead they wanted to know what those students thought. She ended by saying “…this experience was one for the books.”

This book was written for those who fight for democratic ideals and work against perpetual war, the destruction of our natural environment, and increasing poverty and social inequalities. As the world watches the skewed mass media portrayal of the 99%, the people of the Rouge Forum stand together to delivering a counter-narrative.

Contents:

Nancye McCrary & E. Wayne Ross: Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom: A Community of Teachers, Researchers, and Activists

Nancye McCrary: The Last Teacher

Staughton Lynd: What Is to Be done?

Susan Ohanian: Against Obedience

Alan Singer & Eustace Thompson: Pearson, Inc.: Slashing Away at Hercules’ Hydra

Faith Agostinone-Wilson: Relation of Theory and Research to Practice in Social Justice Education – On the Urgency and Relevance of Research for Marxists

Four Arrows & Darcia Narvaez: Reclaiming Our Indigenous Worldview: A More Authentic Baseline for Social/Ecological Justice Work in Education

Rich Gibson: Why It Is Possible and Imperative to Teach Capital, Empire, and Revolution – and How.

Dave Hill: Class Struggle and Education: Neoliberalism, (Neo)conservatism, and the Capitalist Assault on Public Education

Doug Selwyn: Social Justice in the Classroom? It Would Be a Good Idea

Patrick Shannon: Poverty, Politics, and Reading Education in the United States.

Glenabah Martinez: Counter-Narratives in State History: The 100 Years of State and Federal Policy Curriculum Project

E. Wayne Ross: Broadening the Circle of Critical Pedagogy

Leah Bayens: Social Justice Education Outside the Classroom: «Putting First Things First»: Obligation and Affection in Ecological Agrarian Education.

Tara M. Tuttle: «Barely in the Front Door» but Beyond the Ivory Tower: Women’s and Gender Studies Pedagogy Outside the Classroom

Paul Street: Our Pass-Fail Moment: Livable Ecology, Capitalism, Occupy, and What Is to Be Done

Brad J. Porfilio & Michael Watz: Youth-Led Organizations, the Arts, and the 411 Initiative for Change in Canada: Critical Pedagogy for the 21st Century.

Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom, is the second book published in the Peter Lang book series Social Justice Across Contexts in Education.

Read the read the preface and introduction here.

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XXI Symposium on Research on Applied Linguistics & III International Symposium on Literacies and Discourse Studies – Call for Papers

UNIVERSIDAD DISTRITAL FRANCISCO JOSÉ DE CALDAS

XXI SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS &
III INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LITERACIES AND DISCOURSE STUDIES

1ST CALL FOR PAPERS

This academic event is committed to the interdisciplinary promotion and support of research on literacies and discourse studies to push further the boundaries of applied linguistics. Papers drawing on research experiences around topics such as literacies, multilingualism(s) and discourse studies are welcome. Some key areas within these broad topics which contributors could explore include, but are not limited to:

LITERACIES

MULTILINGUALISM(S)

DISCOURSE STUDIES

Early literacy

Language planning & policy

Classroom discourse(s)

Digital literacy

Languages in contact

Political discourse(s)

Multimodality

Minority languages

Media discourse(s)

Bilingualism/Biliteracies

Community-based pedagogies in multilingual contexts

Narratives

KEY NOTE SPEAKERS

Professor
Margaret Hawkins, PhD
University of Wisconsin – USA

Professor
Gary Barkhuizen, PhD
The University of Auckland – New Zealand

Alvaro Quintero, PhD Candidate
Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas – Colombia

Download Call for Papers and Submission form here: CALL FOR PAPERS – 2015

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Reforming Academic Labor, Resisting Imposition, K12 and Higher Education (Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, No. 25)

New Workplace Issue #25

Reforming Academic Labor, Resisting Imposition, K12 and Higher Education

Workplace and Critical Education are published by the Institute for Critical Education Studies. Please consider participating as author or reviewer. Thank you.

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Academic Bullying and Mobbing (Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, No. 24)

New Workplace Issue #24

Academic Bullying & Mobbing

Workplace and Critical Education are published by the Institute for Critical Education Studies. Please consider participating as author or reviewer. Thank you.

