Third Annual Conference on Critical Education: Education Under Siege by Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism

Third Annual Conference on Critical Education
Education Under Siege by Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism
May 15-17, 2013
Ankara,Turkey

Neoliberal and neoconservative educational politics have significantly been damaging education all over the World. Public education is regarded as old fashioned, private schools and a variety of types of education have been presented as an ideal model, schools and the students are now in a more competitive relationship, public education has been losing its status as a social right as a result of relationships with the market, and the state is rapidly losing its social character in the face of these developments. It leads us to rethink education given problems such as the education becoming less democratic, less secular and losing its scientific character; becoming more conservative and capital oriented and becoming less concerned with- in fact- detrimental to- issues of equality and critique. In rethinking education, the critical education movement takes an important role in creating new horizons and strategies against the global attack of the capital.

The International Conference on Critical Education, which was held in Athens for first meetings, provides a base for the academics, teachers and intellectuals who are interested in the subject to come together in order to overcome obstacles for public education. Therefore, in the age where education is under siege by neoliberalism and neoconservatism, we invite you to the IIIrd International Conference on Critical Education to reflect on the theory and practice of critical education and to contribute to the field.
Location: University of Ankara, Faculty of Educational Sciences & ATAUM (Ankara University European Research Center) located on University of Ankara Campus

Keynote Speakers:
Dave Hill, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, England
E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia, Canada
Fatma Gök, Bogaziçi University, Turkey
Fevziye Sayılan, University of Ankara, Turkey
George Grollios, University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Jerrold Kachur, University of Alberta,Canada
Kostas Skordoulis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Panagiotis Sotiris, University of the Aegean, Greece
Peter Mayo, University of Malta, Malta
Peter McLaren, University of California Los Angeles, USA
Ravi Kumar, South Asian University, New Delhi, India
Rıfat Okçabol, Bogaziçi University, Turkey
Sandra Mathison, University of British Columbia, Canada

Revista de Enseñanza de las Ciencias Sociales: Education for Dangerous Citizenship

Last February I had the privilege of presenting the keynote address to IX International Conference on Research in Teaching Social Science organized by Research Group on Teaching of Social Sciences at the Faculty of Education Sciences, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.

The talk I gave in Barcelona was based on work I have been doing in collaboration with Kevin D. Vinson (University of the West Indies) and a paper based on the Barcelona talk has just been published by Revista de Enseñanza de las Ciencias Sociales (Journal of Social Science Education), which is jointly published by the Institute of Educational Sciences of the University of Barcelona and the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Here is the abstract:

Revista de Enseñanza de las Ciencias Sociales
Volume 2012 No. 11 December 2012

LA EDUCACIÓN PARA UNA CIUDADANÍA PELIGROSA
E. Wayne Ross y Kevin D. Vinson

El concepto de educación pública se encuentra bajo la influencia de las imágenes dominantes y dominadoras más que en la autentica comprensión de la complejidad de las realidades diarias del aula. Basándose en los trabajos de Debord y Foucault, especialmente en sus visiones libertarias y antiestáticas del poder, de la autoridad y del control en la sociedad contemporánea, este artículo examina cómo el control social se ejerce a través de las imágenes dominantes y una mezcla de vigilancia y espectáculo. En respuesta a estas condiciones, desarrollamos el concepto de «ciudadanía peligrosa». Reclamamos que las condiciones contemporáneas requieren de una Educación para la Ciudadanía antiopresiva, que se tome en serio las desigualdades sociales y económicas, y la opresión fruto del capitalismo neoliberal que restringe las posibilidades antiopresivas y establece unas pedagogías oficiales y sancionadoras. El poder pedagógico de la ciudadanía peligrosa reside: 1) en la capacidad de alentar al alumnado y al profesorado sobre las implicaciones de su propia enseñanza y aprendizaje; 2) en visualizar una educación focalizada en la libertad y en la democracia, y 3) en interrogar y deconstruir sus bienintencionadas complicidades con el sistema a partir de prácticas y textos culturales, especialmente para relacionar las condiciones opresivas con las prácticas culturales del mismo estilo, y viceversa.

EDUCATION FOR DANGEROUS CITIZENSHIP
Conceptualizations of public schooling rest upon the influence of dominant and dominating images rather than on more authentic understandings of the complex realities of classroom life. Drawing upon the work of both Debord and Foucault, particularly their libertarian and anti-statist visions of power, authority, and control in contemporary society, this article examines how social control is exercised via controlling images and a merger of surveillance and spectacle. In response to these conditions we develop the concept of “dangerous citizenship.” We argue that contemporary conditions demand an anti-oppressive citizenship education, one that takes seriously social and economic inequalities and oppression that result from neoliberal capitalism and that builds upon the anti-oppressive possibilities of established and officially sanctioned pedagogies. The pedagogical power dangerous citizenship resides in its capacity to encourage students and educators to challenge the implications of their own education/instruction, to envision an education that is free and democratic to the core, and to interrogate and uncover their own well-intentioned complicity in the conditions within which various cultural texts and practices appear, especially to the extent that oppressive conditions create oppressive cultural practices, and vice versa.

