Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education: Dangerous Words and Discourses of Possibility [1 ed.] 0367629569, 9780367629564

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Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education

Recognizing the dominance of neoliberal forces in education, this volume offers a range of critical essays which analyze the language used to underpin these dynamics. Combining essays from over 20 internationally renowned contributors, this text offers a critical examination of key terms which have become increasingly central to educational discourses. Each essay considers the etymological foundation of each term, the context in which they have evolved, and likewise their changed meaning. In doing so, these essays illustrate the transformative potential of language to express or challenge political, social, and economic ideologies. The text’s musings on the language of education and its implications for the current and future role of education in society make clear its relevance to today’s cultural and political landscape. This exploratory collection will be of interest to doctoral students, ­researchers, and scholars with an interest in the philosophy of education, educational policy and politics, as well as the sociology of education and the impacts of neoliberalism. Spyros Themelis is Associate Professor in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia (UEA), UK.

Routledge Studies in Education, Neoliberalism, and Marxism Series editor: Dave Hill, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford and Cambridge, England

Film as a Radical Pedagogical Tool Deirdre O’Neill Career Guidance for Social Justice Contesting Neoliberalism Edited by Tristram Hooley, Ronald Sultana, and Rie Thomsen Class Consciousness and Education in Contemporary Sweden A Marxist Analysis of Revolution in a Social Democracy By Alpesh Maisuria Career Guidance for Emancipation Reclaiming Justice for the Multitude Edited by Tristram Hooley, Ronald Sultana, and Rie Thomsen Crisis, Austerity, and New Frameworks for Teaching and Learning A Pedagogy of Hope for Contemporary Greek Education By Maria Chalari The Impacts of Neoliberalism on US Community Colleges Reclaiming Faculty Voice in Academic Governance By Greg Sethares The Educational Philosophy of Luis Emilio Recabarren Pioneering Working Class Education in Latin America By María Alicia Rueda Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education Dangerous Words and Discourses of Possibility Edited by Spyros Themelis

Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education Dangerous Words and Discourses of Possibility  Edited by Spyros Themelis

First published 2021 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Spyros Themelis; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Spyros Themelis to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested Names: Themelis, Spyros, editor. Title: Critical reflections on the language of neoliberalism in education : dangerous words and discourses of possibility / Edited by Spyros Themelis. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Series: Routledge studies in education, neoliberalism, and Marxism | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020036990 | ISBN 9780367629564 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781003111580 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Education, Humanistic. | Neoliberalism. Classification: LCC LC1011 .C79 2021 | DDC 370.11/2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020036990 ISBN: 978-0-367-62956-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-11158-0 (ebk) Typeset in Perpetua Std by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

To Fotini and Socrates. And to all justice fighters who strive to make this world a better place.

Contents

About the Contributors Introduction

x 1

PART I

Endangering Words 1 Crisis

9 11

GLENN RIKOWSKI

2 Neoliberal Globalization

20

SPYROS  THEMELIS

3 Social Value

28

EWEN SPEED

4 Alienation

35

INNY ACCIOLY

5 Hegemony

41

ALPESH MAISURIA

6 Immiseration

47

RICHARD HALL

7 Commodity

54

JOSS  WINN

8 Social Mobility SPYROS  THEMELIS

61

viii  Contents 9 Social Inclusion

69

ANGELA TUCK

10 Markets

78

DIONYSIOS GOUVIAS

11 League Tables and Targets

88

PATRICK Y   ARKER

12 Managerialism

93

RICHARD HALL

13 Employability

100

TOM G. GRIFFITHS AND BILL ROBERTSON

14 Ability

107

PATRICK Y   ARKER

PART II

Words of Possibility

113

15 Essence

115

GRANT BANFIELD

16 Reflexivity

126

ELISABETH SIMBÜRGER

17 Utopia

136

TOM G. GRIFFITHS AND JO WILLIAMS

18 Hope

144

HASAN HÜSEYIN AKSOY

19 Social Movements

149

LAURENCE COX

20 Revolutionary Pedagogy PETER McLAREN

157

Contents ix 21 Alternative Education

168

RICHARD HALL

22 Youth

174

SANDRA GADELHA AND CLAUDIANA ALENCAR

23 Educators

181

MARIA CHALARI AND ELEFTHERIA ATTA

24 School

189

JOSÉ ERNANDI MENDES

25 Post-Critical Education

194

JUAN RAMÓN RODRÍGUEZ FERNÁNDEZ

26 Educational Commons

203

YANNIS PECHTELIDIS

27 Socialism

212

DAVE HILL

Conclusion: Stammering Index

222 227

About the Contributors

Inny Accioly Inny Accioly is a Professor in the Education Department of Angra dos Reis at the Fluminense Federal University, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As an academic-activist, she works on the fields of environmental education, critical pedagogy, popular education and grassroots movements. She is a researcher in the Collective of Studies in Marxism and Education (COLEMARX/Federal University of Rio de Janeiro). Dr Accioly has published many articles, books and book chapters in English and in Portuguese. She serves as Program Chair (2020–2023) in the Paulo Freire SIG at the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy is professor and chair at the Division of Educational Administration at the Faculty of Educational Science in Ankara University. He has been in the US for two years and Germany for one year as a Visiting Scholar. He has been researching, lecturing and writing on the fields and interest areas such as politics of education, economics of education, politics of technology, reforming in education and critical pedagogy. He has published numerous scholarly and newspaper articles, book editorials, book chapters and translations of the articles and books. He serves as editor, editorial board member and referee for many national and international scholarly journals. Claudiana Alencar Claudiana Nogueira de Alencar has a PhD in Linguistics and is a professor at the State University of Ceará (UECE), where she coordinates the Extension Program ‘Viva a Palavra: dynamics of language, peace and resistance of the black youth of the Fortaleza’s outskirts’. Claudiana works on the PhD Program in Applied Linguistics (POSLA) and on the Master’s in Education and Teaching (MAIE) at UECE. Her research on Popular Education, Critical Linguistics and Decolonial Pedagogy focuses on the cultural grammars of resistance of youth, the share of knowledge between the University and popular cultural movements, and the fights against the annihilation of the poor youth in Brazilian big cities.

About the Contributors xi Eleftheria Atta Eleftheria Atta has completed doctoral studies at UCL Institute of Education, University of London (Doctor of Education, 2017) in the field of Sociology of Education. She has been employed at P.A. College, Larnaca, Cyprus as a full-time lecturer since September 2004. She has published in renowned academic journals and has presented her research in several conferences in Cyprus and abroad. She is an executive member of Gender and Education Association since 2018 in the capacity of regional representative and promotions person in Cyprus and region. She also acts as a reviewer for journals of her field. Research interests include gender and Higher Education (HE), gendered academic subjectivities, HE policy in a global context and feminist education and gender inequalities in schools. She is currently working on the manuscript of her book titled The Emergence of Postfeminist Identities in Higher Education: Neoliberal Dynamics and the Performance of Gendered Subjectivities to be published with Routledge. Grant Banfield Grant Banfield is an adjunct scholar at the University of South Australia. His scholarship and intellectual interests derive from the application of Marxian praxis to education and social change. He has a particular interest in the philosophy of critical realism as a radical underlaborer to this task. Grant’s recent book Critical Realism for Marxist Sociology of Education (2016, Routledge) brings that scholarship together in the service of radical activism. Maria Chalari Maria Chalari is a doctoral graduate of the UCL Institute of Education in the field of Sociology of Education. Maria has worked with human rights organizations and institutions, and has taken part in many conferences, youth forums and human rights projects in different countries around the world. She has also worked as an educator in formal and informal education, and has been a member of numerous research teams. Among other topics, her research focuses on: matters related to human rights; political, ethnic, racial and gender-based social problems; the origins and the shaping of education policy in different areas at national and international levels; and the construction of social discrimination and social exclusion. Maria is currently working as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the European University of Cyprus. Her latest book is called Crisis, Austerity and New Frameworks for Teaching and Learning. A Pedagogy of Hope for Contemporary Greek Education (2020, Routledge). Laurence Cox Laurence Cox has been involved in social movements for over thirty years, and has devoted his working life to research with and for movements, including radical education projects of many kinds. He is also Associate Professor in sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Cox co-founded and co-edits the

xii  About the Contributors open-access social movements journal Interface (interfacejournal.net) and Pluto’s social movement series. His books include Why Social Movements Matter (Rowman and Littlefield International 2018) and The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk Who Faced Down the British Empire (Oxford 2020, with Alicia Turner and Brian Bocking). Juan Ramón Rodríguez Fernández Juan Ramón Rodríguez Fernández is a Professor in the School of Education at the University of León, Spain. His research and publications focus on critical education, critical discourse analysis and emancipatory socioeducational alternatives. He has been a visitor academic at Anglia Ruskin University (Chelmsford, UK) and at the University of South Australia (Adelaide, Australia). His latest book is Educación crítica e inclusiva para una sociedad postcapitalista (2020, Octaedro). He serves as editorial board member and referee of several journals. He is a keen chess player. Sandra Gadelha Sandra Gadelha is Professor at State University of Ceará – UECE, Brazil, coordinating the Extension Program: Education in the countryside, school and organization of culture: experiences and knowledge to human emancipation. Dr Gadelha researches the rural youth’s school trajectory and acts on the following subjects: social movements, lifelong education, popular education, education in rural áreas, Critical Pedagogy, and Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy. She also teaches at the Intercampi Academic Master’s in Education and Teaching (MAIE). With a CNPq scholarship and under the supervision of Professor Michael Löwy, she was a postdoctoral researcher at L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales – EHESS/Paris (2012/2013). Dionysios Gouvias Dionysios Gouvias is Associate Professor at the University of the Aegean, Department of Preschool Education and Educational Design (Rhodes campus, Greece). He has presented papers at many Educational and Sociological Conferences in Greece and abroad. He has published articles in international and major Greek peer-reviewed journals, and he is serving as a reviewer in some of them. He is the co-author of two books on education policy and the school-work link respectively, and editor of three collective volumes on the Sociology of Education. His research interests include: Sociology of Education, Education Policy, Gender and Education, Comparative Education, Intercultural Education. Tom G. Griffiths Tom G. Griffiths is Professor of International Education and Development at OsloMet University, Norway. Tom’s research has focused on the application of world-systems analysis as a framework for understanding systems of mass education and their potential contribution to the transformation of the capitalist

About the Contributors xiii world-system toward a socialist alternative. His work on Cuba and Venezuela has been published in international journals, and recent volumes include: Logics of socialist education: Engaging with crisis, insecurity and uncertainty (Springer), and Mass Education, Global Capital, and the World: The Theoretical Lenses of István Mészáros and Immanuel Wallerstein (Palgrave). Richard Hall Richard Hall is Professor of Education and Technology at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. He is also a National Teaching Fellow. Richard’s most recent monograph is The Alienated Academic: The Struggle for Autonomy Inside the University, with Palgrave Macmillan. Richard has been involved in a range of alternative education projects, and he is currently a trustee of the Open Library of Humanities and Governor of the Leicester Primary Pupil Referral Unit. He writes about life inside higher education at: http://richard-hall.org. Dave Hill Dave Hill is a Marxist political, trade union and education activist. He is Emeritus Professor at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, and holds Visiting posts at universities in Athens, Greece and Wuhan, China. He is Founder/ Managing Director of the free online academic journal, the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (www.jceps.com), and co-organizer of the annual ICCE (International Conference on Critical Education) (www.icce2018.wordpress. com; https://9icce2019.wordpress.com/). He has written/co-written/edited 26 books. Around 70 of his articles are online at www.ieps.org.uk. Dave has fought 13 local, parliamentary and euro-elections for left parties, been a regional elected trade union chair, and been teargassed on demonstrations in Greece and Turkey. Peter McLaren Peter McLaren is Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, The Donna Ford Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, where he serves as International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice and Co-Director of The Paulo Freire Democratic Project. He is the author and editor of over 40 books and his writings have been translated into 25 languages. Alpesh Maisuria Dr Alpesh Maisuria is an Associate Professor of Education Policy in Critical Education at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. He is interested in social class, neoliberalism and socialism, which he has extensively researched, particularly in a British, Swedish and American context. His latest book is called Life for Academic in the Neoliberal University. Alpesh is an Assistant Editor of the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS); Executive Member of the British Education Studies Association, and a Co-Chair of the International Conference for Critical Education (ICCE).

xiv  About the Contributors José Ernandi Mendes José Ernandi Mendes is Assistant Professor at State University of Ceará – UECE, Brazil. Dr Mendes teaches in the Intercampi Academic Master’s in Education and Teaching – MAIE/UECE. He earned a PhD in Brazilian Education at Federal University of Ceará and was a postdoctoral researcher at L’École des Haustes Études en Sciences Sociales – EHESS/Paris, under the supervision of Professor Michael Löwy. Dr Mendes researches the relation between education and social movements in the Brazilian context. Mike Neary Mike Neary is Professor of Sociology at the University of Lincoln. His academic work is mainly concerned with the creation of post-capitalist forms of higher education. Yannis Pechtelidis Yannis Pechtelidis currently serves as an Associate Professor in Sociology of Education at the Department of Early Childhood Education, at the University of Thessaly in Greece. His research engages with the educational commons, childhood and youth from sociological and philosophical perspectives. Glenn Rikowski Dr Glenn Rikowski is a Visiting Fellow in the College of Social Science at the University of Lincoln, UK. He writes on Marxist educational theory, crisis and education, the business takeover of education, the social production of laborpower, transhumanism and social time. Bill Robertson Bill is a Newcastle TAFE teacher, community worker and active community member. Bill has published about community activism and campaigns to maintain and improve public goods and services and has an interest in how marginalized groups and individuals gain access to work, education and public spaces. Elisabeth Simbürger Elisabeth Simbürger is Professor of Sociology at the University of Valparaíso, Chile and Director of an Interdisciplinary PhD program at the same university. She holds a PhD and MA in Sociology from Warwick University and an MA and BA in Sociology from the University of Vienna. Her work is situated at the crossroad of higher education research, social epistemology and sociology of the social sciences, with a special emphasis on sociology. Ewen Speed Ewen Speed is Senior Lecturer in medical sociology in the school of Health and Social Care at the University of Essex, UK. He is primarily interested in questions of social policy, particularly health policy and the way in which recent changes to provision can be interpreted as a retrenchment of the state in favor

About the Contributors xv of private, for-profit providers. He is interested in the questions this raises about changing relations between publics and governments and the consequent and ongoing conflict between public and private good. Spyros Themelis Spyros Themelis is an Associate Professor in the School of Educational and Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, UK. He is interested in the theory and praxis of social justice, human rights and education and has taught and/or conducted research in Latin America and Europe. His recent research and publications focus on social mobility, minorities in education (especially Gypsy/Roma/Travellers), widening participation and social movements (with a focus on Higher Education movements). His previous publications include the monograph Social Change and Education in Greece: A Study in Class Struggle Dynamics (Palgrave, 2013). Currently, Spyros is an Assistant Editor of the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS) and a co-convenor of the Activism in Sociology Forum, British Sociological Association. Angela Tuck Angela Tuck is the Director of Inclusion at an East Coast High School in Suffolk, England, UK. She recently completed an Education Doctorate at the University of East Anglia. Her research focused on the inclusion of a small group of Traveller young people from an educational perspective, but also as a socio-cultural process. This is her first published work. Joss Winn Joss Winn works at the University of Lincoln, where he is responsible for the School of Education’s doctoral programmes. His research focuses on co-operative education and craft education. Jo Williams Jo Williams (PhD, MEd, BEd Mus) has worked in education for 20 years across a variety of settings in Australia, Cuba and Chile. She is currently a lecturer in education at Deakin University, Australia, and a music and drama teacher at an urban secondary school in Melbourne. She has teaching and research experience in preservice teacher education, school and community partnerships, social justice education and critical pedagogy. She also has a strong background in local activism and community education and arts projects. Patrick Yarker Patrick Yarker taught English for 20 years at comprehensive schools in London and Norfolk. A member of the Learning without Limits research and development team, he was one of nine teachers involved in the original Learning without Limits project which explored teaching free from determinist assumptions of ability. He co-edits the journal Forum: For Promoting 3–19 Comprehensive Education, and is an Associate Tutor in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia in England.

Introduction

Neoliberalism and Education Notwithstanding the challenges in defining neoliberalism, a good starting point seems to be Harvey’s (2005) definition, which defines it as “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade” (p. 2). In other words, neoliberalism is both an ideology, a representation of real life in people’s imaginary, as well as a hegemonic mode of socio-economic and political organization. The ubiquity of neoliberalism (or neoliberal capitalism), make it appear inseparable from globalization. The latter, is understood here as “the international face of neoliberalism: a world-wide strategy of accumulation and social discipline that doubles up as an imperialist project, spearheaded by the alliance between the US ruling class and locally dominant capitalist coalitions” (Saad-Filho & Johnston, 2005, p. 2). It follows that neoliberalism’s penetration in education is unquestionable. But how is this achieved? While every country has different experiences, some processes of neoliberalization are common. For example, supra-national organizations, such as UNESCO, the World Bank, OECD enjoy widespread influence. Tools, such as the OECD-backed Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), have become indispensable components of frameworks for understanding and even driving policy-making in education in 79 countries (Goldstein, 2014). Nevertheless, international assessment tools instead of leading to an improvement of national education systems, have resulted in an intensification in cross-national competition (Goldstein, 2004; Stewart, 2013). Education, apart from being competitive, has become customer and trade-oriented. For example, Higher Education (HE) has gained access to markets because degrees have become products for exchange in the marketplace. Especially after the 2008 economic crisis, neoliberalism has created a rift between democratic values and private gain: “with the rush to profitability in the global market, values precious for the future of democracy […] are in danger

2  Introduction of getting lost” (Nussbaum, 2010, p. 6). Education has partly become for-profit (Nussbaum, 2010). Giroux (2011) calls this new type of education “new public pedagogy,” that is to say a process whereby “dominant sites of pedagogy engage in diverse forms of pedagogical address to put into play a limited range of identities, ideologies, and subject positions that both reinforce neoliberal social relations and undermine the possibility for democratic politics” (Giroux, 2011, p. 134). These pedagogic sites can be international organizations, mainstream media and increasingly educational institutions who reinforce commodified educational relations at the expense of class alliances and democratic values. In short, education “has been repackaged to attract s­ tudent-consumers” (Holborow, 2015, p. 15), a process that results from the commodification of labor and almost every aspect of human activity. This expanded consideration of education is at the heart of a focus on the political economy, which “grounds neoliberalism in the wider economic and political developments of contemporary capitalism and provides the vital political and economic dimension to issues of social identity, language and language teaching” (Block, Gray, & Holborow, 2012, p. 2). Crucially, it offers an angle through which to examine education and the renewed social relations therein. However, approaching education through the prism of neoliberalism should not occlude its potential as an agent of positive transformation. For education is impregnated with the possibility of radically changing people’s life course for the better. The question is how this transformation can be accomplished, under what circumstances, and – crucially – what tools will be necessary in this endeavor. I contend that language is one of those powerful tools at our disposal not only for thinking about the world, but also for changing it. As we know from Marx, the world is not going to change through the mere power of our ideas, but powerful ideas are indispensable in transforming it. This book aims to capture the dialectics of neoliberalism through, on the one hand, discussing words that focus on the effects of neoliberalization and, on the other hand, words that aim to negate these processes.