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CFP: Critical Theories in the 21st Century

4th annual:
critical theories in the twenty first century:
a conference of transformative pedagogies
november 6th & 7th

location:


West Chester University
700 South High St, West Chester, PA 19383

2015 theme:
critical pedagogy vs. capital:
reigniting the conversation

Sponsored by:
Educational Foundations
The Department of Professional and Secondary Education
West Chester University of Pennsylvania

Closing Conference Keynote (November 7th):
Dave Hill

Call For Papers
The 4th Annual Conference on Critical Theories in the 21st Century aims to reinvigorate the field of critical pedagogy. The primary question driving this conference is: What is to be done to make critical pedagogy an effective educational weapon in the current struggle against capitalism and imperialism?

There is no doubt that we are at a critical juncture in history in terms of the limits of nature’s vital ecosystems, the physical limits of the progressive accumulation of capital, and the deepening reactionary ideology and scapegoating that exacerbates the oppression of youth of color. If critical pedagogy is to play a significant role in intervening in the current context, then a sharpened sense of purpose and direction is needed.

Some examples of possible topics include:

  • Marxism
  • Post-structuralism/post-modernism
  • Anarchism
  • Challenging the unholy trinity of state, capital, and religion
  • Class and the capital-labor dialectic
  • Identity and economics
  • Hierarchical and vertical forms of organization (i.e., vanguards versus networks)
  • Reform versus revolution
  • Socialism, communism, & democracy
  • Affect theory and the new materialisms
  • The knowledge economy, post-Fordism, and “cognitive capitalism”
  • Critical geography

While this conference will include important presentations and debates in critical pedagogy, it will not be limited to this focus. In other words, as critical theory becomes more inclusive, global, and all encompassing, this conference welcomes more than just academics as important contributors. That is, we recognize students and youth groups as possessing authentic voices based on their unique relationship to capitalism and will therefore be open to them as presenters and discussion leaders.

While this conference will include important presentations and challenging discussions based in critical pedagogy, it will not be limited to this focus. In other words, as critical theory becomes more inclusive, global, and all encompassing, this conference welcomes more than just academics as important contributors.

Please submit abstract proposals (500-1000 words) to:
Curry Malott (cmalott@wcupa.edu)

Proposal due date: September 27th, 2015

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‘Reclaiming the School as Pedagogic Form’

Institute for Critical Education Studies
Faculty of Education
University of British Columbia

Public Lecture
‘Reclaiming the School as Pedagogic Form’

Dr. Jan Masschelein
(Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

May 12, 2015
12:00 – 2:00pm

Scarfe 1214
(Education Building, UBC Vancouver)

 In my contribution I will use the word ‘school’ to refer to a specific pedagogic form i.e. a concrete way (including architecture, practices, technologies, pedagogical figures) to gather people and things (arranging their company and presence) so that, on the one hand, it allows for people to experience themselves as being able to take care of things, and, at the same time and on the other hand, to be exposed to something outside of themselves (the common world). It is a very specific combination of taking distance and (allowing for) re-attachment. As a consequence, the term ‘school’ is not used (as is very often the case) for so-called normalizing institutions or machineries of reproduction in the hands of the cultural or economic elites. There is reproduction and normalizing, of course, but then the school does not (or does no longer) function as a pedagogic form.

Put differently: schools are particular ways to deal with the new generations and to take care of the common world that is disclosed for them. If education is the response of a society to the arrival of newcomers, as Hannah Arendt formulates it, and if schools are particular ways of doing this, ways that are different from initiation and socialization, ways that offer the new generations the possibility for renewal and the opportunity of making its own future, i.e. a future that is not imposed or defined (destined) by the older one, ways that imply to accept to be slowed down (in order to find, or even, make a destiny), ways that accept that education is about the common world (and not individual resources), then we could state that the actual ‘learning policies’ of the different nation states as well as of international bodies are in fact threatening the very existence of schools (including school teachers). 