New issue of Critical Education: Accreditation and the struggle for critical teacher education

Critical Education 4(3), March 15, 2013
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/article/view/182433

The Struggle for Critical Teacher Education: How Accreditation Practices Privilege Efficiency Over Criticality and Compliance over Negotiation
By: Jean Ann Foley

Abstract: In this article, the author uses a case study approach to explore and analyze a conflict within the Professional Education Unit (PEU) at her university. While the controversy seemed to focus on differing epistemologies concerning critical and traditional pedagogy for teacher preparation, the intensity of the clash suggested there were additional forces at work. The author argues that in this particular case, the undertow of a technical rational perspective, generated by an educational accrediting agency, privileged efficiency over criticality and compliance over negotiation. In addition, she suggests that the power structures embedded in the processes of accreditation interfered with unity supported by a common conceptual framework. The article concludes with recommendations on how an institution might use the educational ideals within their conceptual framework, required for accreditation, to liberate its authors from constrained communication that is bounded by a technical discourse.

Dr Seuss and Dangerous Citizenship

This past weekend I had the great honor and pleasure to deliver a keynote address to the 6th Annual Equity and Social Justice Conference held at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

I would like to thank the conference organizers for inviting me to participate in an exciting day that included many cutting edge papers as well as a provocative and high energy performance/workshop by the Hip Hop Psychology Performing Arts Movement.

My keynote, titled “Dr Seuss and Dangerous Citizenship” explored the efforts of governments (in British Columbia, Arizona, and Texas) to keep schools “political neutral” and how these actions actually undermine opportunities for objective teaching and curriculum. I outline the contexts of rulings that have restricted the rights of teachers to express political views in BC (specifically in Prince Rupert where teachers have been banned from using particular Dr Seuss books and in a bizarre irony have also been prohibited from wearing t-shirts displaying portions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). I also outline the attacks on Tucson (AZ) school district’s Mexican American Studies program and the right wing Christian revisions of the Texas history curriculum, which demote Thomas Jefferson and promote St. Thomas Aquinas; deletes abolitionist Harriet Tubman and highlights the Confederacy; and emphasizes the role of religion in American society at the expense of the US Constitutional separation of church and state.

If political expression is repressed and restricted in schools (and it certainly is, as I illustrate in this talk) then there are reduced opportunities to critically examine knowledge claims. The ideology of neutrality that dominates current thought and practice in schools (and teacher education) is sustained by theories of knowledge and conceptions of democracy that constrain rather than widen civic participation and functions to obscure political and ideological consequences of so-called “neutral” schooling, teaching, and curriculum. The consequences include conceptions of the learner as passive; democratic citizenship as a spectator project; and ultimately the maintenance of status quo inequalities in society.

I offer up “dangerous citizenship” as a framework I have developed along with Kevin D. Vinson (University of the West Indies) for re-thinking responses to these conditions and explore the work of interventionist artists as sources of inspiration for teaching and curriculum.

Download the paper and accompanying powerpoint from Academia.edu or below.

Dr Seuss and Dangerous Citizenship Talk

Dr Seuss Dangerous Citizenship PDF version of PPT

Race and Fear of the ‘Other’ in Common Sense Revolution Reforms (Critical Education 4.2)

Critical Education
Vol 4, No 2 (2013)

Table of Contents
Article

Race and Fear of the ‘Other’ in Common Sense Revolution Reforms
Laura Elizabeth Pinto
Niagara University

Abstract

During the 1990s, Ontario experienced significant social policy reform under the Progressive-Conservative government’s controversial, but straightforward, platform called the Common Sense Revolution (CSR), promising to solve Ontario’s economic problems with lower taxes, smaller government and pro-business policies intended to create jobs. The ideological framing led to policy direction which dismantled existing provincial policies and institutions designed to promote equity. This paper begins by providing evidence to support how the CSR functioned as racist across a broad swath of policy areas, through ideology and coded language, structure and program cuts, and processes. Based on interviews with sixteen policy actors, the paper reveals how the provincial curriculum policy formulation process overtly overlooked and dismantled anti-racism and social justice in curriculum policy.

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor republishes back issues #1-5 and #9

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, back issues #1-5 and #9 are now reformatted and accessible through the Archives.

Thanks to the outstanding editorial work of ICES GRA Maya Borhani, we’ve been able to work forward and republish these back issues. The balance of back issues will be accessible in due time. We did our best to make this remediation work and apologize for any errors in the transfer. Please inform us if you pick up mistakes here or there. We also thank all of those who contribute/d as editors,reviewers, readers, and authors.

Some may prefer the more anarchic aesthetic of the original online format, wherein access remains at
http://louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue5/back_issues.html and
http://louisville.edu/journal/workplace/workplace1/wokplace.html and
http://louisville.edu/journal/workplace/workplace2/wokplace2.html and
http://louisville.edu/journal/workplace/workplace2-1/wokplace2-1.html and here at UBC in the future.