Neoliberalism, Language and Ideology Language “makes infinite use of finite means” (Humboldt, 1999/1836). However, not all language users or groups of users have the same influence over language. For semantization and re-semantization are implicated in power relations and, as George Orwell (1965) observed, they are underpinned by political and economic processes. In this volume, I approach language in a twofold way. First, as the canvas upon which power asymmetry is portrayed, created and re-created. Language conveys the unequal power relations and the imbalances in the distribution of power, opportunities and outcomes. For example, UK

Introduction 3 HEIs in the early 2000s started measuring the so-called “student experience.” This was the first attempt to quantify and measure something as subjective, variable and personalized as the way students experience the quality of their education. On the one hand, the terms “student” and “experience” are of limited usefulness as they are deployed as powerfully discursive notions in the marketizing of the university that turns students into consumers (Sabri, 2011). On the other hand, they are potent as a means of enhancing an institution’s symbolic (i.e. reputation) and economic (reputational advantages to be converted to more students, i.e. cash) capital. In other words, the student experience is monetized, just like any other commodity. This process has resulted in universities competing with each other to become “the best providers” of student experience. Consequently, they have been spending disproportionately higher amounts on fixed capital (e.g. teaching rooms, student accommodation) that is expected to improve this inadequately defined “experience,” in comparison to their spending on their employees, or “human capital” in the language of the new public pedagogy. This imbalance, of course, is nothing else than a compromise of labor to capital, which neoliberalism has accelerated. The measuring of the student experience is a prime example of such a reorganization of power relations that has occurred owing to neoliberalism. Crucially, this reorganization is not merely an ideological or a symbolic struggle only, but a shift in the balance of class power. It is part of a class struggle. Second, then, language needs to be approached as a site of class struggle, that is to say as an arena where social conflict plays out. In the case of the student experience, it was the shift in the balance of class power from unions and university employees to management that allowed for the assorted practices and attendant language to emerge. This discursive shift coincided with an axiological one: education ceased to be approached as a good in its own right and it started to be seen as a race to accumulate credentials for employment. The new discourse around student experience is characteristic of the way in which language typifies the social relations within academia and their political and socio-economic determinants. As already noted, these relations correspond to a compromise of labor to capital, which is the essence of neoliberalism in contemporary education. In this manner, language serves as the discursive battlefield of class struggle and its de facto extension. In order to explain how this was achieved, let me turn to the crucial role of ideology and its relationship with language. Although Althusser (1971) criticized Marx on the grounds that the latter approached ideology as “a pure illusion, a pure dream, i.e. as nothingness,” they both agreed that ideology needs to be linked to class society and class struggle. For Marx and Engels (1978/1846) ideology corresponds to the material conditions: “the production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse

4  Introduction of men [sic], the language of real life,” which is echoed in Althusser’s (1970) conceptualization of ideology: “Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.” This was a radical departure from idealist conceptions of ideology that were popular hitherto and it furnished social theory with tools with which to combat idealism. In contemporary neoliberal societies, a similar idealism is attempted through the individualization of processes, such as educational outcomes, the attendant erosion of class alliances and the detachment of ideas from practice. For example, as various authors in this volume point out, neoliberalism entails a doublespeak (Orwell, 1949/2008), a separation of the word from the world (Freire, 1970). “New managerialism,” which is the language of neoliberalism in education and more broadly, has become the vehicle through which neoliberal ideas are transmitted in contemporary institutions as well as the ideology that turns citizens into consumers (Hall, 2003). While in education, especially HE, there is some resistance to new managerialism and the discourse it utilizes, the latter is ubiquitous and almost inescapable, even by its critics. As Marx and Engels warned us, we can protest and resist the proliferation of terms such as student experience, rankings, league tables and the like, but we are still conditioned by the social relations that correspond to them: “Men [sic] are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms” (Marx & Engels, 1978/1846, pp. 67–68). The way we understand the concepts discussed in this book is not through thought processes alone but also through consciousness, which is a real process that utilizes abstract means: “Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men [sic] is their actual life-­ process” (Marx & Engels, 1978/1846, pp. 13–14). More than that, it becomes imperative to enhance our conscientization, that is to say the process of creating a ­“consciousness that is understood to have the power to transform reality” (Taylor, 1993, p. 52). This mental process is at first linked to the material production and the conditions within which it takes place. For example, the presently dominant culture of rankings utilized in education is at first directly interwoven with the material forces and relations of and within production. The latter emphasize global competition, the fomenting of a testing culture, disciplinarian inspections, regimes of accountability and performativity, and so on (Ball, 2000, 2003). University rankings, for example, have become an obsession around the world (Hazelkorn, 2015): “what started as an academic exercise in the early 20th century in the United States became a commercial “information” service for students in the 1980s and the progenitor of a “reputation race” with geo-political implications today” (Hazelkorn, 2015, p. 1). Crucially, such practices are closely interrelated with and, to some extent, dictated by concomitant ones within the labor market, as nation states and employers are

Introduction 5 “at war” with each other to recruit the best new talent they can find and graduates at war with each other to get the best employment opportunities they can (Brown & Tannock, 2009). Knowledge as the basis of success in a globalized world has become the driving force of economic growth and it underpins the impetus for accountability and transparency. Educational institutions, especially HEIs, are increasingly subjected to the dicta of the labor market and the logic of capital. Everything, it follows, must be commodified: “We ourselves are subjected to commodity logic as the value of our work, in the form of wages or salaries, is determined not by the amount of effort, skill or expertise we can offer, but by the ‘labor market’ – the place where a price is stamped on our work, decided according to what employers or society deem acceptable to pay.” (Holborow, 2015, p. 15). Representing this reality and the social relations that allude to it is not an easy undertaking. The task is doubly difficult given that language is an inherently dynamic and changeable system, but also owing to the globalized nature of neoliberalism. As Jameson (2019) aptly observed, “how to conceptualize the unconceptualizable (and even unnamable) collectivity of planetary life that has been recently unified by this world market?” The springboard of this book is this aporia regarding the fast-changing conditions of contemporary capitalism. Specifically, we grapple with the language of education, which is being shaped and gradually replaced by the language of the marketplace. Our interest lies in the transformation of social relations that is achieved partly through the medium of language and in any case it is conveyed by it.

On Dangerous Words and Discourses of Possibility Over the years, various works have appeared that expand on key terms and most notably Raymond Williams’s (1976) Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. Williams’ work was a “record of an inquiry into a vocabulary: a shared body of words and meanings in our most general discussions, in English, of the practices and institutions which we group as culture and society” (emphasis in the original). Its aim was to reflect and explore key cultural and social aspects through language and in a historical manner. Almost thirty years later Bennett, Grossberg, and Morris (2005) revised and renewed Williams’s work in New keywords: A revised vocabulary of culture and society. The book is written in the same spirit as Williams’s original work and it traverses the same intellectual space. Although both books are important works in their own right, the one you are holding is somewhat more eclectic than them. First, its focus is not broadly on society and culture but on a specific cultural institution, namely education, and its interface with society. This restricted focus has resulted in a more refined set of concepts and it marks a sharp distinction with Williams’s (1976), Bennett’s et al. (2005) but also with more recent works (e.g. Fritsch,

6  Introduction O’Connor, & Thompson, 2016). Another departure of Critical reflections on the language of neoliberalism in education: Dangerous words and discourses of possibility from Williams’s (1976) and Bennett et al.’s (2005) works, is that the former adopts a more political stance to the explication of its keywords. On this score, our book is more akin to Ian Parker’s (2017) Revolutionary keywords for a new left as well as to Fritsch et al. (2016) Keywords for radicals. Both these books are explicitly political, though, the latter goes even further than the former as it aims to “cultivate new ways of disruptive thinking” by devising “an analysis of the social world that coincides with the conflicts we uncover in our most intimate utterances” (p. 18). This book’s hope is to extend this “uncovering” into collective practices, ideologies and processes, and shed some light on the mechanisms of their historical emergence and reproduction. What is more, it aims to point to new possibilities and “exits” from the current neoliberal condition.

How to Read the Book The rationale for the selection of the keywords presented in this volume rests on their importance in education and the social relations therein. For example, managerialism, employability, youth and school, are all core in the educational process. Commodities and the resultant processes of commodifying knowledge or education are paramount in the operation of neoliberalism. But what is dangerous about the selected terms? Keywords that appear in Part I, such as markets, ability, league tables, have the potential to negate meaning, occlude vision and deny possibilities. To be clear, nothing is inherently “dangerous” in the concepts ability and league tables. However, the context within which they have emerged and the historical processes they allude to, make them dangerous to the participants in education and more broadly to us as social and educational Subjects. Keywords in Part II, such as reflexivity and social movements, carry the seeds of hope, promise and possibility. Again, it is the historical conditions of the emergence of such terms and the particular context of their application that bestows them such properties. For example, it is through communal processes and thinking with progressive social movements that we get to know some of the most radical ideas about how to re-organize life and think about transformative potentialities within and of education and society. In this way, these terms can be dangerous to the dominant classes and, more broadly, to the neoliberal reorganization of educational and social life. I am assisted in my effort by a carefully chosen group of thinkers and activists who were tasked to discuss not only the semantics, but also the social relations each keyword alludes to. In line with Williams (1976), we want to emphasize the fact that “the most active problems of meaning are always primarily embedded in actual relationships, and that both the meanings and the relationships are typically diverse and variable, within the structures of particular social orders

Introduction 7 and the processes of social and historical change” (p. 22). The starting point of this book is the reorganization of social relations in education, which got intensified with the 2008 economic crisis. This new set of social relations resulted in a renewed treatment of keywords (alienation, commodity), in the re-semantization of others (commons, reflexivity) and the addition of new ones (employability). With this book we want to historicise and politicize some key concepts commonly utilized (school, youth, league tables, social mobility, markets) and extend the discussion about other concepts that are less utilized (utopia, socialism, hope). In so doing, we approach them as tools in the struggle for meaning within, against and beyond the horizons of current neoliberal arrangements in education and society. The process of selection of the keywords presented in this volume is ontologically implicated with the evolution of the book, which was conceived in 2015 while in conversation with social movements in the Global South. At the time, I was joined by Joyce Canaan and Paolo Vittoria, who have been important influences in shaping this book, especially at its early stages. Initially, we started compiling lists of keywords. These original keywords were chosen due to their significance in the renewed educational relations discussed above. In the process, we engaged in a dialogue with the authors we approached, as a lot of them felt that we had left out important concepts that describe the current condition better than the ones we had selected. As a result, some of those initial keywords did not make it to the final version (e.g. democracy, humility), while others not initially thought of were included (e.g. educational commons, essence). There are a number of keywords which were originally “curated” by Joyce Canaan and, for this and all her contribution in the shaping of this book and my thinking generally, I have an enormous debt. I am also grateful to Paolo Vittoria for his help, especially at the very early stages. Owing to the nature of the book, the process of co-working with a very diverse team of authors is laborious and complicated, but a thoroughly rewarding and fascinating one too. Their diverse locations, not only geographically, but also politically, epistemologically and intellectually, made the process of co-laboring on this book an adventure rather than a plain journey to the renewal of social relations in education. I earnestly hope that our efforts succeed in building academic, activist and intellectual bridges that can cross divides. The remarkable diversity attested to by our different locations aims to promote an epistemological pluralism that can sustain the pursuit of cognitive and social justice (Santos, 2014).

References Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and state apparatuses. In L. Althusser (Ed.), Lenin and philosophy and other essays. London: New Left Books. Ball, S. J. (2000). Performativities and fabrications in the education economy: Towards the performative society. Australian Educational Researcher, 17(3), 1–24.

8  Introduction Ball, S. J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228. Bennett, T., Grossberg, L., & Morris, M. (2005). New keywords: A revised vocabulary of culture and society. Oxford: Blackwell. Block, D., Gray, J., & Holborow, M. (2012). Neoliberalism and applied linguistics. London & New York, NY: Routledge. Brown, P., & Tannock, S. (2009). Education, meritocracy and the global War for talent. Journal of Education Policy, 24(4), 377–392. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. Fritsch, K., O’Connor, C., & Thompson, A. K. (2016). Keywords for radicals:The contested vocabulary of late capitalist struggle. California: AK Press. Giroux, H. (2011). On critical pedagogy. New York, NY: Continuum. Goldstein, H. (2004). International comparisons of student attainment: Some issues arising from the PISA study. Assessment in Education, 1(3), 319–330. Goldstein, H. (2014). Do League Tables Really Improve Test Scores? Blog post available at: http:// hgeduc.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/do-league-tables-really-improve-test.html. Hall, S. (2003). New labour’s double shuffle. Soundings, 24, 10–24. Hazelkorn E. (2015). Rankings and the reshaping of Higher Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Holborow, M. (2015). Language and neoliberalism. London: Routledge. Humboldt, von W. (1999/1836). On language: On the diversity of human language construction and its influence on the mental development of the human species, Michael Losonsky (Ed.), translated by Peter Heath, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jameson, F. (2019). Allegory and ideology. London: Verso. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1978/1846). Idealism and materialism. The illusions of German ideology. Progress Publishers. Nussbaum, M. (2010). Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Orwell, G. (1949/2008). Nineteen eighty-four. London: Penguin. Orwell, G. (1965). Politics and the English language. London: Penguin. Parker, I. (2017). Revolutionary keywords for a new left. Winchester and Washington: Zero Books. Saad Filho, A., & Johnston, D. (Eds.). (2005). Neoliberalism: A critical reader. London: Pluto Press. Sabri, D. (2011). What’s wrong with “the student experience”?. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(5), 657–667. doi: 10.1080/01596306.2011.620750. Santos, B. de S. (2014). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Boulder/Londres: Paradigm Publishers. Stewart, W. (2013). Is PISA Fundamentally Flawed? Times Education Supplement (TES). Retrieved from http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6344698. Taylor, P. (1993). The texts of Paolo Freire. Buckingham: Open University Press. Williams, R. (1976). Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. Fourth Estate Ltd.

Part I

Endangering Words Introduction Keywords do not merely characterize the contemporary conditions in education and society; they also shape it. However, not all key terms serve the same function. To this end, we discern two categories. In the first part of the book, Part I, we discuss keywords that underpin, promote and embed processes of neoliberalization in education and society. For example, skills, markets, league tables, targets, employability, social mobility are core to the normalization of neoliberalism and to the naturalization of its consequences. They carry symbolic power in the reorganization of the labor–capital relation and they are part of the hegemonic project of rebalancing class power in favor of capital and at the expense of labor. As such, they are part of the dominant ideology, which subjugates education to the logic of the market. Being “employable” (or “unemployable”), though, is not an empty signifier (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985). It is an act of creation of certain types of subjectivities.

1

Crisis Glenn Rikowski

Introduction Crisis at first appears to be a dangerous word for us who labor. We are the ones that suffer from redundancies, negatively restructured work, neoliberal education policies and systems, draconian welfare systems that undermine and impoverish (where they exist) and hopes and ambitions frustrated and dashed – whenever “economic” crisis strikes. We are victims, pummeled by capital and its human representatives. We resist and curse, of course, but capital is a ­“slippery customer” as the UK boxer Frank Bruno used to talk about his opponents. It is hard to pin down and hold to account. Yet, for capital’s supporters, crisis is a word incorporating an intense sense of danger: for “crisis is mortally dangerous to capital” (Holloway, 1992, p. 168). It induces fear and panic amongst its human representatives. Thus far, capitalist crises have been followed by recoveries – though their strength and ­vitality vary significantly, and have generally become weaker since the end of the post-War boom. But there is always the danger that recovery never comes; or, worse, that capital disintegrates and dissolves. Human representatives of capital (e.g. chief executive officers, hedge fund managers, bond traders) are fearful of capitalist crises, though, historically, capitalism seems to recover from them, as in 2007–2009. What is crisis, anyway? What is the significance of neoliberalism for contemporary crises, especially educational ones? What does “education crisis” signify in contemporary society? This article addresses these questions and uncovers the danger inherent in capitalist crises for capital itself.

Crisis Some have argued the idea of crisis is itself in crisis (Azmanova, 2014/2015; Azmanova, 2019, p. 14;). Crisis has lost its overtones of danger, it seems; it has been tamed. The danger of crisis has been undermined in a number of respects in recent years in social theory. Firstly, there are those such as Boltanski and Chiapello (2007) who focus on the capacity of capitalist societies to subvert

12  Glenn Rikowski and absorb movements for radical social change, as with the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. Crisis becomes a normal aspect of capitalist development, especially its “creative destruction” in times of recession and slump, and “the cyclical functioning of the economy is frequently mistaken for a crisis” (Barnardo, 2009, p. 2). Furthermore, crises “have always tended to strengthen capital’s hand in the class struggle” (Bar-Yuchnei, 2011, p. 3). Secondly, some writers on crisis point toward the overuse and devaluation of the concept of crisis as signifier of danger to capital’s social domination. For example, Gamble (2014, p. 28) indicates how the media “turn every event into a crisis” with crises becoming daily or even hourly events. For Boris Buden (2009, p. 41), this is constant criticism without crisis: a cacophony of media voices that provide a mountain of criticism that “is blind to crisis.” Thirdly, Roitman (2014) notes the idea of crisis is conceptually tied to that of critique: utilizing the concept of crisis invokes critical diagnoses regarding how a particular crisis can be terminated or alleviated, how it can be avoided in the future and how it arose in the first place. However, it appears there is also a crisis of critique (Hickel & Khan, 2012); critique has “run out of steam” Latour (2004). Thus, with its anchoring in critique, the idea of crisis appears to have lost some of its conceptual force and theoretical utility. These issues are addressed in Rikowski (2015, 2018, 2019). So, what is crisis; what precisely “does it mean to speak of ‘crisis’?” (Samman, 2011, p. 4). The answer sets out from Rikowski (2018, esp. on pp. 148–149). Etymologically, the idea of crisis comes from the Greek noun krisis and points toward a decision, or choice or judgement being made (Peters, 2013, p. 199), and the Greek verb krino, “meaning to cut, to select, to decide, to judge – a root it shares with the term ‘criticism’” (Osborne, 2010, p. 23). This links crisis to critique, as noted by Roitman (2014). This perspective on crisis is commonly traced back to Hippocrates of Kos (1983), “as doctors are charged with the responsibility of making correct decisions and choices regarding the health and well-being of patients” (Rikowski, 2018, p. 148). The “crisis” point in a disease is a turning point where the patient either recovers, dies or suffers some debilitation (e.g. amputation), though Hippocrates indicated that the disease or condition could sometimes return in another negative turning point. In recovery mode, crisis is a positive development, and this is often forgotten in media and some academic accounts of economic, social and educational crises. John Holloway argues that this approach to crisis can also be applied to social phenomena and historical analyses, but: … crisis does not simply refer to “hard times”, but to turning points. It directs attention to the discontinuities of history, to breaks in the path of development, ruptures in a pattern of movement, variations in the intensity of time. (Holloway, 1992, p. 146 – emphasis added)

Crisis 13 Therefore, when people experience tough times (e.g. redundancy, poverty and low pay), this does not necessarily denote a crisis situation. The difference between “hard times” for education and education crises is an important one, especially in the current neoliberal era, as a later section makes clear. Marxism is the most powerful theory on crises in contemporary society. Because of this, from hereafter this article moves within Marxist thought. This maximizes the danger of the word, crisis! Marxism does not have a theory of crisis, according to John Holloway; it is a theory of crisis, “a theory of structural social instability” (Holloway, 1992, p. 146). Capitalism is structurally unsound and unstable as it is a specific, historical form of social domination. Its existence and expansion depend on ensuring that laborers produce enough value and profit in capitalist labor processes to enable its development. Labor insubordination in all its forms – strikes, factory occupations, slacking, avoiding work, messing with Facebook in work time, etc. – presents challenges to human representatives of capital charged with increasing the rate of exploitation. When attempts to cajole, force, bribe and educate workers adequately and effectively in relation to labor exploitation fail, then crisis breaks out. This is a crisis of the capital relation: the relation between capital and labor, though it typically appears as an economic crisis, with overspill crises – in welfare systems, education and so on – throughout society. When these crises break out, then there is a period of “intensified change” (Holloway, 1992, p. 146). Crises express “the structural instability of capitalist relations” (Ibid., p. 159), a “break in the established pattern of class relations” (Ibid., p. 165), and the “sharpening of social tensions, of frustrated expectations and the bitterness that grows from that frustration” (Holloway, 2012, p. 199) as unemployment, restructuring and pay cuts are experienced. This is all too clear in the current COVID-19 pandemic, as: This is what we are living: the fire of capitalist crisis. So much misery, hunger, shattered hopes, not because of a virus, but in order to restore capitalism to profitability. (Holloway, 2020, p. 2) If we weren’t burdened with restoring capitalism to relative health we could focus more adequately on combatting the coronavirus, argues Holloway. But where does education fit into this picture?

The Classical Theory of Education Crisis Within Marxist theory, a particular approach to education crises was forged in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the UK. This was a reaction to the end of the post-War boom in the mid-1970s, with significant recession and the

14  Glenn Rikowski reappearance of mass unemployment, especially youth unemployment, de-­ industrialization and the deepest post-War recession in 1980–1982, to that date. Both recessions led to significant negative consequences for education, with budget cuts and research-funding reductions. There was also restructuring in post-compulsory education and training to contain rising youth unemployment through various youth training schemes – the Youth Opportunities Programme (YOP) in the late 1970s, and then the Youth Training Programme from the early 1980s – which may be revisited in some form for 16- to 24-yearolds in the current COVID-19 capitalist crisis, as youth unemployment soars (Elliott Inman, & Stewart, 2020; Parker & Giles, 2020). Two Marxist educational theorists responded to the educational fallout of the mid-1970s and early-1980s capitalist crises and generated what I have called the Classical Theory of Education Crisis (Rikowski, 2017a). These were Brian Simon (1977), who developed the Classical Theory in embryonic form, and Madan Sarup (1982), who brought the Classical Theory of Education Crisis to clearer definition and greater complexity. Here, taken from Rikowski (2019, pp. 143–146), is a summary of the Classical Theory, with a brief critique. A substantial critique of the Classical Theory can be found in Rikowski (2017a). Basically, the Classical Theory of Education Crisis holds that education crises are derivative of economic crises; economic crises lead to education crises. The following summary of Sarup’s (1982) Classical Theory is based principally on Rikowski’s (2019, p. 142–143) outline: (a) First, state expenditure comes under attack as a result of an economic crisis that has negative effects for state revenue. This is principally due to shortfalls in taxes on profits, consumption and labor that accompany an economic crisis. (b) Secondly, there is an attack on ‘unproductive’ workers in the state sector: these are perceived as a liability and indulgence in times of stress for productive, value-creating private profit-producing enterprises, and this includes teachers. (c) A third aspect of education crisis in contemporary capitalism is restructuring by the capitalist state. According to Sarup, the state does not just restructure institutions that come within its orbit; it also innovates, and changes agendas and priorities in order to reengineer the social relations of production in general and the social relations of capitalist education systems in particular – in favor of capital over labor. The aim is to make the representatives of capital and the drive for capital accumulation stronger vis-à-vis the needs, interests and desires of workers. (d)  Fourthly, during a crisis of capital (and hence of education), the state is especially concerned with attempting to ensure that

Crisis 15 educational expenditure and policies are particularly aimed at the social production of labor-power. This is expressed in the drive to vocationalize education and to forge stronger ties between education, training and the world of work – including new training programmes for unemployed youth and work experience programmes for schoolchildren. (e) There is a fifth aspect, noted by Sarup throughout his book, and re-­ emphasised towards the end: resistance to processes of cuts and restructuring. For Sarup, this resistance to specific cuts and restructuring in education (by teachers, trade unions, students and women’s groups, etc.), is underpinned by resistance to capitalist schooling as laborpower production per se, especially on the part of school students. (f) A final point is that crises of economy and education have (largely negative) consequences for gender divisions and racism in education and economy. Women and ethnic minorities suffer disproportionately in times of crisis. First of all, in line with the concept of crisis outlined previously, there is no real conception of recovery in this rendition of education crisis. This might be because, with educational restructuring, recovery – with a renewed burst of education funding – will not simply return the education system to its original state pre-crisis. Secondly, although there is reference to resistance to education cuts and restructuring, the theory is largely reactive; educational workers and students appear at the mercy of economic forces they have no control over. They are seeming victims of impersonal economic phenomena. Thirdly, the analysis rests on a punitive functionalism: education systems are driven into line with economic imperatives. This rests on a sharp separation between economy and education, based on a philosophy of external relations that always begs the question of how economy and education relate. Although Rikowski (2017a) points to other shortcomings of the Classical Theory of Education Crisis, it still has some currency within radical education circles, all the more since the capitalist crisis of 2007–2009, with consequent education funding retrenchments brought forth by capitalist states as sovereign debt rocketed due to bank bailouts and associated recession. What the Classical Theory of Education Crisis indicates is that education crises flow from economic ones, casting educational workers and students as poor unfortunates in danger of suffering from capital’s workings. As Sarup indicates: The educational crisis, then, is not specific; it is constituted by the general crisis of production. (Sarup, 1982, p. 111 – emphasis added).