To reclaim the school, then, is not simply about restoring classic or old techniques and practices, but about actually trying to develop or experiment with old and new techniques and practices in view of designing pedagogic forms that work under current conditions, that is, that actually slow down, and put society at a distance from itself.

Jan MasscheleinJan Masschelein is head of the Laboratory for Education and Society, and of the research group Education, Culture and Society at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). His research concerns the public and societal role of education and schooling, the role of the university, the changing experiences of time and space in the age of the network, the educational meaning of cinema and camera, the architecture of schools and architecture of the learning environment, a pedagogy of attention, the notion of ‘pedagogy’, the pedagogical role of teachers and social workers. His book, In Defense of School (with Maarten Simons) is available at http://goo.gl/NN4XeD.

 

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Critical Education to publish articles series “The Media and the Neoliberal Privatization of Education”

Forthcoming articles in the current volume of Critical Education will include a special series examining The Media and the Neoliberal Privatization of Education, edited by Derek R. Ford (Syracuse University), Brad Porfilio (California State University, East Bay), and Rebecca Goldstein (Montclair State University).

The series will be launched on March 30, 2015 and run through August 15, 2015.

Here is a full listing of forthcoming articles in Critical Education, from March through September 2015:

Critical Education
ISSN 1920-4125

Forthcoming Articles in Volume 6:

Volume 6 Number 6
March 21, 2015
‘That would give us power…’ Proposals for Teaching Radical Participation from a Society in Transition
Edda Sant
Manchester Metropolitan University

Volume 6 Numbers 7-16
Critical Education series The Media and the Neoliberal Privatization of Education
Editors: Derek R. Ford, Brad Porfilio & Rebecca Goldstein

Volume 6 Number 7
March 30, 2015
The News Media, Education, and the Subversion of the Neoliberal Social Imaginary
Derek R. Ford
Syracuse University
Brad Porfilio
California State University, East Bay
Rebecca A. Goldstein
Montclair State University

Lessons from the “Pen Alongside the Sword”: School Reform through the Lens of Radical Black Press
Kuram Hussain
Hobart and William Smith College
Mark Stern
Colgate University

Volume 6 Number 8
April 15, 2015
Breathing Secondhand Smoke: Gatekeeping for “Good” Education, Passive Democracy, and the Mass Media:  An Interview with Noam Chomsky
Zane C. Wubbena
Texas State University

Volume 6 Number 9
May 1, 2015
Speaking Back to the Neoliberal Discourse on Teaching: How US Teachers Use Social Media to Redefine Teaching
Kessica Shiller
Towson University

Volume 6 Number 10
May 15, 2015
Political Cartoons and the Framing of Charter School Reform
Abe Feuerstein
Bucknell University

Volume 6 Number 11
June 1, 2015
Neoliberal Education Reform’s Mouthpiece: Education Week’s Discourse on Teach for America
Michelle Gautreaux
University of British Columbia

Volume 6 Number 12
June 15, 2015
Re-Privatizing the Family: How “Opt-Out” and “Parental Involvement” Media Narratives Support School Privatization
Amy Shuffelton
Loyola University Chicago

Volume 6 Number 13    
July 1, 2015
Learning from Bad Teachers: The Neoliberal Agenda for Education in Popular Media
José García
University of Texas at Austin

Volume 6 Number 14
July 15, 2015
#TFA: The Intersection of Social Media and Education Reform
T. Jameson Brewer
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Matthew Wallis
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Volume 6 Number 15 
August 1, 2015
Engagement with the Mainstream Media and the Relationship to Political Literacy: The Influence of Hegemonic Education on Democracy
Paul R. Carr
Université du Québec en Outaouais
Gary W. J. Pluim
Lakehead University
Lauren Howard
Lakehead University

Volume 6 Number 16
August 15, 2015
Teach For America in the Media: A Multimodal Semiotic Analysis
Sarah Rose Faltin Osborn
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Jessica L. Sierk
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Volume 6 Number 17
September 1, 2015
Capitalizing on Knowledge: Mapping Intersections Between Cognitive Capitalism and Education
Joseph Paul Cunningham
University of Cincinnati

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