Thank you for your interest in ICES, Critical Education, and Workplace.

Please keep the new manuscripts flowing in!

Sandra Mathison, Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross, co-Directors
Institute for Critical Education Studies https://blogs.ubc.ca/ices/
University of British Columbia
____________________________

New issue of Critical Education: Pedagogy and Privilege: The Challenges and Possibilities of Teaching Critically About Racism

Critical Education
Vol 4, No 1 (2013)
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/182400

Articles
——–
Pedagogy and Privilege: The Challenges and Possibilities of Teaching
Critically About Racism
Ken Montgomery

Abstract
This reflective paper examines both the challenges and possibilities of drawing teacher education candidates into critical examination of cultural, structural, historical, and discursive dimensions of racism in the North American context. It considers the importance of fostering both a critical consciousness and humility amongst undergraduate education students as part of the process of preparing them to read and act upon schools and societies in ethically and politically responsible ways. It delineates some of the challenges in attempting to do this and offers up for discussion a few practical strategies for teaching against, through, and about the resistance and denials which often accompany efforts to teach critically about racism in university settings.

NATIONAL ASSESSMENT REFORM LEADERS ENDORSE SEATTLE TEACHERS’ SCHOOL TEST BOYCOTT; CALL FOR MORE EDUCATORS, PARENTS TO “JOIN IN”

FairTest
National Center for Fair & Open Testing

for further information:

Dr. Monty Neill (617) 477-9792

Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773

for immediate release Monday, January 14, 2013

NATIONAL ASSESSMENT REFORM LEADERS ENDORSE

SEATTLE TEACHERS’ SCHOOL TEST BOYCOTT;

CALL FOR MORE EDUCATORS, PARENTS TO “JOIN IN”

The country’s leading testing reform organization today announced its support for the boycott of Seattle Public Schools’ Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) exam launched by teachers at Garfield High School. National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) Executive Director Dr. Monty Neill said, “Children across the U.S. suffer from far too much standardized testing that is misused to judge students, teachers and schools. We applaud Garfield High educators who refused to administer these useless exams and urge others to join in.”

Dr. Neill explained, “Seattle requires administration of the MAP tests three times per year. This eliminates days of valuable teaching time and ties up the school’s computer labs for weeks. The tests are used to judge teachers even though they are not aligned with the state’s standards and not instructionally helpful. The Northwest Evaluation Association, which makes the test, says the MAPs are not accurate enough to evaluate individual teachers. No wonder some Seattle parents began opting their children out of these pointless tests even before the teachers’ boycott.”

“Nationally, students are inundated with tests far beyond the ‘No Child Left Behind’ (NCLB) requirement to assess students annually in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school,” Dr. Neill continued. “States and especially large city districts have piled on many more tests. For example, Chicago tests kindergarteners 14 or more times per year. Many of these tests were added to obtain federal NCLB waivers, which force states and districts to impose more exams so they can judge teachers by student scores.”

According to FairTest, the high stakes attached to tests have led to narrowing curriculum, teaching to the test, score inflation and cheating scandals. Despite the focus on tests, scores gains on the independent National Assessment of Educational Progress have slowed since the 2002 start of NCLB and are well below pre-NCLB score increases. Score gaps between whites and African Americans and Latinos have stopped narrowing.

“High-stakes testing is undermining the quality of U.S. schools and the education our children deserve,” Dr. Neill concluded. “Teachers and parents who boycott standardized exams are taking the lead to reduce over-testing and the consequences attached to it. President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the Congress, governors, state legislators, and local school officials need to heed these voices and stop imposing unnecessary and educational harmful testing.”

Conference: Education Under Siege by Neoliberalism

3rd International Conference on Critical Education
Education Under Siege by Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism
May 15-17
Ankara, Turkey

Call for Papers

Neoliberal and neoconservative educational politics have significantly been damaging education all over the World. Public education is regarded as old fashioned, private schools and a variety of types of education have been presented as an ideal model, schools and the students are now in a more competitive relationship, public education has been losing its status as a social right as a result of relationships with the market, and the state is rapidly losing its social character in the face of these developments. It leads us to rethink education given problems such as the education becoming less democratic, less secular and losing its scientific character; becoming more conservative and capital oriented and becoming less concerned with- in fact- detrimental to- issues of equality and critique. In rethinking education, the critical education movement takes an important role in creating new horizons and strategies against the global attack of the capital.

The International Conference on Critical Education, which was held in Athens for first meetings, provides a base for the academics, teachers and intellectuals who are interested in the subject to come together in order to overcome obstacles for public education. Therefore, in the age where education is under siege by neoliberalism and neoconservatism, we invite you to the IIIrd International Conference on Critical Education to reflect on the theory and practice of critical education and to contribute to the field.

On behalf of the organising committee,
Prof.Dr. Meral UYSAL
University of Ankara, Faculty of Educational Sciences
Department of Life Long Learning and Adult Education