16  Glenn Rikowski A radical, anti-capitalist perspective on education crisis would turn the tables: it would start out from seeking to generate crises for capital within educational institutions and processes. This outlook is explored in the final section of the paper. As for the Classical Theory of Education Crisis, it is becoming increasingly redundant and invalid, as the following section indicates.

Neoliberalism, Education and Commodity Forms Following the end of the post-War boom, neoliberal education policies began to shape educational landscapes. In the UK, with rising youth unemployment in the mid- to late 1970s, and intensified employer criticism of the quality of youth recruits, which had always been there (Rikowski, 2006), labor-power quality appeared to be at risk. Employer organizations, especially the Engineering Employers’ Federation, demanded government action, especially on the “basics” (young people’s numeracy and literacy), but also on work attitudes and appreciation of the role and importance of work (Frith, 1980). It took 12 years before these employer concerns were addressed, with the Conservative government’s 1988 Education Act. This Act did not just reconfigure the curriculum, as a National Curriculum aimed at enhancing the labor-power of England’s youth (the Act did not apply to Scotland), but it also made headway in the marketization of schools as local democracy and control were downgraded in favor of competition between schools and “market testing” through a strong school inspection regime. For schools in England, the 1988 Education Act was a turning point; for capital and against labor (specifically teachers), both in terms of welding education more closely to labor-power production, and upping the stakes regarding the business takeover of schools. The 1988 Act constituted a turning point, a crisis for labor and teachers in schools, in these two respects. Hence, since 1988, education crises as envisaged by the Classical Theory became difficult to disentangle from the drift of neoliberal education policy in England. Rather than a series of education crises flowing from economic ones, neoliberal assaults on education became a permanent feature of school life. Permanent, chronic and pathological movements to reduce schooling to labor-power production and to insert business values, and then (from 2000 onward) actual companies in the running of schools, became the norm. Neoliberal education reforms seeded capital’s commodity forms – laborpower, and the “cell-from” (the class of commodities other than labor-power) (Rikowski, 2017b) – in education to an unprecedented degree, bringing educational crises to a point where the Classical Theory was washed over and redundant. Educational restructuring supporting capital became continuous in the neoliberal era, crisis or no.

Crisis 17

Vicious Crises and Anti-Capitalism in Education Anti-capitalism in education implies intentionally creating vicious crises; education crises as crises for capital, rather than merely organizing reactive resistances that are likely to occur anyway (Rikowski, 2019). Such crises are dangerous for capital as they inhibit, push back or deny its development in terms of its expansion and maintenance. It should be remembered that we are attacking capital as a social relation that is within our personhoods as well as pursuing it throughout its realm. There are three modes of attack for creating vicious crises for capitalist education and society. The first is to counter processes that aim to establish the existence of abstract labor in capitalist education, and, in particular, to attack the economic cellform, the commodity, and specifically educational commodification. This also involves forestalling marketization, monetization, commercialization, competition between educational institutions and laborers and other institutional forms supporting educational commodification. The second is to reconfigure education so that its reduction to labor-power production is curtailed. Thus, education is reconstituted toward skills for critique, human thriving and post-capitalist futures. It trades on there being one science, a science that begins from critique while incorporating the social sciences and humanities alongside the physical sciences. The third and most important critical attack on capitalist education is to forge alternative educational institutions where these principles are central to their establishment and development. Alternative educational institutions, where capital, in all its forms, is left behind, are essential if the other two aspects are to be effective in creating crises for capitalist education, in particular, and capital in general. The critique of capital must become part of the learning experience.

Conclusion Vicious crises epitomize danger for capital within its social universe, within its realm. They are the apex of danger in capitalist society for capital itself, as the existence of capital as a social relation is squeezed out of our lives. Thus, crisis should be a dangerous word, for capital, and we must make it so in projects of human liberation from capital and its educational forms. The capital relation, the relation between capital and labor that is internal to us, and all its social forms – labor, money, state, class, etc. – becomes the focus of our attacks, while alternative anti- and post-capitalist forms of sociality are weaved into the present as they herald post-capitalist futures. Turning points as crises for capital in education need not be only major policy reversals or inhibitions. Micro-turning points, in classrooms, lecture theatres, staffrooms and meetings count significantly, too. Capital needs us for its

18  Glenn Rikowski creation and development, but we can thrive without it; for “we are the crisis” of capital (Holloway, 2019, p. 258), its dangerous creators and grave-diggers. Crises expose capital’s fragility. Capital gives us hard times; we give capital crises, with vicious intentionality!

References Azmanova, A. (2014/2015). The crisis of the crisis of capitalism. Public Lecture at the London School of Economics, and the University of California, 4 November 2014 & 22 January 2015. https://www. academia.edu/11034347/The_Crisis_of_the_Crisis_of_Capitalism Azmanova, A. (2020). Capitalism on edge: How fighting precarity can achieve radical change without crisis or utopia. Columbia University Press. New York. Barnardo, J. (2009). Seven theses on the present crisis. Radical Perspectives on the Crisis, 28 May. https://sites.google.com/site/radicalperspectivesonthecrisis/finance-crisis/on-the-crisis-offinance-and-financialization/bernardoseventhesesonthepresentcrisis. Bar-Yuchnei (2011). Two aspects of austerity. Endnotes Dispatches, August. http://endnotes.org. uk/enbar-yuchnei-two-aspects-of-austerity. (Accessed June 18, 2014). Boltanski, L., & Chiapello, E. (2007). In G. Elliott (Ed. & trans.), The new spirit of capitalism.Verso. London. Buden, B. (2009). Criticism without crisis: Crisis without criticism. In G. Raunig, & G. Ray (Eds.), Art and contemporary critical practice: Reinventing institutional critique (pp. 33–41). Mayfly Books. Leicester. Elliott, L., Inman, P., & Stewart, S. (2020). Summer statement: Rishi Sunak plans temporary job creation scheme for under-25s. The Guardian, 7 July. https://www.theguardian.com/­ politics/2020/jul/07/summer-statement-rishi-sunak-plans-temporary-job-creation-schemefor-under-25s. (Accessed July 8, 2020). Frith, S. (1980). Education and the labour process. In M. Cole & B. Skelton (Eds.), Blind alley: Youth in a crisis of capital (pp. 25–44). G.W.A. Hesketh. Ormskirk. Gamble, A. (2014). Crisis without end? The unravelling of western prosperity. Palgrave Macmillan. Basingstoke. Hickel, J., & Khan, A. (2012). The culture of capitalism and the crisis of critique. Anthropological Quarterly, 85(1), 203–228. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2012.0003. Hippocrates of Kos. (1983). Epidemics, Book I and Book III. In G. E. R. Lloyd (Ed.), Hippocratic writings, Trans. J. Chadwick & W.N. Mann. Penguin. London. Holloway, J. (1992). Crisis, fetishism, class composition. In W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn, & K. Psychopedis (Eds.), Open Marxism – Volume II: Theory and practice (pp. 145–169). Pluto Press. London. Holloway, J. (2012). Afterword: Rage against the rule of money. In F. Campagna & E. Campaglio (Eds.), What we are fighting for: A radical collective manifesto (pp. 199–205). Pluto Press. London. Holloway, J. (2019). Rage against the rule of money: The Leeds lectures. In J. Holloway, We are the crisis of capital: A John Holloway Reader (pp. 238–267). PM Press. Oakland, CA. Holloway, J. (2020). Cascade of angers: A post-pandemic fantasy. ROAR Magazine, 27 June. Retrieved from https://roarmag.org/essays/cascade-of-angers-a-post-pandemic-fantasy/. (Accessed August 15, 2020). Latour, B. (2004). Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern, Critical Inquiry, 30(2), 225–248. Osborne, P. (2010). A sudden topicality: Marx, Nietzsche and the politics of crisis. Radical Philosophy, Issue 160 (March/April), 19–26. Retrieved from https://www.radicalphilosophy. com/article/a-sudden-topicality. (Accessed July 22, 2014).

Crisis 19 Parker, G., & Giles, C. (2020, July 8). Sunak devises £2bn jobs scheme to arrest blight on “Covid generation.” Financial Times, p. 1. Peters, M. (2013). Education, science and knowledge capitalism: Creativity and the promise of openness. Peter Lang. New York. Rikowski, G. (2006). The long moan of history: Employers on school-leavers. Unpublished paper, London, 28 August. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/6623898/The_Long_Moan_of_ History_Employers_on_School-Leavers. (Accessed December 2, 2019). Rikowski, G. (2015). Crises, commodities and education: Disruptions, eruptions, interruptions and ruptions. A paper prepared for the Research in Critical Education Studies (RiCES) Seminar, School of Education, University of Lincoln, 19 November. Retrieved from https://www. academia.edu/18511424/Crises_Commodities_and_Education_Disruptions_Eruptions_ Interruptions_and_Ruptions. (Accessed June 14, 2016). Rikowski, G. (2017a). Critique of the classical theory of education crisis. A paper prepared for the International Seminar for Public Pedagogies, “Crisis and Education,” University of East London, Stratford Campus, 21 February 2018. Version of 16 November 2017. Retrieved from https:// www.academia.edu/35164258/Critique_of_the_Classical_Theory_of_Education_Crisis. (Accessed December 10, 2018). Rikowski, G. (2017b). Privatisation in education and commodity forms. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 15(3), 29–56. Retrieved from http://www.jceps.com/archives/3620. (Accessed December 10, 2018). Rikowski, G. (2018). Marxism and education: Fragility, crisis, critique. Cadernos GPOSSHE On-line, 1(1), 142–170. Retrieved from https://revistas.uece.br/index.php/CadernosdoGPOSSHE/ article/view/488/388. Rikowski, G. (2019). Education crises as crises for capital. Theory in Action, 12(3), July, 128–172. doi:10.3798/tia.1937-0237.1924. Roitman, J. (2014). Anti-crisis. Duke University Press. Durham & London. Samman, A. (2011). The idea of crisis. Journal of Critical Globalization Studies, 4(1), 4–9. Retrieved from https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/2397/1/. (Accessed January 31, 2012). Sarup, M. (1982). Education, state and crisis: A Marxist perspective. Routledge & Kegan Paul. London. Simon, B. (1977, July). Marx and the crisis in education. Marxism Today, pp. 193–205.

2

Neoliberal Globalization Spyros Themelis

Globalization This paper addresses three questions: (a) What exactly is globalization? (b) How does it operate? and (c) How does it affect contemporary education? But, what exactly is globalization? Giddens (1990, p. 64) approaches it as “the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.” Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, and Perraton (1999, p. 2) expand on this definition by emphasizing “the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual.” Indeed, despite ­“ interconnectedness” having existed for hundreds of years (Hirst and Held, 2002), its contemporary ubiquity is often celebrated as one of globalization’s biggest successes. Arguably the most hidden and at the same time invidious aspect of globalization is the way in which it is represented (Friedman, 2000). As such, globalization appears to have three underlying features: a It is a natural force; it is the way things go. b It is a positive, progressive force; we will all benefit from it. c It is a novel force; it has never existed before. However, such a presentation is misleading. First, it takes capitalism, more broadly, and neoliberalism (see below), in particular, as a given and globalization as a fact (Kiely, 2005). Second, it occludes some of its discontents (Stiglitz, 2002). For example, globalization, if adequately historicized, becomes synonymous to commodification: “the world is becoming a global shopping mall in which ideas and products are available everywhere at the same time.” (Moss Kanter, 1999, p. 15). Third, interconnectedness, and the attendant instantaneous and unfettered spreading of ideas and goods does not necessarily enrich or improve our lives, but it revalorizes the meaning of social and personal relations. This

Neoliberal Globalization 21 revalorization is not necessarily a positive development. Let us consider, for example, social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, which are some of the most prominent engines of interconnectedness. Emerging research shows that they can have a negative impact on the well-being of people who already feel isolated, that is to say, are the most vulnerable (Arampatzi, Burger, Novik, 2018). Finally, and pursuant to the previous point, globalization disproportionately affects those set to lose the most from it. Unlike what often prevails in mainstream political rhetoric, globalization is not the tide that lifts all the boats. Rather it is the current stage in capitalist development, which builds on the chequered history of unequal development, economic exploitation and domination that enabled capitalism to hold sway over other modes of production. If viewed from the perspective of the Global South “globalization is what we in the Third World have for several centuries called colonization” (Khor, 1995, in Bayliss and Smith, 2001, p. 15). However, even from a Global North perspective, instead of convergence, globalization has delivered instability and increased inequality. Be this as it may, what has made globalization look like it does today?

Neoliberalism Following Rikowski (2002, p. 5) I argue that globalization is a historical process and, as such, “it takes a particular social form. It is capitalist globalisation, the globalisation of capital […] Capital’s social universe is an expanding one, and ‘globalisation’ […] summarises this.” This is an important point as it allows me to approach globalization as a specific form of socio-economic and political organization rather than an epiphenomenon of, say, technological advancement or a set of processes limited to a specific areas of human activity. In this section, I explicate the origins of globalization and its key features. My starting point is neoliberalism as a process that has facilitated the advent of this particular form of globalization I am concerned with. While the proliferation of the usage of the term neoliberalism has led to some occlusion over its meaning and origins (Birch, 2017), here I use this term to refer to a set of developments that gave rise to a new approach regarding the state’s role in managing the economy, taking part in the ownership and control of the means and processes of production and intervening in the accumulation and flows of capital. Nowadays, neoliberalism is “both an approach to government and a defining political movement [and it …] is grounded in the assumption that governments cannot create economic growth or provide social welfare; rather, by trying to help, governments make the world worse for everyone, including the poor.” (Bockman, 2013, p. 14). The origins of neoliberalism lie in liberalism, which was influenced by Adam Smith’s (1776/1982) seminal work “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of

22  Spyros Themelis the Wealth of Nations.” Smith’s thesis, encapsulated in the laissez-faire proposition, was simple and attractive: any regulations on the economic activity of individuals or trade are unnecessary. A classical interpretation of liberalism was associated with John Stuart Mill (1859/2001) who argued for individual freedom as the foundation for individual and societal progress. Since then, the meaning of liberalism has expanded to combine a focus on natural and property rights with considerations of fairness and equality (see for example, Rawls, 1993). These conceptions of freedom were embraced by the so-called liberal democratic countries in the Western hemisphere, but also elsewhere, and led to the embeddedness and expansion of capitalism as the only system that could guarantee individual freedom and national prosperity. For the best part of the 20th century, the partnership between liberalism and capitalism seemed to be the best of all possible worlds. Despite many alarm bells that were sounded with wars (e.g. the two World Wars) and crises (e.g. the Great Depression of 1920–1921 or the 2008 financial crisis), nothing was able to stand in the way of this partnership (i.e. between capitalism and liberalism). By contrast, the devastation caused by the Second World War made various nation states respond by shifting to a model of welfare provision for their citizens that rested on increased state spending, benefits and support never seen before: free education, state pensions, free health care and so on, were some of the products of the fusion between the markets and the state. In other words, let the markets be free but protect the citizens too. Largely influenced by the economist John Maynard Keynes (1936), this approach was based on the belief that employment and welfare provision needed to be combined as this could benefit both individuals and markets. However, the aftermath of the first oil crisis in 1973–1974, was the destruction of Keynesianism (Lapavitsas, 2005). Thinkers such as Hayek (1960; 1973) and Friedman (1962; 1970) revisited Adam Smith and in the process gave his theories a “modernized” look; they transformed Smith’s liberalism into something based on it but with an important twist. In a nutshell, they established a new school of thought that came to be known as “neoliberalism.” According to Von Werlhof (2009) “Neoliberalism as an economic policy agenda […] began in Chile in 1973. Its inauguration consisted of a U.S.-organized coup against a democratically elected socialist president and the installment of a bloody military dictatorship notorious for systematic torture. This was the only way to turn the neoliberal model of the so-called “Chicago Boys” under the leadership of Milton Friedman – a student of Friedrich von Hayek – into reality.” Nowadays, neoliberalism is a versatile term, applied in diverse contexts including “the corporatization of universities, the shift of welfare policy toward philanthropy and entrepreneurship, the spread of “intensive mothering,” the expansion of low-wage service work, the growth of mass incarceration, and so on. While this list may seem excessively broad, the concept of neoliberalism

Neoliberal Globalization 23 suggests that such economic, political, social, and cultural phenomena worldwide might be connected to larger transformations in global capitalism.” (Bockman, 2013, p. 14) If we are to approach neoliberalism more systematically, an examination of some of its key manifestations might help. Four key features of neoliberalism stand out: reduction in allocation of public expenditure, privatization, deregulation and marketization (see table below). The first two – reduction in public expenditure and privatization – amount to the shrinking of state support through the decrease or complete abolition of some of its key functions. For example, the increase in university tuition fees points to a reduction in state funding for higher education (HE), which has been the case in many countries over the last 40 years or so (e.g. the UK, Brazil, Chile, Italy, the Netherlands). Deregulation is a variation of the reduction of the role of the state, but it manifests itself through the weakening of its control and power. Marketization is about the emulation of the market model, ethos and principles in other domains of life. In education, for example, this is practised through the creation of structures that make possible the constant evaluation and competition for services (e.g. university degrees), products (e.g. student loans) and people (e.g. teacher evaluations). These features allude to the inner core of neoliberalism: “Self-interest and individualism; segregation of ethical principles and economic affairs, in other words: a process of “de-bedding” economy from society; economic rationality as a mere cost-benefit calculation and profit maximization; competition as the essential driving force for growth and progress; specialization and the replacement of a subsistence economy with profit-oriented foreign trade (“comparative cost advantage”); and the proscription of public (state) interference with market forces” (Von Werlhof, 2009). Feature A B

C D

Policy examples

Implications

Reduction Austerity and public Tuition fees; high student in Public spending cuts (e.g. decrease debt; increase in inequalities Expenditure in state funding for HE) Privatization Selling of university student Private companies offering debt to private companies key services to students; encroachment of universities by private capital Deregulation Abolition of Local Schools losing support; lack Educational Authorities of coordination; reduction in quality of services Marketization School choice/vouchers; Increased competition for university rankings schools places; endless competition on all levels; war for talent; elitism

24  Spyros Themelis

Neoliberal Globalization and Education Given the close relationship between neoliberalism and globalization, this section discusses how they affect education. My focus is on HE and especially universities, as this is where the retreat of the state and the concomitant release of the market forces has been more prominent than in comparison to other education sectors. Consider, for example, the types of universities where new knowledge is generated, the medium in which it is communicated and the implications for epistemic, developmental and wealth inequalities between rich and poor universities, as well as entire countries. For Altbach, Reisberg, and Rumbley (2009, p. iv) “21st century realities have magnified the importance of the global context. The rise of English as the dominant language of scientific communication is unprecedented since Latin dominated the academy in medieval Europe. Information and communications technologies have created a universal means of instantaneous contact and simplified scientific communication. At the same time, these changes have helped to concentrate ownership of publishers, databases, and other key resources in the hands of the strongest universities and some multinational companies, located almost exclusively in the developed world.” These changes are matched by “a discourse that takes advantage of the historical processes of globalization in order to valorize particular economic prescriptions about how to operate the economy (through free trade, deregulation, and so on) – and by implication, prescriptions about how to transform education, politics, and culture” (Burbules & Torres, 2000, p. 13). Furthermore, this discourse finds recourse to the ideology of globalized neoliberalism, which “has infiltrated the minds of politicians and managers to the point where it has become internalized and, alarmingly, normalized. It has become part and parcel of the new scheme of things; the new paradigm has linked local practices to globalized social relations.” (Currie and Newson, 1998, p. 7). Neoliberalism – or neoliberal globalization – is implemented through a series of changes best gleaned through education policy. For example, furnished with the pertinent ideological justification that allows it to push for the dismantling of the Keynesian welfare state and the withdrawal of the state from the economy (Marginson, 1997), nations partake in the reforming of their education systems along pro-market lines. In the UK, for instance, the foundations of neoliberalism in education were laid out in the 1980s, with the 1988 Education Reform Act that the conservative government of Margaret Thatcher introduced. The 1988 Act brought about the so-called “quasi-marketization” in education through a series of provisions, such as parental choice, the weakening of Local Education Authorities and so on. However, school choice in the UK (as well as in other countries) fueled competition without leading to an attendant increase in standards (Lubienski, 2009). In fact “parents were promised a greater say over their children’s

Neoliberal Globalization 25 education through ‘accountability’ and ‘choice.’ In reality, the development of parental participation and community schools has been held back, and parents given the surrogate involvement of a commodity relationship: schools as an item of consumer choice.” (Wrigley, 2007, p. 6). Likewise, the abolition of LEAs propped up the deregulation of the sector and left crucial gaps in service provision. These policies were continued and expanded by subsequent governments and they deepened the “increased capitalisation, commodification and (‘raced’ and gendered) social class inequality” (Hill, 2017). While this discussion draws on the UK, it is by no means confined to it. For example, the abolition of state control that was discussed above in relation to the LEAs in the UK, finds many parallels in other countries in Europe and beyond. Or, to take another example, the introduction and increase in tuition fees in the UK in 1998 and 2012, respectively (Hubble & Bolton, 2018), is aligned to one of the fastest growing trends in international HE. That is to say, the trend to shift the onus of covering the cost of university tuition from the state to the taxpayer started in 1994, when the majority of OECD countries (14 out of 25 with available data) started reforming their systems (OECD, 2011). Almost 20 years later, in 2016, only eight OECD countries did not charge any tuition fees. While cross-country variation and particularities abound (e.g. in terms of level of fees, supporting grants, access to HE and so on) the effect of neoliberal globalization on HE is inescapable. Nowadays, universities but also other higher education institutions (HEIs) globally, seem to be caught up in a race for talent, innovation and excellence, while governments seem to be similarly entangled into a race for talent, technological advancement, innovation and growth. The irony or even impossibility of the current state of affairs, is that national governments are increasingly pushing universities to increase their income in order to achieve their own targets, which also happen to feed into national ones. And the main means of achieving these targets is for universities to shift the cost to the user (e.g. through tuition fees) and increase their connection with the private sector (through industry-funded projects, scholarships and so on). Evidently, the policy prescription to succeed in a globalized environment is through the adoption of the assorted neoliberal practices of privatization (e.g. of assets and services formerly owned or provided by the university, such as preparatory courses), marketization (e.g. through relentless commodification of degrees), deregulation (e.g. lifting of any regulatory mechanisms, such in relation to teacher training provision) and spending cuts (e.g. which increases precarious labor through the replacement of permanent with casual and seasonal contracts). For the last three decades, “universities worldwide have been urged to adopt commercial models of knowledge, skills, curriculum, finance, accounting, and management organisation” (Levidow, 2005, p. 156). The rise in influence and power of international organizations from the World Bank to the European Union

26  Spyros Themelis and from the OECD to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have exacerbated the pressures on states to reform along neoliberal lines. Nowadays, “there is a growing understanding that the neoliberal version of globalization, particularly as implemented (and ideologically defended) by bilateral, multilateral, and international organizations, is reflected in an educational agenda that privileges, if not directly imposes, particular policies for evaluation, financing, assessment, standards, teacher training, curriculum, instruction, and testing. […] This situation calls for a more nuanced historical analysis of the state-­education relationship.” (Burbules and Torres, 2000). More crucially, it calls for a more concerted and audacious approach to countering the forces of neoliberal globalization. Promisingly, various alternatives have already been developed (see the second part of this book).

References Altbach, P., Reisberg, L., & Rumbley, L. (2009). Trends in global higher education, tracking an academic revolution. Paris: UNESCO. Arampatzi, E. Burger, & M. J. Novik, N. (2018). Social network sites, individual social capital and happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 19(1), 99–122. Bayliss, J. & Smith, S. (2001). The globalisation of world politics (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Birch, K. (2017). A research agenda for neoliberalism. Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham. Bockman, J. (2013). Neoliberalism. Contexts, 12(3), 14–15. Burbules, N. C. & Torres, C. A. (2000). Globalization and education: Critical perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge. Currie, J., & Newson, J. (1998). Universities and globalization: Critical perspectives. California: Sage. Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Friedman, M. (1970). Capitalism and freedom. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Friedman, M. (1962). The counter-revolution in monetary theory. Transatlantic Arts. London. Friedman, T. (2000). The Lexus and the olive tree: Understanding globalization. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Hayek, F. A. (1960). The constitution of liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reprint. Chicago: Henry Regnery. Hayek, F. A. (1973). Law, legislation, and liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., & Perraton, J. (1999). Introduction in global transformations: Politics, economics and culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hill, D. (2017). (Ed.) Class, race and education under neoliberal capitalism. London: Aakar Books. Hubble, S., & Bolton, P. (2018). Higher education tuition fees in England. London: House of Commons Library. Retrieved from http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/ CBP-8151/CBP-8151.pdf. (Accessed: 10 July 2020). Keynes, J. M. (1936). The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: Macmillan. Khor, M. (1995) as cited in J. A. Scholte, “The Globalization of World Politics”, in J. Baylis and S.  Smith (eds.), The Globalization of World Politics, An Introduction to International Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 15. Kiely, R. (2005) The clash of globalisations : neo-liberalism, the third way, and anti- globalisation. Leiden, Boston: Brill.

Neoliberal Globalization 27 Lapavitsas, C. (2005). Mainstream economics in the neoliberal era. In A. Saad-Filho & D. Johnston (Eds.), Neoliberalism: A critical reader. London: Pluto Press. Levidow, L. (2005). Neoliberal agendas for higher education. In A. Saad-Filho & D. Johnston (Eds.), Neoliberalism: A critical reader. London: Pluto Press. Lubienski, C. (2009.) Do quasi-markets foster innovation in education? A comparative perspective. Education Working Paper No. 25. Paris: OECD. Marginson, S. (1997). Markets in education. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Mill, J. S. (1859/2001). On liberty. Kitchener: Batoche Books. Moss Kanter, R. (1995) World Class: Thriving Locally in the Global Economy (New York: Simonand Schuster, 1995), as cited in J. A. Scholte, “The Globalization of World Politics”, in J.  Baylis and S. Smith (eds.), The Globalization of World Politics, An Introduction to International Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 15. OECD. (2011). Education at a glance. Retrieved from www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyondschool/48631028.pdf. (Accessed: 10 July 2020). Rawls, J. (1993). Political liberalism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Rikowski, G. (2002).Transfiguration: globalisation, the World Trade Organisation and the national faces of the GATS. Information for Social Change, 14, 8–17. Smith, A. (1776/1982). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. Penguin Books. London. Stiglitz, J. E. (2002). Globalization and its discontents. Allen Lane. London. Von Werlhof, C. (2009). Globalization and neoliberalism: Is there an alternative to plundering the Earth? In M. Chossudovsky & A. G. Marshall (Eds.), The global economic crisis: The great depression of the XXI century. Quebec: Global Research. Wrigley, T. (2007). Rethinking education in an era of globalisation. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 5(2). Retrieved from http://www.jceps.com/archives/546. (Accessed: 10 July 2020).

3

Social Value Ewen Speed

Introduction In this chapter I want to consider the status of education as a public good, and the role that processes like social value have played in attempting to reframe that status. In characterizing education in this way, I take a lead from Grace (1994) who argues that in thinking of education as a public good, we characterize it in social democratic terms, where the service it offers is available universally to all citizens, at no direct cost to those citizens and in a way that offers parity of opportunity to all. This is broadly described as the “democratic consensus” view of education as a public good. Whilst Grace’s paper is over 20 years old, the concerns it speaks to still have a resonance today. Similarly, Calhoun (2006), writing over 10 years ago, argued that changing conditions in contemporary universities represented a move toward greater social inequality through processes that shifted public goods into the private sector, much of which was predicated upon changing patterns to how citizens were able to access and participate in education. Grace (1994) argued that what he termed the “new-right” was pushing the idea that education was not a public good, but rather that it was better regarded as a private good, as an individual-based commodity, organized around a set of market principles. This dynamic echoes the work of Labaree (1997) who has described a three-way struggle in education, between those who firstly see education as being about fostering democratic equality where the idea is that “schools should focus on preparing citizens,” or secondly, that education should be underpinned by notions of social efficiency (i.e. education should focus on training workers), or thirdly, that education should be about social mobility, where it should prepare individuals to compete for social positions. The elision from collective toward individual benefits across this typology is self-evident, as the emphasis shifts from population-level citizenry to a more transactional model of competitive consumption. Anyone with even a passing awareness of the UK higher education sector will know that these issues and debates were central to the introduction of significantly increased university tuition fees in 2010 after the Browne review

Social Value 29 (see Collini, 2010). This review saw university tuition fees almost triple in a move that was conducted around the very debates outlined by Grace (1994) and Labaree (1997) over 20 years previously. Public debate revolved directly around whether education was a public or private good. In addressing the English context, Bunce, Baird, and Jones (2017) outline how central features of higher education institutes (HEI’s) operational processes have been marked by the incorporation of various market metrics, all predicated upon consumer logics of satisfaction (see the Office for Students, 2018a), as well as processes of competition (see the research excellence framework (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2018); and the teaching excellence framework (Office for Students, 2018b)) and efficiency. Within these moves there is a clear shift or articulation of an economizing logic, with education characterized through logics of social mobility, driven by individual consumers competing for educational credentials, and a characterization of UKHEI’s as ineffective, inefficient and in need of stricter regulation (perversely, this stricter regulation appears to be characterized through the invisible hand of the market rather than through the state). In one way, this shift toward economic logics can be seen to be led by the government creating consumer demand, where social norms might inculcate a desire to get to the elite level institutions. Previously, this elite status was ascribed by the levels at which institutions could set their entry tariff. The more elite the institution, the more “consumer” demand there was for places, so the higher the entry tariff. From the perspective of a reforming government, this market mechanism might be problematic, in that the control of the mechanism resides with the universities. If the economistic logic is to be fully incorporated (if university education is to be fully marketized), then there is a need for market mechanisms which operate at a sectoral level, which enable implementation of centrally set outcomes measures. These measures can be used to compare institutions and to rank them in league tables. The accompanying sets of social practices, with outcomes measures such as citation metrics or teaching quality metrics (e.g. the Research Excellence Framework and the Teaching Excellence Framework in the UK university setting), as well as league tables (such as the global indexing of Universities) and so forth can, I argue, be mapped onto this elision from the collective benefit of education (as a process of democratic equality) toward an individual model of social mobility (based on competitive consumption of education resource). In the rest of this chapter, I want to focus on a central component of this process of elision from collective toward individual benefit. That component is the concept of social value, and the bridging role that social value can and does play in the transition (or rearticulation) of public goods into private goods. Firstly, I will describe what I mean by social value, before working through some of the bridging work it does. In 2013 the UK government implemented the Public Services (Social Value) Act (Cabinet Office, 2013). This legislation was drafted primarily for those

30  Ewen Speed people who commission public services. It required them to demonstrate, how they had addressed questions of wider “social, economic and environmental benefits” in commissioning a service. In effect, evidence of “added” social value had to be a demonstrable part of any commissioning process, (see Cabinet Office, 2016). The Social Value act was intended to facilitate this process, with an emphasis on more “value for money,” which in turn would facilitate better commissioning of services at a local level, and in turn foster “new and innovative solutions.” In my experience, in the public sector context, talk of innovation usually means requiring a service or commissioner to do “more for less.” Similarly, an enduring feature of political debates and discussions about the public sector is a focus on issues of efficiency and effectiveness. It is a prevailing orthodoxy of the political right that public bodies (such as universities, but also the health service, schools, public transport or emergency services, to name but a few) are inefficient and ineffective organizations and that a reorganization, along the lines of market principles (fostering principles of competition), would do much to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of those bodies. What I propose in this example, (and in wider policy debates around the need to demonstrate social value) is that social value is best understood as an articulation of this economizing logic, functioning to smuggle cost-benefit analyses into questions of how we determine how the public sector might be seen (or more specifically evidenced) to operate the best interest of the public (note: this is a different characterization from thinking about those services as a public good). In the context of UK HEI’s, these processes of economizing logic might be characterized as coming back to questions about the public good of a university education, i.e. what does the UK tax payer get back from a student undertaking a period of study. The current policy context in English HEI would suggest that the prevailing answer to this question is perceived to be “very little,” that is to say, the current policy context would suggest that social mobility arguments (Labaree, 1997) about the role of education have won out over social democracy arguments. This emphasis on social mobility, and the attendant insistence that consumers and taxpayers must be able to assure themselves they are getting value for money marks, in large part, an insistence that the benefit of any publicly spent money must be both identifiable and justifiable. On the face of it this may appear to be a sensible development; the rhetoric accompanying the 2013 Social Value Act is hard to oppose, who could be against legislation that seeks to secure wider social, economic and environmental benefits in terms of public  spending? In this spirit, there are a proliferation of social economic processes, e.g. the relative ubiquity of notions like social value, social enterprise and social return on investment are emblematic of this. Social Enterprise UK (self-­proclaimed biggest network of social enterprises in the UK, strategic

Social Value 31 partner to six government departments) defines social enterprises as “businesses that are changing the world for the better. Like traditional businesses they aim to make a profit but it’s what they do with their profits that sets them apart – reinvesting or donating them to create positive social change.” (Social Enterprise UK, 2018). Social return on investment is described as “an outcomes-based measurement tool that helps organizations to understand and quantify the social, environmental and economic value they are creating,” (New Economic Foundation, 2018). But all of these processes seem to accept, unproblematically, that economic and social outcomes are happy bedfellows, and that one will always complement the other. Of course, this is not necessarily the case, as economic arguments of financial constraint always function to limit the ambition of social programmes. Ten years of austerity welfarism in the UK stand testament to that (Speed, 2016). Broadly, and critically, this combination of the economic and the social, where it appears to be the economic that is dominant, raises questions about the impact of these economic principles of what counts as good (and bad) value in contexts that have not routinely been concerned with demonstrating economic “value for money.” The effect on the UK university sector is self-evident, with the triumph of a private good consumerist model of education. A counter-view, perhaps more optimistic, might be that social value brings considerations of the social into the economics of public spending decisions (i.e. socializing the economic). However, there is a somewhat more pessimistic argument that these practices inveigle economic logics into many or all aspects of state provision (in effect, economizing the social). In supporting this latter view, I would argue that rather than making the utilitarian cost-benefit analyses of the public sector more amenable to questions of inequality or social context, what social value actually does is work to background questions of inequality against an economic logic predicated upon demonstrating social value (where social value is largely determined by an economistic reading of what does, and does not count as the social). For example, in the context of higher education, the demonstration of the (economizing) social value of education would be that individual students were paying back the loan they received for their education. The idea of a social benefit, from education, which might be described as a collective benefit at the level of the general citizenry, does not figure – it is a transactional individual model predicated upon individual benefit. Similarly, under this economistic logic, everyone has the choice to go to university, because on the face of it, everyone can get a loan, but there are clear consequences for specific groups around questions of widening participation, which become somewhat skewed under an allusion of choice. In other aspects of the public sector, such as health and social care, this economizing logic often functions to demonstrate that some interventions are more “socially valuable” than others. While much of the associated rhetoric

32  Ewen Speed refers to demonstrating the social impact of economic investment, the effect of these processes is to transform issues of social inequality into simple spending decisions that maximize a social return on investment – however that return might be construed. Usually it takes the form that for every £1 spent on service X, e.g. a frailty service, there will be a saving of £5 by reducing the number of hospital admissions (every £1 spent will result in £5 saved). This economistic imperative ignores the alternative view that the welfare state providing health and social care services are not “investment opportunities” but rather are fundamental processes of economic redistribution, not capital accumulation. Indeed this focus on capital accumulation for the public good could be said to put the cart before the horse – that is to say, spending decisions should be made based on maximizing how much might be spent, not on maximizing how much should not be spent, i.e. the emphasis on social return on investment in this context is used negatively to constrain spending. This is not to naïvely insist that all services should be provided without limit and everything should be free at the point of the need, but rather to make an argument at the level of process, of how this type of approach to public spending constrains or limits a service, rather than maximizing that service, and to demonstrate the impact this constraining principle has in terms of the day-to-day practice of the administration of health, social care, education and other sundry social services. A more critical perspective argues that these models of social value represent a state withdrawal from processes of social reproduction. In terms of these issues of social reproduction, and in the UK context, I am of course referring to the establishment of the welfare state, post-Beveridge Report, (Beveridge, 1942). Since then, these processes have systematically reduced the impact of enduring social inequalities. Broadly speaking, social reproduction is the practices and processes that result in the transmission of enduring social inequalities across generations. In this context, we can characterize state provision in health, social care or education as interventions intended to lessen the impact of these inequalities. For example, issues of health and illness have a social class gradient; working-class people are far more likely to suffer the inequities of excess morbidity and mortality than any other social group. There are also clear disparities in terms of ethnicity and gender. Historically the provision of the National Health Service by the state can be regarded as a triumph in addressing health inequalities in the UK. With the implementation of the NHS since 1948, year upon year, the UK state, through the provision of a universal health care system, (based on need not ability to pay), has lowered levels of health inequality for subsequent generations (see the decline in mortality rates in areas of high deprivation for evidence of this impact). Similarly, the advent of compulsory education in the UK up to ages 16 and then 18 has had a similar impact upon social inequality in terms of access to labor markets and so forth.

Social Value 33 The push toward economistic, individualized versions of social value, (backgrounding the social value of collective modes of social reproduction) signals the opening up of new public sector markets whereby for-profit corporations and voluntary organizations (rather than the state) provide these services, where pursuit of profit (or surplus to borrow the euphemism) can comfortably sit alongside provision of education or health care. In this context, social value begins to take on the appearance of a “stalking horse” for profiteering, whereby public service decisions are inescapably “caught up in a cost-­benefit logic” of market economics, such that the “terrain of social reproduction can be harnessed for profit” (Dowling & Harvie, 2014). Once the possibility to harness profit becomes part of the job of provision, then the real danger emerges whereby profit trumps provision, such that the emphasis swings from considering the maximum service we can provide is, to considering what is the minimum level we can get away with is. In this context the fundamental purpose of the service becomes co-opted and colonized by the economistic logic. It is in this context that it becomes apparent how these processes function to prioritize the economic and push notions of profit and loss further and further into the decision-making processes that underpin statutory welfare provision, and furthermore, to recodify public goods into private goods. In effect, these processes function to fundamentally re-categorize the form and function of the state. It transforms it from one that was about redistributing existing resources to people in need, to one that is about generating profit from existing services in order to fund future services (thus facilitating the withdrawal of the state as the single payer for these services). The fact that these resources are largely contributory (accrued from national insurance and taxation) does not feature in these discussions. A focus on social value facilitates this shift without any crisis of legitimacy due to its coupling to a prevailing austerity culture that underpins the consistent imperative to make public services demonstrate their social value, by demonstrating they are more effective and efficient. It is in this context that the true value of social value becomes apparent. Other alternative definitions of social value are possible, and can be seen to refer to processes that identify non-financial impacts of programmes, organizations and interventions, by measuring the impact of an intervention upon individual or community well-being, coupled to levels of social capital or environmental impact. Similarly the strikes of 2018 across the UK university sector were mobilized around central claims about the social democratic component of education. These were claims around best efforts to maintain and re-assert the status of university education as a public good. These sorts of moves require a concerted effort to shift the dominant approach back to more collective modes of thinking about provision. In this move, much of the emphasis would need to be placed on identifying socially progressive approaches to the public good in order to go beyond conventional cost-benefit analyses, with their narrowly

34  Ewen Speed defined notions of value and benefit. Rather these new models will need to offer analytical tools for measuring and accounting for much broader conceptions of value, across economic, social and environmental contexts. However, the ubiquitous rise of social value occurs at the same time as more and more aspects of public sector provision are being marketized, across voluntary and for-profit providers.

References Beveridge, W. H. B. (1942). Social insurance and allied services. Macmillan. London. Bunce, L., Baird, A., and Jones, S. E. (2017). The student-as-consumer approach in higher education and its effects on academic performance. Studies in Higher Education, 42(11), 1958–1978. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2015.1127908. Cabinet Office. (2013). Public Services (Social Value) Act. Retrieved from http://www.legislation. gov.uk/ukpga/2012/3/enacted. (Accessed 28 October 2020). Cabinet Office. (2016). Social Value Act: Information and resources. Retrieved from https://www. gov.uk/government/publications/social-value-act-information-and-resources/social-­valueact-information-and-resources (Accessed 10 October 2018). Calhoun, C. (2006). The university and the public good. Thesis Eleven, 84(1), 7–43. Collini, S. (2010). Browne’s gamble. London Review of Books, 32(21), 23–25. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. (2018). Research Excellence Framework. Retrieved from http://www.ref.ac.uk (Accessed 10 October 2018). Dowling, E., & Harvie, D. (2014). Harnessing the social: State, crisis and (big) society. Sociology, 48(5), 869–886. doi: 10.1177/0038038514539060. Grace, G. (1994). Education is a public good: On the need to resist the domination of economic science. Education and the Market Place, 125, 125–136. Labaree, D. F. (1997). Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 39–81. New Economic Foundation. (2018). Social Return on Investment. Retrieved from https://www. nefconsulting.com/our-services/evaluation-impact-assessment/prove-and-improve-toolkits/ sroi/ (Accessed 11 October 2018). Office for Students. (2018a). National Student Survey. Retrieved from https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/student-information-and-data/national-student-­surveynss/ (Accessed 11 October 2018). Office for Students. (2018b). What Is the TEF? Retrieved from https://www.officeforstudents. org.uk/advice-and-guidance/teaching/what-is-the-tef/ (Accessed 11 October 2018). Social Enterprise UK. (2018). About Us. Retrieved from https://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/ about-us (Accessed 11 October 2018). Speed, E. (2016). A note on the utility of austerity. Critical Public Health, 26(1), 1–3. doi: 10.108 0/09581596.2015.1109063.

4

Alienation Inny Accioly

It is common to use “alienation” in a negative sense, calling “alienated” a person who disregards their community’s political situation or lacks interest and engagement toward collective issues. An alienated person therefore would restrict their concerns to immediate personal issues. Thus understood, alienation relates to individualism and short-termism (lack of long-term projects). A second understanding of the word relates to somebody who uncritically accepts information broadcast by mass media. In other words, alienation would result from the inability to critically assess reality and common sense in a given time. Since the 1960s, common sense has related alienation to youth (Frymer, 2005). Teachers worldwide complain about students’ lack of interest and schools’ inability to entice younger generations. This general observation justifies the corporate supply of profitable educational technologies allegedly aimed at stimulating students’ interest for school and improving their performance (Saltman, 2016). Their educational failure is thus blamed on supposedly inefficient teachers, legitimizing the global booming of an education market whose goal is to make teaching more efficient and youths more interested in their studies (Ball, 2012; Leher and Accioly, 2016). From this perspective, education is no longer regarded as a student’s long-term project but is considered from its ability to bring immediate benefits. The idea that youths are alienated is supported by the World Bank’s report (Hoyos Rogers, & Székely, 2016) according to which one in five Latin American youths – totaling more than 20 million people aged 15–24 – are neither working nor in school. Throughout Latin America and more broadly, they are often labeled as “not in employment, education or training” (NEETs), and the reasons why they drop out of schooling include monetary and non-monetary costs, uncertainty and lack of information on school’s lifelong benefits, and pursuit of a lifestyle that prioritizes consumption and leisure time and is linked to low motivation (ibid.). Furthermore, the report points that institutional and contextual factors also influence the decision to drop out of school: parental education and preferences, local schools’ educational quality, work opportunities and peer influence (ibid.).

36  Inny Accioly The World Bank’s treatment of school dropouts as a matter of choices and opportunities attributes youths’ failure to bad choices and lack of access to good opportunities. If opportunities are provided, failures can only be a result of the youth’s choices. This way, the World Bank recommends financial-­incentive policies to be offered to youths who stay at school (e.g. conditional cash transfers, need-based and merit-based scholarships, achievement-based incentives and school vouchers), information interventions and socio-emotional interventions (cognitive-behavioral approaches) (ibid.). The rationale for supporting these common-sense views behind youth alienation also supports the idea that individual choices define success or failure in the job market as long as opportunities are provided. Youth alienation – especially when defined as a lack of critical consciousness – does not feature among the concerns of institutions like the World Bank. Such an analysis, which attributes “dropouts,” lack of motivation to attend school and seek jobs merely to the individual sphere, disregarding its manifold factors, favors neither the overcoming of these problems nor the collective construction of critical consciousness. Marx’s concept of alienation informs a deeper understanding of the roots underlying youths’ low interest for existing schools and low motivation for work. It draws from the analysis of the mode of wealth production in capitalist societies, in which means of production (land, machines and technologies) are concentrated in the hands of the few under the private property regime (including intellectual property in patents, which prevent free access to knowledge). Those who do not own the means of production thus depend on selling their workforce to guarantee their own subsistence. This process informs workers’ alienation, separation and decoupling from: (1) the object produced by their labor; (2) the set of knowledges comprehended by the different steps of the work process; (3) their most basic characteristic as human beings, that is, creativity in the transformation of nature; (4) other human beings and nature (Marx, 1844/2008). The more workers produce wealth and their production increases in power and extension, the poorer they become. Workers become cheaper commodities the more commodities they are able to produce. The valuing of the world of things increases in direct relation to the devaluing of the world of men. Labor not only produces commodities; it produces itself and the workers as a commodity insofar as it produces commodities in general. (Marx, 1844/2008, p. 80) Marx understands work in capitalist society to be alienated and, thus, operating against humans’ humanization. On the contrary, work is a burden to be carried with no prospects of liberation. The labor market represents greater dehumanization and precarization for youths when compared to adults’ labor market. According to the International

Alienation 37 Labor Organization (Organización Internacional del Trabajo, 2013), youth unemployment reached almost 14% in Latin America. Comparison between 2005 and 2011 shows that workers aged 15–24 face greater difficulty in finding a job, even more so in the case of qualified jobs. Almost 60% of working young people are in informal jobs, which generally involves low wages, insecurity and lack of social protection and rights. Only 37% of young people contributed to social health insurance, and 29% to pension systems. Only 28% of employed youths have a written contract, when compared to 61% for adults (ibid.). This scenario, in which not even present needs are catered for, contributes to youths’ lack of future prospects, as well as to individualistic and short-term attitudes. Analyzing the historical processes that consolidated capitalism in Latin American and African countries, we shall emphasize the deep marks of colonialism and slavery. Slavery is one of the most extreme forms of alienation produced by human societies. In the former Latin American colonies, wealth was produced by hard labor of human beings who were forced to leave their communities of origin on the African continent. Transported as commodities, these workers were alienated from their culture, their religiosity, their social context, their physical space of subsistence and, more dramatically, they were alienated from the possession of their own body. The impacts of slavery are observed until now, both in the African continent and in the former European colonies in America. The colonial occupation based on slavery resulted in the decimation of local communities and usurpation of territories. Consequently, colonialism extinguished certain ways of living and relating to nature. According to Marx, these forms of alienation were essential to the expansion of capitalism. The colonizer promoted the destruction of local knowledge through violence and oppression legitimized by legislation. Fanon (1968) describes the violent methods used by European settlers in Africa for the maintenance of colonial order. The denial of the local and traditional knowledge and culture was added to the denial of access to school education. This double denial conducted the colonial system and is still conducting the capitalist mode of production. In Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony in Sub-Saharan Africa which became independent only in 1975, a decree set in 1957 (the “Indigenous Statute”) established that only the Africans who adopted the habits and values of European culture could enjoy citizenship rights (Accioly, 2018). These Africans were known as “assimilados.” By 1961, less than 1% of the native Mozambicans had acquired the status of “assimilado.” Until 1974, only 5% of the inhabitants had access to formal education. After 40 years of independence, data shows that 48% of young people aged 15–24 had not completed primary schooling (Education Policy and Data Center – EPDC, 2014). The country’s illiteracy rate was about 45% in 2015

38  Inny Accioly (República de Moçambique, 2015). While more than 80% of the population works in household agriculture, the incidence of food poverty is about 55% (International Monetary Fund – IMF, 2011). About 30% of the Mozambican state budget comes from foreign aid. This situation results in great debt, which led the country to resort, in 1998, to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) developed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. HIPC has transformed the IMF and the World Bank into coordinators of the foreign aid granted to indebted poor countries. In addition, it consolidated the permanent intervention in the countries’ economic and social policies, including education policies (Accioly, 2018). This scenario points out that the old colonial system was transformed into a capital-imperialism (Fontes, 2010) marked by the public debt system, which acts as a system that reproduces labor exploitation and alienation (ibid.). Thus, modern capitalism has not completely abolished the exploitation of slave labor. In Brazil, Portuguese colonization ended in 1822 and slavery was legally abolished in 1888. However, forms of slave labor still exist. According to the Digital Observatory of Slave Labor in Brazil, 43,693 workers were rescued in 2003–2017 (Observatório Digital do Trabalho Escravo no Brasil, 2018). Almost 30% of these workers were aged 13–24 (ibid.). The higher the illiteracy rate is, the greater is the number of workers subjected to slave labor (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística – IBGE, 2017; Observatório Digital do Trabalho Escravo no Brasil, 2018). Therefore, data highlights the lack of opportunities given to youth in Brazil, which leads to the conclusion that alienation is not a matter of choices. However, access to education should not be considered as the solution to this complex situation since our schools do not currently present prospects of overcoming it. Quite the opposite: education policies are contested by ruling classes aimed at increasing corporate profit (Leher & Accioly, 2016), including that corporations involved in denunciations of using slave labor. Hill (2003) affirms that ruling classes in the United States and UK have (1) a business plan for education which focuses on socially producing the workforce (i.e. people’s ability to work) for capitalist companies, (2) a business plan in education, which stresses liberating companies to profit from education, and (3) a business plan for educational corporations, whose goal is American and British edu-businesses’ profit from international privatizations. This way companies turn education into fertile ground for businesses, making sure schools produce “efficient,” submissive, ideologically indoctrinated and pro-capitalistic workers. Schools contribute to deepening alienation, as curriculum contents deemed unnecessary by corporate reformers are excluded from schools. Subject matters as arts, sociology, philosophy, history and geography, among others, are downplayed or even removed from mandatory curricula.

Alienation 39 Berliner (2011) highlights that in the United States the standardized tests resulting from No Child Left Behind Act (2001) led to a great increase in the total time that schools spend teaching language and mathematics. Almost 80% of the school districts increased time in English/language arts by at least 75 minutes a week, and more than half the districts increased time in that area by 150 minutes a week or more, adding at least 30 minutes more a day. Sixtythree per cent of the districts reported that they increased mathematics time by at least 75 minutes a week and 19% added 150 minutes more each week (ibid.). Social studies (civics, history, law and related studies) is the curriculum area from which most time is taken (Berliner, 2011). More than half of the districts reporting (53%) reduced instructional time in social studies by at least 75 minutes per week (ibid.). Furthermore, a study of the arts in California pointed that arts expressions are taught primarily to the wealthy and the middle class, but not taught to the poor (Berliner, 2011). A reduction in curricula for learning the arts restricts students’ ways of thinking, limiting the development of their creativity. As a consequence, working-class youths are alienated from knowledge socially and historically produced by civilizations and rather provided with fragmented information deprived of meaning which could lead to transforming their particular realities. Meanwhile, opportunities to engage in critical thinking about society and education decline (Hill, 2003). Since education assumes the function of reproducing the capitalist social order, schools are constrained in their potential for social change. Instead, schools tend to reinforce cultural massification and the standardization of thought on a global scale as a way of increasing labor exploitation. This broad scenario should lead to the conclusion that working-class youths are alienated in three aforementioned meanings: (1) Alienation as individualism and short-termism. (2) Alienation as the inability to critically read reality. (3) In Marx’s terms, alienation as an inherent condition of capitalism. However, several examples of youth-led social movements and struggles for rights in Latin America, especially during the 2010s, challenge these conclusions. In 2013 Brazil, a new generation gathered millions of people in street demonstrations against increases in cost of living, corruption and public spending with the World Cup and Olympic Games, in a process known as “the June journeys” (jornadas de junho). In 2015, a wave of student occupations swept over Brazilian high schools, claiming for infrastructure improvements and better salaries and working conditions for teachers. In 2016, about 2,000 Brazilian schools and universities were occupied by students against the federal government’s curricular reform project. Contrary to the common sense that associates alienation to individual choices of positive or negative consequences, Marxian tradition emphasizes alienation among the roots of the capitalist mode of production. This social organization

40  Inny Accioly brings consequences to the group of workers whose survival relies on selling their labor. Its many effects include progressive pauperization, insecurity, uncertainty toward the future and reduced access to social goods (e.g. literacy, health care, clean air, clean water, etc.). Youths and workers in general facing these issues around the globe have been challenging individualism, short-termism and alienation by engaging in collective struggle aiming for social transformation.

References Accioly, I. (2018). Educação e Capital-imperialismo: As influências político-pedagógicas do Banco Mundial nas relações entre Brasil e Moçambique (PhD thesis). Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Ball, S. (2012). Global Education Inc.: New policy networks and the neoliberal imaginary. New York, NY: Routledge. Berliner, D. (2011). Rational responses to high stakes testing: The case of curriculum narrowing and the harm that follows. Cambridge Journal of Education, 3, 287–302. Education Policy and Data Center – EPDC. (2014). Mozambique: National Education Profile. Retrieved from https://www.epdc.org/sites/default/files/documents/EPDC%20NEP_ Mozambique.pdf (Accessed 10 April 2017). Fanon, F. (1968). Os Condenados da Terra. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira. Fontes, V. (2010). O Brasil e o Capital-Imperialismo:Teoria e História. Rio de Janeiro: EPSJV/Editora UFRJ. Frymer, B. (2005). Freire, alienation, and contemporary youth: Toward a pedagogy of everyday life. InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 1, 1–17. Hill, D. (2003). O neoliberalismo global, a resistência e a deformação da educação. Currículo Sem Fronteiras, 3, 24–59. Hoyos, R., Rogers, H., & Székely, M. (2016). Out of School and Out of Work: Risk and Opportunities for Latin America’s Ninis. Washington: World Bank. Retrieved from https://openknowledge. worldbank.org/handle/10986/22349 (Accessed 10 April 2017). Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística – IBGE. (2017). PNAD Contínua: Educação 2016. Retrieved from https://loja.ibge.gov.br/pnad-continua-educac-o-2016.html (Accessed 13 February 2018). International Monetary Fund – IMF. (2011). Republic of Mozambique: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. Retrieved from https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2011/cr11132.pdf (Accessed 10 April 2017). Leher, R., & Accioly, I. eds. (2016). Commodifying education: Theoretical and methodological aspects of financialization of education policies in Brazil. Rotterdam: Sense. Marx, K. (1844/2008). Manuscritos econômicos e filosóficos. São Paulo: Boitempo. Observatório Digital do Trabalho Escravo no Brasil. (2018). Retrieved from https://observatorioescravo.mpt.mp.br/ (Accessed 13 February 2018). Organización Internacional del Trabajo. (2013). Trabajo decente y juventud en América Latina. Lima: Organización Internacional del Trabajo, Oficina Regional para América Latina y el Caribe. República de Moçambique. (2015). Instituto Nacional de Estatística. Relatório Final do Inquérito ao Orçamento Familiar – IOF2014/15. Maputo. Republic of Mozambique. Saltman, K. (2016). Corporate power, smart technologies and the undoing of public education. New York, NY: Routledge.

5

Hegemony Alpesh Maisuria

Hegemony is nested in a series of important Marxist conceptualizations, particularly with: culture, common sense and class struggle. Hegemony is associated with the work of the scholar and Marxist revolutionary Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937). Historically, Gramsci was writing during a time of rapid and epochal transformations in Europe, and this was important for the development of his ideas. He had witnessed a period of history where the First World War had taken place, and Marxist–Leninism unexpectedly gained power but failed to lead to a sustained communist society in Russia tragically opening the door for Stalinism. Closer to home, in Gramsci’s native Italy, workers’ uprisings did not sustain a revolution, and as a result, paved the way for a fascist dominant hegemony to emerge. Gramsci sought to understand these transitions with the concept of hegemony, thus to account for what mechanisms in society had created the conditions for history to unfold in the way that it had. As part of understanding how hegemony is struggled for and dominated, Gramsci focused on the role of culture. Culture for Gramsci was about more than simply taste and subjective preferences of groups or individuals; this conceptualization of culture was being advocated by the influential ­sociologist Max Weber at the same time as Gramsci, and more recently by some neo-­ Weberian scholars using Pierre Bourdieu. The problem with positing ­culture as simply “notions of status and associated consumption patterns and lifestyles” (Allman, McLaren, & Rikowski, 2003, p. 2), is that it absents capitalism as being the main organizer of social relationships, and infers that people are free and autonomous agents able to make voluntary choices about how they live life. The neo-Weberians miss the way that capitalism organizes all people into two broad relational groups in society – the workers and the capitalists, the former who have to work for the latter in an exploitative relationship (see Maisuria, 2020). The problem with not acknowledging the organizing role of capitalism for social relationships, is that it leaves identifying an individual’s status to their preferences and consumption. To identify a status, these neo-Weberian scholars differentiate categorization of patterns of individualized behavior, which is a simplistic focus on the subjectivity of

42  Alpesh Maisuria individuals, rather than their objective relationships in a capitalist society (Maisuria, 2017b). Put another way, social relationships are simplistically reduced to what individuals choose to consume and purchase. The absence of classed stratification where there are two relational social classes, in favor of subjective individualized differentiation negates: (i) the role of capitalism in social organization, (ii) which in turn negates the possibility of class conscious agency, organization and resistance, against the oppressive system of neoliberal capitalism (Maisuria, 2017b). For Gramsci, culture was about the material conditions that people were experiencing in everyday life, and the messages being conveyed to condition existences, all of which created a mass common sense; thus there is an important link between culture and common sense. Gramsci used the phrase common sense in a very specific way and different to the wide usage where it normally refers to a person who acts without lateral thinking, and an absence of this identifies an unintelligible person. For Gramsci, common sense was about the dominant ideas people held in consciousness, and it was about holding these ideas without sufficiently subjecting them to criticality and scrutinizing their consequences. Hence the material conditions where common sense is conditioned was fundamental for understanding the consciousness and practices of people; only when this was understood could hegemony be successfully be struggled for. In his native Italy and also in Russia, the far-Right had understood the importance of aligning their message to the culture of the masses to influence them. Importantly for Marxists like Gramsci, it was crucial to be able to strategize to lay the possibility for a socialist future, and for this there was a necessity to make a connection between culture, common sense and consciousness. Making this connection facilitated an understanding of the way that past and present history emerged. Put another way, Gramsci emphasized the need to understand how the ruling class and their capitalist system had galvanized influence on the mass of people who were exploited, subjugated, oppressed and alienated to: firstly give power over, normally through democratic means; and then this mass of people acquiesce and don’t revolt in the face ever more exploitation, subjugation, oppression and alienation. In other words, Gramsci provokes a simple yet profound question: how did the ruling class make the working class continually believe in the status quo social hierarchy and their capitalist system that is ultimately the enemy of the workers? Making the working class the agents of their own oppression was a trick that ruling class ideologues excelled at, thus giving them consensual dominance. Gramsci observed this trick and its successes with the fascists and social democrats during his later years. Gramsci’s scholarship on these matters is not merely historical and/ or theoretical; it is important today, given the rise of the political populists and far-Right leader. A concrete example here is Donald Trump as Leader of the so-called Free World. He managed to win Presidency despite the anticipated

Hegemony 43 serious problems for many, including women, Latinos, Blacks, LGBT people, the disabled, progressives, and when these problems became real, the system and the President remained intact; very few people called against the capitalist system with its version of democracy that enabled Donald Trump to win. To understand Trump and others’ ascendency to, and subsequent grip on, positions of power and privilege is a question about how the cultural condition could emerge and then be maintained. The answer to this question is about the mechanism of leadership, which was at the heart of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony – the term originated from the term hegemon, meaning leader. Gramsci explained that the role and function of efficacious leadership is to create a historically dominant hegemony. Hegemony is about power and domination being used to generate, and maintain, dominating ideas and cultures (Marx, 1969 [1845]); this was all part of Gramsci’s ideas about the importance of common sense. The deep saturation of the common sense of the ruling class in to every part of life for the masses was the genesis of their grip on power, which created lasting hegemony. In other words, the masses were consenting to giving power to the ruling class because they were led to believe in it. But this was not to say that these dominantly hegemonic ideas and culture were fixed, static and permanent. Individuals understood these dominant ruling class ideas within the specification of their own life-worlds and therefore have the agency to mediate, negotiate and crucially negate the ruling class’s dominance. The process of translation of ruling class ideas into material reality crucially opens the space for rebellion, resistance and social change (Gledhill, 1994, p. 81). There are also non-dominant hegemonic ideas that are always available to emerge to be dominant, including the feasibility of socialism/communism, which has been dismissed as part of history which has stopped at capitalism with no viable alternatives any more. Thus even when the dominant hegemony of the ruling class’s ideas and culture are deeply embedded in social and cultural relations, these relations are still in an “unstable equilibria [sic]” (Forgacs, 2000, p. 206). Put another way, hegemony contains the seeds of reform and change within its own interstices (Mayo, 2015). In this way, humans have the agential capacity to engage in and with struggle, and they are not mere receptors of the ideas and culture. History is always open, at least to some degree, for a different culture and material reality to become dominantly hegemonic. As a historical materialist Marxist who understood that history was not predetermined, Gramsci understood that hegemony is never won outright, and that even in the most conservative moment when the ruling class’s ideas are strongly embedded, counter hegemonic ideas are part of that same conservative moment. In this way the idea of counter-hegemony is not about a single moment in history because countering forces are always present, and it is this dialectical application of hegemony that makes it so powerful for people interested in activism for political change. On these terms, Gramscians reject

44  Alpesh Maisuria fatalism in favor of optimism because alternatives are always possible. Therein, the Thatcherite motto for the inevitability of neoliberalism – there is no alternative (TINA), is recognized as a neoliberal effort to maintain its own dominance in hegemony. Testament to this optimism of the possibility of change are the socio-cultural and political resistance movements that have challenged the ruling class’s dominant hegemony. This recent history of change, as in Cuba, shows that hegemony is never finished and the common sense can change radically. Gramsci conceptualized the struggle for dominant hegemony as happening in two inter-related ways. First, through force and coercion by “liquidating” opposition; and second, by providing “leadership” with which to win and sustain power (Gramsci, 1971). For Gramsci, during his lifetime, fascists and social democrats had effective leadership, not simply because they had military force, but because they also had won the battle for consciousness by winning hearts and minds to cultivate a sense of alliance from those dominated in a relationship that negated questions of who wins and who loses in such an arrangement. Today, this effective leadership can be seen in the common-sense belief in meritocracy and social mobility, which facilitates staggering inequality (see Oxfam, 2016) to be justified. Meritocracy creates a mass common sense that those people who are poor have not tried hard enough and taken opportunities to succeed and therefore deserve their lot. With the consciousness of a ­deserving poor, also comes the idea of a deserving class of people who have worked hard to become rich, privileged and powerful. This consciousness is cultivated by the ruling capitalist elite on a regular basis, and the media plays a central part in normalizing it for people to internalize. A good example was an article in the London Evening Standard newspaper with the headline: Migrant’s son swaps the East End for Eton after winning scholarship. The central argument in the article was that anybody could make it with hard work. The story centered on a working class boy, the son of poor Asian immigrants, who joined the likes of the future King of England at Britain’s most prestigious school. A notable segment of the article discussed the boy’s view of his father and his struggle to make work pay: “My dad has a lot of injuries, shattered knee and slipped disc, but has instilled morals and ethics that you have to work. … . He is always at work trying to make life better for his family. He is my hero.” (Barnes, 2017). Crucially, the article shifts the emphasis on individual endeavor and away from the system that is unequal and unfair, and reproduces this injustice through the very fact that a private school that charges astronomical tuition fees exists at all (see Maisuria, 2017a). Therborn (1978, p. 157) explicates that for Gramsci, effective leadership (for any class – the upper or working class) was manifested in two ways: (i) of one class over another, which is conceived of as an antagonistic relationship; and, (ii) leadership through the formation of alliances by creating a façade where of politics is perceived by the masses to be about representation of everyone equally (Gramsci, 1971, p. 9). Both (i) and (ii) create a common sense that

Hegemony 45 suppresses resistance. The key then for creating a hegemonic alliance, at the cultural dimension, has to be for a dominant, or potentially dominant, class to present its own interests as the interests of all. The equilibrium generated from this arrangement is achieved by making the state of things appear as being fair for the many, or, to achieve consent where the masses believe the status quo is as good as it can get, and socialism is utopian and unrealistic. In societies across the world, most workers assent or at least acquiesce to the very system that exploits them, suggesting that the capitalist class have effective leadership and have capitalist ideas and culture as the dominant hegemony (Marx, 1969). As well as the media, education is important for this situation because it has a role and function to reproduce the class system rather than challenge it. The learning in schools and universities is about teaching children and students how to maximize their individual financial prosperity. Self-interest is often promoted via a national curriculum that emphasizes entrepreneurialism and personal investment but it does not seek to educate about the structural and systemic arrangement that creates unequal chances and subsequent staggering inequality it creates, this would indeed create the possibility of resistance. Instead, the ruling class leads by promoting ideas, such as: social mobility and meritocracy, class does not exist or that everybody is middle class. These ideas appease the working class and negate challenges to class-based neoliberal capitalist dominant hegemony. Gramsci was clear that attention to the struggle for hegemony had to be a crucial aspect of revolutionary strategy for social transformation, and it was a struggle that was in constant motion, never won outright, even when the power was seized. This meant that even when the ruling class had deeply embedded their ideas and culture widely, hegemony was always contingent on continuous class struggle. This idea is important for Marxists and critical educators in the 21st century, where strategies for revolution need leadership that continuously works for organizing at the level of culture to create the possibility of sustained class struggle. Critical educators have a crucial role in this process of creating the conditions for the impetus for good sense. Good sense is the corollary to common sense; it is about promoting joined-up thinking and criticality for the understanding of class relations and capitalism. Critical educators must acknowledge lived reality if they are to make offers of an alternative seem feasible. This is about offering socialism as being something that can be real, not just abstract idealist and utopian thinking for another world. Gramscians today are cognisant that neoliberalism, as the ruling class’s ideology for their dominant hegemony, may have its tentacles far and deep in every auspice of economic, social, political and cultural aspects of life (Mayo, 2015), but crucially it can never fully and hermetically seal its dominance, and history is always open to the emergence of alternatives (Maisuria, 2017b). It was in this vein that

46  Alpesh Maisuria Gramsci talked of the optimism of the will and the pessimism of the intellect to mean that class struggle is prolonged and historical, and it includes setbacks, but this is the nature of struggling for a new dominant hegemony, one in which everyone has a fairer chance at flourishing.

References Allman, P., Mclaren, P., & Rikowski, G. (2003). After the box people: The labour-­capital relation as class constitution – and its consequences for Marxist educational theory and human resistance. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.202.59& rep=rep1&type=pdf. Barnes, T. (2017). Migrant’s son swaps the East End for Eton after winning scholarship. The London Evening Standard. Thursday 2 March 2017. Retrieved from http://www.standard.co.uk/news/ education/migrants-son-swaps-the-east-end-for-eton-after-winning-scholarship-a3479781.html. Forgacs, D. (2000). The Gramsci reader: Selected writings 1916–1935. New York, NY: New York University Press. Gledhill, J. (1994). Power & its disguises: Anthropological perspectives on politics. London: Pluto Press. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Gramsci, A. (1977). Selections from political writings of Antonio Gramsci. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Maisuria, A. (2020). Neoliberal hegemony and the task for critical education. Rethinking Critical Pedagogy. Retrieved from http://mjura41.net/rethinking-critical-pedagogy-rcp/. Maisuria, A. (2017a). Social class and education. In M. Cole (Ed.), Human rights and education. London: Palgrave. Maisuria, A. (2017b). Class struggle in cultural formation in contemporary times: A focus on the theoretical importance of Antonio Gramsci and the organic intellectualism of Russell Brand. In L. McLaren & L. Monzo (Eds.), Revolution and education (Special Issue of Knowledge Cultures Journal, 5(1)). Addleton Academic Publishers. Marx, K. (1969 [1845]). The German Ideology, Part I: Feuerbach [Online]. Marxist Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm. Mayo, P. (2015). Hegemony and education under neoliberalism: Insights from Gramsci. London: Routledge. Oxfam. (2016). An Economy for the 1%: How privilege and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can be stopped. Oxfam International. Therborn, G. (1978). What does the ruling class do when it rules? State apparatuses and state power under feudalism, capitalism and socialism. London: New Left Books.

6

Immiseration Richard Hall

Educational immiseration emerges from the processes through which the academic lives of students and academics are subsumed under the reproduction of capitalist social relations, and are thereby inexorably worsened (Hall & Bowles, 2016; Marx, 1867/2004). It is underscored by social and economic impoverishment, and the ongoing alienation of the academic and student: first from their own labor-power and the products of their own labor, which are disciplined through performance management and debt; second, from the university as a self-­critical scholarly community, which is now on the search for competitive edge and surplus value; and third from other academics and students, with whom they must now compete, with such competition made explicit in league tables and performance indicators (Hall, 2015a; Wendling, 2009). Immiseration is then a function of the ongoing privatization and alienation of the conditions for social reproduction, alongside the demand for labor to be productive (i.e. to expand capital). It benefits a transnational capitalist class that is restructuring educational institutions, and which consists of academics and think tanks, ­policy-makers and administrators, finance and venture capital and private equity, educational publishers and philanthropists or philanthrocapitalists. Innovations in pedagogy, such as student-as-partner, or in the delivery of the curriculum, for instance through open education, might fruitfully be analysed against these potential constrictions or barriers to the social reproduction of capital. Reproduction must maintain an increase in the rate of profit and leverage further investment, in order to avert crises of over-accumulation, overproduction or under-consumption. At the same time labor rights, time and costs are forced down, to increase the rate at which surplus value is produced and accumulated. It is increasingly reinforced through: first, competition between institutions and disciplines, through league-table metrics, and between people in terms of enterprise and employability; and, second, through new forms of financialization, such as debt-driven study, bond-financed, university expansion, or the connection of datasets relating to student loans, educational outcomes and taxation (McGettigan, 2015; Rolling Jubilee, 2016). The increase in student or institutional debt, and the linking of that debt to performance data

48  Richard Hall is a means to bring education into the reproduction cycles of capitalism, and to re-engineer it to meet the demands for economic growth. These processes of re-engineering higher education (HE) inside the logics of capitalism, known as subsumption, also works to modify the ­processes of ­accumulation, which enable academic labor, in the form of student labor-power or staff teaching or shared research, to be immiserated through its ­proletarianization (Newfield, 2010). Such proletarianization is global, and is influenced by national educational policy like indentured study and using HE as an export strategy. It is also amplified transnationally through institutional ­internationalization strategies and innovations like Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that commodify educational content and a­ ssessment across global markets (Hall, 2015b). The technological and ­organizational ­innovations being implemented across HE by a transnational capitalist class are an ­outcome of the logic of competition (see Managerialism in this ­volume),  which  itself demands the development of the productive power of labor and attrition on its costs. This affects the labor of students and a­ cademics, and drives u­ niversities to compete and to remain productive through technological and organizational innovation, as a response to the need to increase financial surpluses (as a form of accumulation). This puts ­further pressure on the demand for labor, as investment in physical and virtual estates and services rises, and through the ability of universities to drive down the labor-time for assessing, teaching or publishing compared to competitor institutions. One tendency is to further the consumerization of HE, such that educational relationships become contractual or transactional. Changes in the technical conditions of the process of academic production enable new accumulations of surplus academic products to become additional means of production. For instance, the increased use of technology to deliver curriculum content and assessment reduces the demand for teaching staff, while increasing the amount of digital content available for new markets. The end result of these changes is an increase in the number of precariously employed academic laborers, in the form of post-graduates who teach, adjuncts, casual teachers and even associate/full professors and crucially students, who lack control over the means of production (CASA, n.d.; CUPE3903, n.d.; Morris, 2015). Precarity means that students and adjuncts are forced to sell themselves piecemeal and are forced to contend and compete globally, including with private HE providers or alternative service providers. Immiserated laborers are forced to compete as self-exploiting entrepreneurs, beguiled by the promise of autonomy and ever-increasing standards of living, while in reality working longer and harder for lower rewards (Richmond, 2014). In each of these cases individual laborers survive by selling their labor-power in the market, including students selling their future labor-power (as their potential employability) for credit that is obtained through loans. The process of immiseration entails the dispossession of individual and collective autonomy

Immiseration 49 and time. The educational autonomy that is dispossessed relates to what can be produced and the process of production. The educational time that is dispossessed is both the indentured present, which must be focused around becoming employable or entrepreneurial, and the future that is foreclosed because it must be described by the repayment of student loans (Postone, 1996, 2012). This alienated labor-power is scrubbed clean of its usefulness beyond that dictated in the market by future employability, and research impact and student satisfaction metrics. What emerges is the substitution of that alienated labor-power for that which was previously locally bargained, with control over the means of production residing transnationally rather than at a local level. This process of alienation is an echo of Marx and Engel’s (1848/2002) argument that competition and the expansion of value, driven by space–time compression across an international market, would immiserate and proletarianize increasing amounts of work. Policy statements also recalibrate HE inside national export strategies, and strengthen immiserating tendencies, by refocusing educational practice on high value-added, non-routine jobs (Australian Government, Department of Education and Training, 2015; Newfield, 2010; Willetts, 2013). Here, there is an acceptance that for vast swathes of the global population the reality is only immiseration and low-skilled, low ­value-added, routine jobs in a transnational market. Policy tends to accelerate competition and the incorporation of HE inside that logic, so that competition drives precarity and casualization, and competition between entrepreneurs (Davies, 2014; Mazzucato, 2013). Critically, the effects of such a policy mean that universities as businesses are restructured for the production of surplus value, through organizational development, knowledge transfer, research impact, technological innovation and so on. A central issue for academics and students as laborers then becomes the creation of circulation of commodity services that are compensated through institutional profits or surpluses (Marx, 1857/1993). Thus, those who labor to provide a service, alongside those who labor to produce surplus value, are faced by capital’s drive to expand and accumulate value, and to reduce costs in the face of maximizing profit. Profit is key in disciplining and exploiting (productive) labor and in driving down labor costs. One heuristic through which we might re-calibrate our understanding of and responses to these processes of immiseration, catalysed by commodification and marketization, is by exploring alienation. For Marx (1844/2014), labor is the ground of all alienation, structured through human activity, and Mészáros (2005) analyses how this is mediated through the division of labor, commodity exchange and private property. These socio-historical mediations infect educational institutions just as they do any other firm, and education as they do any sector of the economy. Thus, it becomes possible to read these mediations as mechanisms for amplifying processes of immiseration through objectification, and for the idealization of the abstract (economic, productive, entrepreneurial)

50  Richard Hall individual. Through these mediating processes: first, education is being re-­ engineered (subsumed) for value; and second, the cares, attitudes and needs of students and staff (as forms of autonomy) are further stripped back and alienated. Overcoming these alienated mediations and transcending, overcoming or suppressing alienation depends not on abstracted ideals of academic freedom or institutional autonomy, or fetishized values locked inside institutions that are being made unsustainable, but upon concrete practices aimed at: the supersession of alienation through the abolition of “alienated mediation” (i.e. from capitalistically institutionalized second order mediation) through the liberation of labor from its reified subjection to the power of things, to “external necessity,” and through the conscious enhancing of man’s “inner need” for being humanely active and finding fulfilment for the powers inherent in him in his productive activity itself as well as in the human enjoyment of the non-alienated products of his activity [sic.]. (Mészáros, 2005, pp. 91–92) This position is reinforced because the forms of private property – commodity exchange – division of labor that are reproduced through the labor of teachers and students reinforces what Marx (1844/2014) called “Movable property’s civilised victory.” This is the transhistorical truth that the increasingly globalized world, shaped by transnational competition and dominated by monopoly finance capital, demands the production and circulation of material and immaterial commodities as the pure expression of capital. Marx argued that this process reveals capital’s strong points (beyond its weak ones, such as its surface immorality like the reduction of student life to employability) but that in the process of its becoming fully developed labor is more fully estranged or alienated. A focus upon the relationships and flows between processes of alienation and immiseration describes how ill-health and ill-being, narratives of employability and entrepreneurship, the dominance of money and the market, an attrition on labor rights and a rise in precarious employment, are each related to the law of value and alienated-labor (Hall, 2018). Revealing these flows inside education as a sector affected in its relationship to other sectors as means for the production of value, and inside educational institutions, underpins the possibility of overcoming such an estrangement from what it means to be human. This is crucial, given the precepts and possibilities of critical pedagogy for enabling individuals to become authors of their own self-actualization or modes of becoming (hooks, 1994; Motta & Cole, 2016; Olufemi, 2017; Rhodes Must Fall, 2020). In particular, educational spaces are central to a refusal of alienation as ways of living are being made unsustainable, through austerity governance. This might include the increases in student debt, the increase in precarious employment or

Immiseration 51 casualization, the reduction in costs (wages) of teaching at the expense of investment in capital infrastructure and buildings, the intolerance of dissenting positions on campuses, the revelation of a colonized educational life and so on. This reveals the tensions between marketized, economized existence that is predicated on exchange, commodity fetishism and increasing the value of the world of things, at the expense of devaluing and de-subjectivization of humanity. The questions are whether that immiserated, educational life can be superseded, and what is the role of teachers and students in co-producing and overcoming? The life of hegemonic educational institutions is increasingly regulated and governed as coerced activity. It is against this reality that thinking of academic freedom or university autonomy becomes meaningless through its particularity rather than its universality. This is because projecting such states or values into a wider society that is itself grounded in coerced activity is meaningless. Moreover, what is being projected into society is the value of abstract labor (for entrepreneurship or employability or knowledge economy) rather than concrete, human activity (to tackle crises of social reproduction like climate change or poverty). The key is less fetishized autonomy and freedom inside educational spaces, and more a struggle for universal overcoming “in the political form of the emancipation of the workers” (Marx, 1844/2014). As capital looks for new spaces in which to invest the surpluses it has accumulated (in the form of new technology, intellectual property, finance and so on), it drives labor-saving innovations or technologies in all sectors of the economy. Thus, the growth of technological and entrepreneurial activity inside and against the University forms a way for capital to leverage the ratio of the total surplus value produced in society to the total capital invested. Educational innovation also enables a redistribution of surplus value from businesses that produce commodities or services like universities to those that market them or that lend money to make academic labor productive. Therefore, it becomes important for educational activists to analyse the role of educational innovation in revolutionizing the means of production and in generating social relations and modes of production that are immiserating. In the face of this assault on academic identity, enacted through time and performance, it is important for educators and students to ask whether it is possible to imagine a more general transformation of social relations for educational abundance? Such a reimagining must work for the abolition of academic labor, and of labor in general, as a way of overcoming immiseration. Freedom from immiseration needs to be focused on a transcendence of alienation in social practice, and a recognition that achieving freedom or autonomy can only be derived from sociality constructed through social processes and activities. This is our common ability to do and our comprehensive social practice. It is only by overcoming the mediations of private property – commodity exchange – division of labor across a social terrain, rather than in the objectified setting of reified

52  Richard Hall educational or academic practice, that something more socially useful might be enacted. This means opening-up a terrain for directional demands, workers’ inquiries, and social strikes, rooted in association and negating the idea that freedom is either transcendental or exists by the grace of another human being. What we strive for here is the “self-mediated being of nature and of man [sic.]” (Marx 1844/2014). This is defined through forms of sociality that refuse the spiritual and physical dehumanization of commodity production. Here the praxis of those who labor in education (staff and students) matters because the space needs to open out to bleed into society beyond the commodity production for the knowledge economy, the fragmented division of educational labor and the subsumption of academic life inside private property and intellectual property. This is a practical task of generating and sustaining self-conscious human activity, as opposed to alienation from our work, its products, nature and the world, our species-being or our peers and ourselves. Teaching is central to this project of becoming self-mediating because it expresses a specific relation to a specific, historically concrete, alienated object (Hall, 2018). The practice of teaching, and enabling anyone to teach, raises consciousness (as opposed to alienated consciousness of commodity production) as a human society. This is not the consciousness of a negation (of alienation) but of a positivity (of human nature divorced from the mediations of private property – commodity exchange – division of labor) (Mészáros, 2005). It is here that the struggles against educational immiseration and for self-­ actualization matters because education is the critical terrain for self-mediation. Such self-mediation embraces and relates, first, activities that give life meaning across a social context, and second, the needs, attitudes and cares that reinforce that meaning as self-consciousness. This takes the form of self and social educating as a process; it is the overcoming of the domination of externality, as commodification or financialization or alienated-labor. Thus, these struggles matter where they are related to social forms of autonomy and freedom as universal self-mediation. They matter where they are the beginning of a refusal.

References Australian Government, Department of Education and Training. (2015). Draft National Strategy for International Education. Retrieved from https://internationaleducation.gov. au/International-network/Australia/InternationalStrategy/Pages/National-Strategy.aspx (Accessed 29 June 2020). CASA. (n.d.). A home online for casual, adjunct, sessional staff and their allies in Australian higher education. Retrieved 8 September 2018 from http://actualcasuals.wordpress.com/. CUPE3903. (n.d.). Representing, Organizing and Activating the Contract Faculty, Teaching Assistants, Graduate Assistants, and Research Assistants @ York University, Toronto, Canada. Retrieved from http://3903.cupe.ca/ (Accessed 29 June 2020).

Immiseration 53 Davies, W. (2014). The limits of neoliberalism: Authority, sovereignty and the logic of competition. London: SAGE. Hall, R. (2015a). The university and the secular crisis. Open Library of the Humanities, 1(1). doi: http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.15. Hall, R. (2015b). For a political economy of massive open online courses. Learning, Media and Technology, 40(3), 265–286. Hall, R. (2018). The alienated academic: The struggle for autonomy inside the university. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hall, R., & Bowles, K. (2016). Re-engineering higher education: The subsumption of ­academic labour and the exploitation of anxiety. Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labour, 28, 30–47. Retrievedfromhttp://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/article/view/186211/185389 (Accessed 29 June 2020). hooks, bell (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. London: Routledge. Marx, K. (1844/2014). Economic and philosophical manuscripts. London: Bloomsbury. Marx, K. (1857/1993). Grundrisse: Outline of the critique of political economy. London: Penguin. Marx, K. (1867/2004). Capital: A critique of political economy (Vol. 1). London: Penguin. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848/2002). The communist manifesto. London: Penguin. Mazzucato, M. (2013). The entrepreneurial state: Debunking public vs. private sector myths. London: Anthem Press. McGettigan, A. (2015). The Treasury View of HE: Variable Human Capital Investment. Political Economy Research Centre, Papers Series 6. Retrieved from https://www.perc.org.uk/project_ posts/perc-paper-the-treasury-view-of-higher-education-by-andrew-mcgettigan/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Mészáros, I. (2005). Marx’s theory of alienation. London: Merlin. Morris, A. (2015). The Rise of “Quit Lit”: What It Is and Why It Matters [Opinion]. Retrieved from https://www.noodle.com/articles/the-rise-of-quit-lit-heres-what-it-is-and-why-itmatters144 (Accessed 29 June 2020). Motta, S., & Cole, M. (2016). Constructing 21st century socialism in Latin America: The role of radical education. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Newfield, C. (2010). The structure and silence of the cognotariat. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 8(2), 175–89. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/14767721003776254. Olufemi, L. (2017). Decolonising the English Faculty: An Open Letter. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2ubbZy7 (Accessed 29 June 2020). Postone, M. (1996). Time, labor and social domination: A reinterpretation of Marx’s critical theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Postone, M. (2012). Exigency of time: A conversation with Harry Harootunian and Moishe Postone, Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, 38(2), 7–43. Rhodes Must Fall. (2020). Rhodes Must Fall. Retrieved from http://rhodesmustfall.co.za/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Richmond, M. (2014). Unpaid trials & self-exploiting entrepreneurs. The Occupied Times. Retrieved from http://theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=13436 (Accessed 29 June 2020). Rolling Jubilee. (2016). Retrieved from http://rollingjubilee.org/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Wendling, A. E. (2009). Karl Marx on technology and alienation. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Willetts, D. (2013). Robbins revisited: Bigger and better higher education. London: Social Market Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.smf.co.uk/research/category-two/robbins-­revisited/ (Accessed 29 June 2020).

7

Commodity Joss Winn

“A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood.” (Marx, 1996, p. 81) The etymological roots of the word commodity (adj: commodus; n. commoditas) refer to a measure (modus) of convenience, utility, fitness and advantage. In earlier societies organized around exchange (commerce), the word commodity came to refer to a thing that had qualities which satisfied desires, advantaged the owner and represented a form of well-being and prosperity, or wealth. All of this, a good dictionary will tell you. Although capitalist society appears to be organized around markets, or the exchange of things, wealth in capitalist society is seeded in production and bears fruit in exchange. Wealth is realized through the exchange of commodities but it is produced during the process of commodity production. As such, capitalism is both a historically specific mode of production and exchange. We need more than a dictionary to understand the subtlety of this and in doing so the meaning of the word, commodity, becomes expanded by our understanding of the words labor, money and value. In the violent and unsettling transition to capitalism, beginning in the 16th century, “labor power” became the primary commodity that individuals own, value became the social form of wealth and money became the universal commodity that allows all things to be commensurable (Meiksins Wood, 2002). Prior to the development of the capitalist mode of production, wealth for most people was provided by nature and from it the production of useful things. People generally subsisted through their own labor, exploiting nature to produce things of utility for themselves and those directly around them. The powerful and wealthy had slaves and serfs to do this for them but the majority of people in Western societies did not own other people (slavery) or significant property (feudalism) and had to rely on their own capacity to labor. When they worked for someone else (slavery or serfdom), it was a direct and personal relationship of patronage and obligation, unmediated by any social measure of

Commodity 55 labor. It is only when the capitalist mode of production becomes the dominant mode of production in the 18th–19th century, that labor is measured widely in terms of its exchange value (Heinrich, 2012; Marx, 1996, pp. 704–761). Its exchange value is not an arbitrary measure, nor one privately determined by the buyer and seller, but is socially determined by the availability and quality of labor available to the purchaser and people’s ability and willingness to accept a given wage. When an individual’s capacity to labor is exchanged for a wage (i.e. the universal commodity of money), their labor power takes on the qualities of a commodity: the money is the measure (modus) of its equivalent social value and the utility and advantage of labor power is in its creative capacity. So, generally speaking, in capitalist society, where the organizing principle is wage-work rather than slavery, serfdom or self-sufficiency, the singular most widespread commodity available to everyone is their labor power, which is by necessity exchanged for money that should at least afford us our subsistence.

An Explanation Not a Definition It is one thing to look for definitions of the word commodity, but another to analyze or theorize the meaning and significance of the word. This is what theories are for, to explain the world we live in. An adequate social theory should be conceptually coherent and applicable; it should be able to recognize and explain its own historical, social and cultural context. There is only one adequate theory that I know of which explains what a commodity in capitalist society is and that is the explanation given by Karl Marx in Chapter one of Volume one of Capital (1867/1996). There, he produced a theory of the commodity that was both ground-breaking and exhaustive in its analytical depth and philosophical reach. So far in this chapter, I’ve tried to offer an introduction to his theory of the commodity: the idea that commodities have a use value (they have a utility) and an exchange value (they can be measured against other commodities); that they have both qualitative and quantitative qualities; that labor is a special commodity and that money is a universal equivalent to all other commodities. All of this is not a naturally given phenomenon but rather a historically specific social phenomenon. Yet, it is so ingrained in the way we live our lives that most of us don’t give it much thought because it has become “common sense.”

The Commodity-form One other thing that I want to introduce is the idea that a commodity doesn’t have to directly cost the consumer anything; a thing, material or immaterial, doesn’t have to have a price attached to it for it to take the form or have the qualities of a commodity. A commodity will always have a cost to its producer,

56  Joss Winn but any price given to it is a matter of how its cost and any profit is accounted for, which can vary widely and is of no consequence to us here. The reason it is of no consequence is that we are interested in the general (or more accurately, abstract) qualities that all commodities share, rather than how a specific commodity’s cost is accounted for at any given time or place. When Marx theorized the commodity, he wrote about the commodity-form, recognizing that the price attached to the commodity is not the same as its value. The value of something does not have to be directly, immediately or explicitly signified for the thing to be a commodity. As long as it has a usevalue (it serves a need) and an exchange-value (it primarily serves a need for someone other than its current owner), it has the form or social characteristics of a commodity. This is obvious when understood in the context of a society where the widespread means of subsistence is wage-work; where out of necessity, individuals exchange their labor-power for money. When most people in society have to sell their capacity to labor (their skills, knowledge, know-how, etc.) in order to stay alive, then all products of that labor, regardless of price, have a cost attached to them which is determined in part by the socially recognized value of the labor-power at any given time or place in history. Marx referred to this measure of value as the socially necessary labor time required to produce a commodity. This is a dynamic measure which is in constant motion, determined by a variety of things such as the prevailing methods of production (including the application of science and technology) and struggles between individuals, classes and nation states. Socially necessary labor time is not the actual time it takes me to perform a productive task but rather the average time it would take people anywhere in the world to perform the task; it is a measure of the abstract labor embodied in a commodity (the average quantity of labor it should require under current conditions) rather than the specific concrete labor actually employed. Abstract labor is the social reduction of individual concrete labor to value. If the labor is not exchanged for money (i.e. it is not social labor), then it is not “labor” in the form that we are concerned with here because it does not produce commodities. For example, I might “labor” usefully in my garden, but the results of that are enjoyed for my own pleasure rather than exchanged. I might also labor in my neighbor’s garden as a gift to them without expectation of reciprocity and likewise it is not social labor and its value is not conceived abstractly in terms of exchange. Let me recap: A commodity is characterized by its form: it has a use value and a value that is realized in exchange (an exchange value). The source of its use value (i.e. its usefulness in meeting a need or desire) is the useful, concrete (i.e. intellectual and manual) labor employed in its production. The  actual labor time required to produce the commodity does not determine the value of the commodity because its value can only be measured socially at the point

Commodity 57 of exchange with another commodity (i.e. money). The exchange value of the commodity is quantified by the socially necessary labor time required to produce the commodity, which is a socially determined measure of the average amount of time it should take to produce the commodity, not by a single producer, but an average across all producers in a competitive marketplace. Therefore the value of a commodity is constantly being pushed down through efficiencies in the production process and pressure on wages so that commodities can be produced more cheaply, requiring producers to sell more and innovate more on the treadmill of capitalism. It is only when we expand our understanding of the word commodity to refer to the commodity-form that we begin to understand the pervasive power of capitalism and how its “logic” of equivalence or commensurability reduces much of social life, people and their products, to the same abstract characteristics, even those things to which we don’t allocate a direct cost or price. Education is a good example of this. To put it bluntly, in a society where the general means of survival is wage-labor, education, both public and private, is a commodity; it conforms to the commodity-form. Next, I’ll explain how.

The Commodity of Education The formal provision of education at all levels, from nursery schools to universities, is structured in such a way that some people (teachers) are paid a wage to teach other people (students). The teachers are paid either by the State or by their private employer; it doesn’t matter in the slightest which route the money comes from in our discussion about the commodity. What matters is that the provision of education is enabled through wage labor whereby teachers sell their capacity to labor, first and foremost in order for them to subsist and subsequently to educate other individuals. Thus, the socially useful labor of teachers (by this, I mean all the duties of a teacher including the labor required to maintain subject knowledge, pedagogical skills, etc.), is exchanged for a socially determined, commensurate amount of money (value), which is derived from either taxation or direct payment by the student or their guardian. The individual being taught may literally hand over the money or someone else (i.e. the State or the parent) may pay on their behalf, but regardless, an exchange takes place for the provision of a useful service. It is the wage relation between the teacher and their employer that is the defining factor of whether the product or service, in this case education, has the form of a commodity. Remember that a commodity is something useful that is produced for someone other than the individual(s) producing it – it does not directly satisfy their needs, which are met through the exchange of their labor power for a wage, which can be used to exchange for goods and services that do meet their needs. So we have two commodities in play: (1) the commodity of labor power and (2) the commodity

58  Joss Winn which is the product of that labor power. You might think that if the education is “free” to the student, then it’s not a commodity, but recall that a commodity does not need to have a price tag hanging from it. It will have a cost made up of all the resources, including labor power, that were required to produce it, and how that cost is accounted for and who ultimately bears that cost, does not determine whether it is a commodity or not. We must remember, too, that at all times we are talking generally – at the level of society – and are not concerned with exceptions to the social norm. There have always been exceptions to the norm, but by their very nature, those exceptions do not sustain and define a society. So, yes, it is possible for an individual to teach others and receive no payment, perhaps they are “independently wealthy,” although we have to ask how that wealth was originally created – most likely through wage labor! Perhaps they volunteer their “spare time” to teach others in the evenings or weekends when they are not engaged in wage labor. In both cases, such exceptions are remarkably unexceptional in that they do not change the social norm of teaching as a form of wage labor.

The Student as Consumer Having established that teaching is a form of wage labor and therefore teachers are individuals who exchange their labor power commodity for a socially determined value of money, we might then ask what role students play in the commodity of education. Perhaps you’re thinking that “yes, teachers’ labor is a commodity but the provision of State education to students is not an exchange relationship; the costs are written off, absorbed or creatively accounted for.” I have already disagreed with such an assertion above and would add that the provision of State education coincides with the development and needs of capitalist societies (Simon, 1960, 1965) and that there is an implicit contract or expectation that an individual educated by the State will reciprocate by becoming an aspirational, law-abiding, productive citizen. Let’s take students in higher education as an interesting example: Why would an individual or the State pay tuition for a higher education degree? What social role is the commodity of higher education performing? Why do almost half of young people in the UK attend university today whereas 100 years ago, just a small minority did so? All of these questions are beyond what I can discuss here, but they point to the fact that universities are not just employers of teachers but the providers of an education that meets a historically specific need in society. In short, social productivity today requires a larger number of people to have the knowledge and skills that universities provide. A student is likely to be enjoying all of the resources of the university, including access to its academics, for a variety of reasons, not least that they hope to expand their knowledge and skills, that is, to improve themselves and

Commodity 59 thus improve their labor power commodity which they will have to sell sooner or later. As Ellen Meiksins Wood has shown, the concept of improvement is one that has its origins in the formation of capitalism (2002). It originally referred to improving the productivity of land by making agricultural techniques more efficient, thereby giving landowners a competitive advantage. This imperative is still at work today and in a society where few of us own land or any other means of production, where we survive on the sale of our labor power commodity, it is an imperative that we improve our capacity to labor through the development of knowledge and skills in order to maintain or increase its value. So, in the example of a university classroom, we are faced with the situation where the teacher is there having sold their labor power commodity for a wage from the university which has received a payment of the money commodity from or on behalf of the student, who is sat in class with a desire, most likely a perceived need, to improve themselves so that upon graduation they too are able to exchange their labor power commodity for a value that satisfies their needs and desires and possibly pay back any debt incurred for their education – a loan that was only provided to them on the basis that they will repay it through the sale of their future labor power. Even free, public education is paid for on the assumption that students will graduate, work and pay taxes toward the education of the next generation. The costs are shared socially rather than borne individually. This is not to deny that teachers may strongly identify with their vocation or that students study for the genuine love of learning, but the system of higher education does not operate on love alone. Teachers need paying and students need jobs. In this context, the labor power of the teacher and the labor power of the student is qualitatively different, yet socially equivalent in that they both have the qualities of the commodity form – both enter the classroom as “values.” Through a pedagogic exchange, both teacher and student reproduce themselves in their given roles in society. In the UK at least, the teacher is legally contracted to act on behalf of the university as the producer and the student is legally defined as the consumer, yet both are entirely dependent on each other. Consumption and production are never far apart; without consumption, there would be no production. (Marx, 1986, p. 27)

The Student as Producer As well as being a consumer, the student is also a producer of their labor power (incorporating new knowledge, skills, know-how, etc.) which they will one day sell for a wage. The financial means to consume their higher education is granted or loaned to them because they have the means (i.e. labor power) to reciprocate (i.e. repay), through future productive activities (i.e. wage-work).

60  Joss Winn This is implicit in the context of public education that is paid for by the State and explicit where the student receives a loan to pay for their education. Students enter the classroom as both consumers and producers on a university campus that combines the means of production: labor, science and technology and capital to produce the commodities of knowledge, skills and know-how for exchange. Although the labor power commodities of teacher and student are qualitatively different in their knowledge, skills, etc., in practice, they are brought together as relative and equivalent values. It is an exchange relationship that is only made possible because it is part of a total social productive relationship historically developed through the widespread imposition of wage labor and private property, i.e. capitalism. The product of the exchange of teacher and student labor power appears as improved knowledge, skills and know-how, first embodied in their respective labor power commodity, and objectified in the classroom, essays, exams, journal articles, books, etc. It is the university campus, the lecture hall, the seminar room, the exam, the book, the article, which seemingly bring academics and students together and construct relations between them, when in fact the “logic” underlying all of this is the logic of the commodity-form. The idea of the university is, in Marx’s terms, a “fetish” that conceals the pervasive social power of the commodity-form.

References Heinrich, M. (2012). An introduction to the three volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press. Marx, K. (1986). Grundrisse, Marx and Engels Collected Works (Vol. 28). London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd. Marx, K. (1996). CapitalVolume 1, Marx and Engels Collected Works (Vol. 35). London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd. Meiksins Wood, E. (2002). The origin of capitalism. A longer view. London: Verso. Simon, B. (1960). The two nations and the educational structure 1780–1870. London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd. Simon, B. (1965). Education and the labour movement 1870–1920, London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd.

8

Social Mobility Spyros Themelis

Introduction Over a hundred years ago, Marx offered a brief though scathing critique of social mobility: “The more a ruling class is able to assimilate the foremost minds of a ruled class, the more stable and dangerous becomes its rule.” (Marx, 1894/1967, 600–601). If Marx were alive today what would he make of the infatuation many (especially Western) societies have with social mobility? Likely he would have disapproved of it as a very dangerous idea and practice. This danger, I argue, is twofold. On one hand, social mobility exemplifies one of the most pervasive and enduring myths of capitalist systems, namely that unfettered movement to the top of the social structure is possible for the most able and hardest working among us. As I show in this chapter, ability and effort, however they are defined, do not guarantee those who possess them any success. The belief, nonetheless, in this type of narrative is dangerous to the individuals who might live by it as it furnishes them with the attendant illusion of social mobility. On the other hand, social mobility has fallen victim to its own success as capitalism’s ideological glue, which is nowadays increasingly coming under question. And when the belief in one of the system’s key pillars is vanishing, the unity of the system itself might start to crumble. Capitalism, therefore, is increasingly being questioned as it more often than not fails to deliver success, as the social mobility axiom postulates. This failure, then, is potentially dangerous to the system itself. In this paper, I first illustrate the enormous popularity that social mobility as an ideology has enjoyed in market-oriented societies. I then discuss the role of higher education in cementing the belief in social mobility as a driver of individual success. I close by highlighting the implications stemming from the reduction in social fluidity and attendant opportunities for (upward) social mobility movement. In doing so, I turn my attention to some contemporary social movements and the role of highly educated young people within them who turn their disillusionment with social mobility into a critique against the capitalist system.

62  Spyros Themelis

Social Mobility and Individual Illusions Since the turn of the new millennium, social mobility has been one of the most widely debated topics. What justifies this appeal? I argue this is because social mobility is much more convenient to work with, politically speaking, than other terms, such as social inequalities. This is the case for a number of reasons. First, social mobility processes by far exceed the short political cycles within which modern politics operate. Second, social inequalities are far easier to specify than social mobility outcomes making therefore any failure to address the former more politically costly. Third, research findings that stem from mainstream social mobility research, due to their potential for multiple, even conflicting, interpretations are usurped by political actors in order to increase their political capital. In this vein, rather than tackle the problem at its root, which is no other than the unequal nature of capitalist relations, social mobility inquiry takes the center stage (Themelis, 2008). Put differently, it would be destructive to the interests of mainstream political parties and threatening to their very existence if they attacked capitalism as a way of eliminating the inequalities that stem from it. Effectively, this would imply the disappearance of social mobility as a topic of research for the abolition of socio-economic inequalities (and attendant exploitation of labor from capital) would entail the end of capitalism. Hence, operating in an area with high resonance with the electorate allows mainstream parties to raise much needed political ­capital and simultaneously maintain the status quo, which further plays into their interests. Evidently, social mobility becomes a silent tranquilliser of capitalism and an anaesthetic of social inequalities. In this way, attention is shifted away from the crucial role of the state as a promoter of equality and the collective effort needed to make dreams materialize. The onus is now on the self-rising individual who succeeds (or not) out of his/her own efforts and abilities (or fails because of his/her own shortcomings). Suddenly, society disappears to make way for the heroic individual who climbs up the greasy pole of success (Sennett, 2003) or the stayer and the undeserving faller who did not try as hard as those who made it. Social actors become individualized cogs in a machinery that operate against their best interests as members of communities and society as a whole. And here is where the “social mobility trick” comes into play. Instead of critiquing the appropriateness of such a rigged system of rewards and penalties, we are invited to focus on individualized outcomes, notably success and failure. In short, social mobility becomes a socio-economic and moral win-win: the individuals reap all the rewards while society also benefits from having the most able to perform the most important jobs and roles within it. By proxy, then, social mobility creates the conditions for meritocratic arrangements in the occupational and social structures. Rewards, the same narrative goes, stem from ability plus effort (Young, 1958) or from ability + effort +

Social Mobility 63 educational qualifications in its modern adaptation. If, then, social mobility is so beneficial, what would be the best way of promoting it? Governments around the world with a market orientation found the answer to this question to be higher education.

Higher Education and Social Mobility Arguably, higher education is the most effective lubricant of the social mobility mechanism. On one hand, higher education credentials appear to lead to increased “private returns” for individuals, such as occupational opportunities, better jobs and higher remuneration (Psacharopoulos & Patrinos, 2004). On the other hand, “public returns”, that is to say benefits for economies, e­ mployers and societies with high levels of highly educated individuals, appear also to be increased (Bhutoria, 2016). In market-based economies, the corollary of this argument is simple. Highly educated individuals are better placed to withstand competition and are thought to be more productive, which boosts the national economy. In the words of one of the staunchest advocates of market capitalism “[t]he quality of knowledge generated within higher education institutions, and its availability to the wider economy, is becoming increasingly critical to national competitiveness.” (The World Bank, 2000, p. 9). This narrative, which has taken the form of a formidable ideology, was paid heed to by many a capitalist countries around the world. Soon it became possible to explain various capitalist institutions, such as education, by the functions they perform for capital and capitalism as a system (Elster, 1982). A look at the steep rise in higher education participation over the last 40 years is convincing: within the OECD countries, it rose almost by 100% in less than 20 years (from 23.79% of 25–34 years old in 1998 to 44.47% in 2017) (OECD, 2018). In Latin America and the Caribbean, gross enrolment in higher education (HE) rose from 17% in 1991 to 40% in 2010 (The World Bank, 2000, p. 6). In many Asian countries, such as India, Japan and South Korea, a steady increase has been registered, while China has been experiencing a “remarkable” rise (Chuan, 2017). The question to ask, though, is what happens to those highly educated young people after graduation. Do they achieve the social mobility dream as the free market evangelists anticipate or are they confronted by a different reality? Can all highly educated people be accommodated in the labor market? And what happens to their (upward) mobility dream when disaster hits like the 2008 global economic crisis? It seems to be increasingly the case that the fairy tale of capitalism with social mobility at its core, has started to dissipate. Nowadays more than ever before, higher education graduates are at risk of unemployment or underemployment. According to OECD (2006), graduate unemployment has been on the rise since

64  Spyros Themelis the turn of the new millennium. For some economically advanced parts of the world (e.g. Europe) there was an expectation that graduate unemployment rates would be high and persistent in the first part of the 21st century (Moreau and Leathwood, 2006). This trend was dramatically confirmed and accentuated by the 2008 global economic crisis. The latter led to extensive spending cuts, an unprecedented attack on the welfare state (where it still exists) and its pillars, such as education, health care, social protection and other key services. Austerity measures have further closed off opportunities for movement within the social structure and attendant social mobility opportunities. What is more, they have exacerbated competition for the few well-regarded jobs, increased socio-economic inequalities and consolidated even further the concentration of capital. Among OECD countries, youth unemployment (i.e. for 15–24 year olds) increased by six percentage points only between 2007 and 2009, to reach almost 19%, while in the European periphery (e.g. Spain, Italy and Greece) it was close to 40% or higher. Evidently, a big part of the global youth are increasingly forming similar aspirations and choices, such as participation into higher education and a desire to become upwardly mobile. However, they are more likely to experience socialclass stasis rather than mobility (Reay, 2006). These developments have led to the formation of a new social class, the so-called precariat (Standing, 2011, 2014). The precariat is a flexible workforce, usually highly educated, who earn money without access to any employment or state-based benefits and by extension are denied other fundamental human rights (cultural, political and so on). The emergence and expansion of this class has important implications for individual advancement as well as system stability. The reactions of scores of young people across the globe against austerity measures and the failure of globalization to secure them a decent standard of living offers a new angle into the precariat’s perceptions about social mobility as the Cinderella of the capitalist system.

Social Mobility and Contemporary Social Movements It is not unfamiliar for the youth to become agents of social change, oftentimes through insurrectionary means that are combined with active experimentation with various alternatives (e.g. of organization, thinking, education). In May 1968 it was chiefly university students in cooperation with intellectuals and segments of the working class (e.g. factory workers), who expressed the contradictions between capital and labor of the time and were at the vanguard of one of the most seminal revolts in the post-Second World War history in the Western world. At the turn of the new millennium, it has been mainly young precarious workers, students and intellectuals who have been at the forefront of social movements. From the so-called Battle of Seattle in 1999 against the

Social Mobility 65 World Trade Organisation, to the G8 anti-globalization protests in Genoa in 2001 and from the World Social Forum in 2001 to the Squares’ movements in 2010, the world took notice of a nascent global movement. Or rather of various movements loosely yet seemingly connected through a common thread, namely the quest for social justice and equality. Such expressions of “collective effervescence” (Durkheim, 1912) have produced an array of anti-capitalist, anti-globalization, pro-equality, protest or even mainstream, political movements (e.g. Syriza in Greece, Bernie Sanders in the United States or Jeremy Corbyn in the UK). From the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in New York, which subsequently spread around the world, to the “Indignados” in Madrid and the “Arab Spring” in Tahrir Square, young people have been sending out a resounding message that the capitalist dream is unrealizable. Today’s movements can be viewed as the expression of generalized dissent about the compromises between labor and capital, which only delivered for the few, while they seized opportunities from the many. For “capitalism has always ensured that we pay the price for a few short decades of brutally inegalitarian prosperity: crises that swallow up astronomical quantities of value, bloody punitive expeditions to all zones it regards as threatening or strategic, and the world wars that allow it to recover its health.” (Badiou, 2010, p. 96). Contemporary movements are largely organized by highly educated individuals (Milkman et al., 2013; Themelis, 2017a), who are being denied the opportunity to improve their living standard and secure a decent life despite of the fact they possess all the ingredients that the social mobility narrative requires (i.e. ability + effort + qualifications). While the precariat forms the basis of a loosely defined class-in-itself, their participation in mass social movements and their experimentation with alternative modes of working, thinking and acting, sows the seeds for a renewed class politics. That is to say, these social groups do not resemble the traditional proletariat which was motivated by exploitation in the workplace. Instead, the precariat consists of talented young people who are treated by the workplace as reserve army of labor (Marx, 1867/1990) and are chiefly excluded from it or operate on its margins. In other words, while the precariat might not have morphed into a class-for-itself as Marx would have wanted, it nevertheless has the potential to become the Subject of History, though in different ways to those anticipated by Marx. Approaching contemporary social movements, such as the “Indignados” or the “Occupy” movements but also others, as the multitude (Hardt and Negri, 2004), that is to say as collective agents in charge of their own history (Cox and Nilsen, 2014), requires a radical break with the dominant narrative enveloped in the social mobility storyline. The former pays emphasis to the collective processes that aim to address socio-economic inequalities, while the latter stresses the individual efforts that ultimately mask and reproduce them.

66  Spyros Themelis Furthermore, what contemporary social movements have shown us is that the most marginalized, who are often treated as the socially immobile individuals, do not have to wait passively for capitalism to save them from itself with some injection of social fluidity. Instead, participation in social movements comprises a significant stepping-stone in the formation of critical consciousness that informs praxis (Gramsci, 1971/1935). In turn, praxis can lead marginalized groups to a “permanent victory”: “subaltern groups are always subject to the activity of ruling groups, even when they rebel and rise up: only ­“permanent” victory breaks their subordination, and that not immediately.” (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 1375–1395). The idea of continuous struggle and permanent ­victory in breaking one’s own subordination echoes Freire’s (1996/1970) thesis that the oppressed carry with them the ideas of their oppressor. The realization of this fact-of-life under capitalism seems to ignite many contemporary social movements. For example, participants in one of the biggest social movements in the world, namely the Landless People’s Movement (or MST), are trained to recognize their oppression and those who created it (Calvário, Hidalgo & Mingorría, 2015). More importantly, they learn that this oppression is only terminated when their subordination ceases to exist. In other words, through their conscientization (Freire, 1970) MST participants enact the t­ ransformation of their own reality. Similar processes have been observed in other social movements (Green, 2015; Themelis, 2017b, c) and highlight the fact that the transformation of social reality is integral to the very existence of such movements though it might not always have a lasting impact or be completed. It nevertheless is the building block of the “permanent victory” that will sustain the exit from the current impasse within which humanity finds itself. It is my contention that the realization by a large number of people across the world that the capitalist system is not in a position to deliver them (mainly upward) social mobility without significant losses – personal and social – comprises one such victory. While disillusionment is a painful process, the collapse of the assorted myths surrounding the so-called capitalist dream of social mobility has to be celebrated. The 2008 crash might be seen as a big “bonfire of illusions” (Callinicos, 2010), but our focus should also be on the possibilities this fallout engenders. The opportunity to dispel one of the most pervasive myths of capitalism, such as that of individual advancement, is potentially the biggest one among them.

Conclusion Contra mainstream accounts that exalt social mobility as a panacea to all socio-economic ills, I argued here that the stalling in occupational opportunities for social mobility, especially for the youth, might operate as capitalism’s nemesis. The exploration of some salient contemporary social movements furnished my analysis with the requisite evidence to make such a claim. The rise

Social Mobility 67 of anti-austerity, anti-capitalist and pro-equality social movements around the world is a testament to how dangerous social mobility can be for the capitalist system if it ceases to be the unifying glue it has been over the last 70 years or so. For young people inculcated to the dominant logic of individual advancement and unfettered movement to the top, the lack of availability of such opportunities might work as an anathema. However, as Marx warned “all that is solid melts into air” and dreams of upward social mobility are no exception to this truism.

References Badiou, A. (2010) the communist hypothesis. London: Verso. Bhutoria, A. (2016). Economic Returns to Education in the United Kingdom. Evidence Review for Economic Returns to Education in the United Kingdom. Foresight Government Office for Science. Retrieved from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/593895/Economic_Returns_To_Education_-_final.pdf. Callinicos, A. (2010). Bonfire of illusions:The twin crises of the liberal world. Cambridge: Polity Press. Calvário, R., Hidalgo, M. G., & Mingorría, S. (2015). The role of pedagogy in the struggles of Brazil’s MST. Retrieved from https://entitleblog.org/2015/06/22/the-role-of-pedagogyin-the-struggles-of-brazils-mst/. Chuan, T. C. (2017). Major shifts in global higher education: A perspective from Asia. HEPI. Retrieved from https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/HEPI-Major-shiftsin-global-higher-education-A-perspective-from-Asia-Rep….pdf. Cox, N., & Nilsen, A. G. (2014). We make our own history: Marxism and social movements in the twilight of neoliberalism. London: Pluto Press. Durkheim, E. (1912). The elementary forms of religious life. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Elster, J. (1982). The case for methodological individualism. Theory and Society, 11(4): 453–482. Freire, P. (1996/1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin. Gramsci, A. (1971/1935). Selections from the prison notebooks. NewYork, NY: International Publishers. Green, M. E. (2015). Gramsci and subaltern struggles today: Spontaneity, political organization, and occupy Wall Street. In M. McNally (Ed.), Critical explorations in contemporary thought. Series. New York, NY: Palgrave. Marx, K. (1867/1990). Capital (Vol. I). London: Penguin Books. Marx, K. (1894/1967). Capital (Vol. 3). New York, NY: International Publishers. Moreau, M. P., & Leathwood, C. (2006). Graduates’ employment and the discourse of employability: A critical analysis. Journal of Education andWork, 19(4), 305–324. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2004). Multitude: War and democracy in the age of empire. New York, NY: Penguin Press. Milkman, R., Luce, S., Lewis, P. (2013) Changing the Subject: A Bottom-Up Account of Occupy Wall Street in New York City. The Murphy Institute, City University of New York (http://sps. cuny.edu/filestore/1/5/7/1_a05051d2117901d/1571_92f562221b8041e.pdf) OECD. (2006). Jobs strategy: Lessons from a decade’s experience. Paris: OECD. OECD. (2018). Education at a glance publication. Paris: OECD. Retrieved from https://www.oecdilibrary.org. Psacharopoulos, G., & Patrinos, H. A. (2004). Returns to investment in education: A further update. Education Economics, 12(2), 111–134. doi: 10.1080/0964529042000239140. Reay, D. (2006). The Zombie stalking English schools: Social class and educational inequality. British Journal of Educational Studies, 54(3): 288–307.

68  Spyros Themelis Sennett, R. (2003). Respect: The formation of character in an age of inequality. London: The Penguin Press. Standing, G. (2011). The precariat: The new dangerous class. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Standing, G. (2014). The precariat. Contexts. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177 %2F1536504214558209. The World Bank. (2000). Higher Education in. Developing Countries. Peril and Promise. The Task Force on Higher Education and Society. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099079956815/ peril_promise_en.pdf. Themelis, S. (2008). Meritocracy through education: A critical approach to social mobility in post-war Britain. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(5): 427–438. Themelis, S. (2017a). Degrees of precariousness: The problematic transition into the labour market of Greek higher education graduates. Forum Sociologico, 31. Retrieved from https:// journals.openedition.org/sociologico/1811. Themelis, S. (2017b). Learning from and with the education movements in Greece and Brazil: knowledge, action and alternatives. Educação e Realidade, 43(3) (in Portuguese and English). Retrieved from http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid =S2175-62362018000300799. Themelis, S. (2017c). Learning, unlearning, relearning with the movements: A study of the Greek education movement and its prefigurative potential. Postcolonial Directions in Education, 6(1): 28–53. Young, M. (1958) The rise of the meritocracy 1870–2033: An essay on education and society. London: Thames and Hudson.

9

Social Inclusion Angela Tuck

The Meaning of Inclusion It is at first easy to find a definition for the word “inclusion”. A quick search of the internet proffers innumerable definitions, notable in their similarity, generally stating that inclusion is “the fact of including somebody/something; the fact of being included” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, 2020). Such definitions give rise to two obstacles to understanding the meaning of the word. The repetition of, rather than explanation of, the core noun “inclusion” offers nothing to extend one’s understanding of it. Accepting a simple definition encourages oversight of the reality that inclusion is about human behavior. Foster and Walker (2009) describe inclusion as “the degree to which people are and feel integrated in the different relationships, organizations, sub-systems and structures that constitute everyday life” (p. 9). Inclusion is not a simple word, but complex, multifaceted and even enigmatic. The problem arising from “definitional inconsistencies” is that they “contribute to uncertainty about how to best address issues of social exclusion” (Filia, Jackson, Cotton, Gardner, & Killackey, 2018, p. 185). Underpinning these is the misuse of key vocabulary. “Inclusion” and “integration” are used interchangeably, yet to “integrate” is to “blend in”; to “include” intends the maintenance of the differences in the minority. Therefore, to integrate rather than to include reinforces the power relations at play by inviting the minority to “fit in” rather than making space for, and embracing, their diversity. Careless use of vocabulary obfuscates the delivery of the intent for discursive inclusion, and compromises attempts for inclusion in practice. Belongingness is similarly bound by inclusion in the academic literature. However, while belonging comes from the perspective of the protagonist (not necessarily individual), inclusion encompasses external factors, including ­“policies, actions and decisions” (Berryman & Eley, 2019, p. 989). Clarity is essential when planning for inclusion, and planning for inclusion is essential because inclusion affects everybody, as it “has important and beneficial

70  Angela Tuck implications for health, well-being, and quality of life” (Filia et al., 2018, p. 183). Consequently, it is legislated for.

Legislation for Inclusion Inclusion remains a political responsibility even in times of austerity, because “socially excluded individuals place a significant burden on society, with socioeconomic consequences for government, community, and familial supports.” (Filia et al., 2018, p. 183). But the recognition that inclusion has wider implications for society pre-dates current austerity. A conference for inclusive education, held in Salamanca, Spain, in 1994, involved representatives from 92 governments and 25 international organisations. The outcome was the so-called Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994). It committed to educational reform within a broader social agenda including health, social welfare, and vocational training and employment, and emphasised the inclusion of various stakeholders including parents and community organisations in evaluating provision for inclusive education. Following the Salamanca Statement, the Council of Europe (1995) produced the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), a multilateral treaty ratified in 1998. The latter is “a legally binding instrument under international law, [and] the word ‘Framework’ highlights the scope for member states to translate the Convention’s provisions to their specific country situation through national legislation and appropriate governmental policies” (www.coe.int, 2020). Article 15 states “the parties shall create the conditions necessary for the effective participation of persons belonging to national minorities in ­cultural, social and economic life and in public affairs, in particular those affecting them” (www.coe.int, 2020). To do so requires each nation to gain an understanding of their national contemporary challenges to inclusion. I use the UK context to discuss some of the challenges and contradictions associated with inclusion, starting with the Runnymede Trust’s “Commission on the future of Multi-Ethnic Britain”. The Commission was an attempt to understand inclusion in the UK. It noted that “common values are necessary to hold (Britain) together and give it cohesion” (Parekh, 2000, p. 53). Adejgo et al.’s “Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review” (2007) was initiated in response to the ensuing debate about the extent of commonality and cohesiveness in the UK. It suggested endeavor to increase engagement “with issues around ‘race,’ religion, culture, identity and values in the UK today” (Ajegbo et al., 2007, p. 16). The report identified schools as key to challenging perceptions “through their ethos, through their curriculum and through their work with their communities” (p. 16). More was needed to secure a societal move toward inclusion. The Equalities Act 2010 sought to hold to account Ministers of the Crown – “holders of office

Social Inclusion 71 in Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom” (www.legislation.gov. uk) – in planning for the implementation of practices which promote equality. Following from that, the Children and Families Act (2014) was designed to reform services for vulnerable children, and the SEND1 Code of Practice (revised in 2015) detailed legal requirements and statutory guidance for duties of local authorities, health bodies, schools and colleges to provide for children and young people aged 0 to 25 with special educational needs.

Unhelpful Autonomy and Conflicting Responsibilities At the time of the introduction of these Acts, financial management for students identified with SEND was placed with local authorities, resulting in “patchy” provision across the country. Many specialist providers were closed and those students who would have attended them were moved into mainstream schools. Social services such as Sure-Start and Connexions were abolished, along with more specialist services such as the Traveller Education Service. Responsibility for the delivery of the various support they had offered was shifted directly from central government to schools. Concurrently, additional demands were made of schools. They were handed responsibility to manage teaching for personal and social relationships in three ways. First, the promotion of British Values, which underpinned them all. Department for Education (DfE) (2014) guidance for promoting British values states that “schools should promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs” (p. 4). Second, schools are obliged to embrace “Prevent Duty,” which refers to section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which in turn “places a duty on certain bodies [‘specified authorities’ listed in Schedule 6 to the Act], in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism” (DfE, 2015, p. 4). Third, there is “a new expectation for schools to celebrate cultural diversity and to facilitate equality of opportunity and tolerance [and to ensure] inclusivity [is] promoted at all levels of the school” (Deuchar & Bhopal, 2013, p. 738). This refers to specific Citizenship education, teaching the “‘knowledge, skills and understanding’ to ‘play a full and active part in society’” (Doingsmsc.org.uk, 2015). It requires education about the “diverse regional, national, religious and ethnic identities in the United Kingdom and the need for mutual respect and understanding” (DfE, 2013). So there is governmental acknowledgement of the need for inclusion, but the responsibility for implementing practices which work toward inclusion has been placed at school level, and without the support of services previously employed to facilitate inclusion. And this responsibility must be realised while schools educate against, and monitor for, radicalisation.

72  Angela Tuck

Inclusion in Practice in Education What does inclusion look like in education, given the decline in support services and the lack of coherence around how to manage the different strands of education relating to personal and social relationships? First, let us examine the intent for inclusion and remind ourselves that the legal requisite for inclusion gives the minimum-accepted outcome rather than providing an exemplar. Schools are required to interpret and apply government guidance in the way which best fits their individual profile. This is achieved in the publication of policies – documents pertaining to expectations around discrete factors of the school which outline the way in which the school operates – on the school website. At the time of writing there are 32 statutory policies for local ­authority-maintained schools, 27 of which are statutory for academies,2 though there is no statutory inclusion policy. Schools write their own versions of the statutory policies and are at liberty to add their own inclusion policy. In this way, policies both underpin and declare the ethos of the school. Arising from the intent for inclusion are practices which facilitate inclusion. As such they are an expression of the school’s ethos. Many schools recognize the benefit of having a school council, for example, which allows young people to experience some of the hierarchical formalities around the administration of the school and, if the school council is in collaboration with wider youth councils in the area, allows them to locate the school in the context of its contemporaries. Schools may have a discrete “student voice” group, where participating young people are allocated roles requiring them to assume responsibility for a particular facet of school life, such as Prefects to promote the learning ethos of the school and House Captains to promote a competitive spirit. As both school council and student voice are completely internally constructed and monitored, quite how inclusive these components are is determined by the ethos of the school. The variability in inclusion, which is determined by the school ethos, raises the question of how inclusion contributes to a school’s “success.” Successive governments have employed a social and economic discourse where “success” is measured by market-driven financial management and league-tables. It is labelled the “educational marketplace” (Cudworth, 2008, p. 362) and claims to preserve competitive and efficient governance of schools. But it perpetuates “contradictions in public policy between an emphasis on equality and inclusion alongside market-orientated reforms that encourage discrimination and exclusionary practices” (Cemlyn, Greenfields, Burnett, Matthews, & Whitwell, 2009, p. 101). Cudworth (2008) explains that “in the current climate of league tables, test results and standards, a paradoxical situation has been created, whereby a contradiction exists between the rhetoric of ‘standards’ and that of ‘inclusion’” (p. 366). And the validity of “inclusion” as it

Social Inclusion 73 is practised is questionable while central and local government practice ‘paper inclusion’ in the form of attendance and attainment data. That is to say, the government presents data as a measure of how successful practices for inclusion are. But data represents success measured on the terms of the majority society, and so is a measure of integration. In the reporting of data there is a lack of specificity in the grouping of ethnic minorities,3 lack of care in labelling groups,4 and lack of conviction when the data highlights areas for concern.5 It suggests government disinterest in the data, ergo the minority groups involved. Which calls into question the purpose of the data. It is seen that certain groups, in particular Gypsy/Roma, Travellers of Irish heritage and students with SEND have lower attendance than others.6 Gypsy/Roma, Travellers of Irish heritage and Black Caribbean students have higher exclusions than others.7 And Gypsy/Roma, Travellers of Irish heritage and students with SEND have lower attainment8 than others. The version of inclusion currently employed in education is failing. Why is this situation tolerated? If education is “a socialising tool that furnishes individuals with appropriate norms and values […] the education system exists as a means of inculcating all communities in a similar normative framework” (E. Cudworth & Cudworth, 2010, p. 30). It appeases the majority society by maintaining the (im)balance of power to their advantage. The Challenge of Perspective Part of the challenge of inclusion is that “it is a political ideal to be fulfilled in vastly different settings with varying resources and organisational traditions” (Magnússon, 2019, p. 678). Policies (which tell of political intentions) must translate to practice, and different perspectives, borne of different contexts, inevitably lead to different interpretations. So while there may be a common intent for inclusion, such as that embodied in the Salamanca Statement, “inclusion as a field of research reflects neither a single or homogenous ideology, but a range of understandings that vary greatly both in theory and in practice” (Magnússon, 2019, p. 681). Apathy is a problem, and worse, there is antipathy, particularly against certain groups, which is perpetuated – unchallenged by the authorities – by the media. And unless it is suppressed, it persists, as Bogdan found in Hungary. When the Roma Press Centre9 stopped actively stifling the racist media by challenging specific articles and television portrayals, “the term ‘gypsy crime’ spread” (Bogdan, 2017, p. 756).

The Politics of Inclusion What of the politics of inclusion? According to Larsen, Holloway, and Hamre (2019), in Denmark they “may actually make the gap between ideals and realities more visible” (p. 1049). But this is not a positive illumination of the issue,

74  Angela Tuck because “the incompatibility of the evaluation culture and conceptions of inclusion in the educational system not only challenge, but downright undermine and blur the task of inclusion” (p. 1052). So, a greater understanding is reached but it is undermined by the strength and pervasiveness of the persisting discourse, which in turn drives educational practice. This effect is seen in the lack of progress toward inclusion following the Salamanca Statement. Despite “much-welcomed enthusiasm to respond to global commitments” demonstrated in the “growth in inclusive education policies and pilot projects” (Lewis et al., 2019, p. 722), “the essential issues underpinning their financing mechanisms have changed very little” (Meijer & Watkins, 2019, p. 705). Inclusion is hindered because “governance mechanisms do not always successfully embed funding and resources within an integrated framework allowing for inter-­ institutional co-operation and co-ordinated provision” (p. 715). One outcome is that there persists a global deficit in training for inclusion in initial teacher training resulting in a lack of “necessary expertise and commitment to longerterm action and change” (Lewis et al., 2019, p. 722). If teachers are not trained for inclusion from the outset, their awareness of how to practice for inclusion as they progress through their careers into positions of wider responsibility is likely to be limited. A lack of investment for inclusion at all levels facilitates the perpetuation of the status quo. The Will to Change – Working Toward an Authentic Model of Inclusion in Education Where should we start to dismantle the cycle of inertia around inclusion? First, we need to grapple with the “human” factor. I use the term “Inclusion Paradox” to describe and explain the way in which inclusion is infused with perspective (Cator, 2019). Accepting that concept leads to the recognition that inclusion is a persistently evolving, situation-specific, personal construct. Actions for inclusion arise from engaging with it on those terms. McAnelly and Gaffney (2019) call for “pedagogy for participation” (p. 1081) – developing a ­“community of practice” where all members are “well skilled in enacting inclusive pedagogy” (p. 1086) to establish a “culture of belonging and contribution” (p. 1081). An exemplar is seen in the practice of “translanguaging” – b­ ilingual education, which DeNicolo (2019) found enabled “multilingual students’ active participation in making meaning through their developing languages” consequently “creating an inclusive classroom context for indigenous Latinx students” (p. 981). It takes us back to the nuance between inclusion and integration, demonstrating the difference between the two and highlighting the importance of that difference for inclusion in practice. We must recognize that there is variability in inclusion – different inclusions, which can also signify levels of inclusion. For some groups, such as

Social Inclusion 75 Travellers, there is “a choice between adaptation and extinction” (Levinson & Sparkes, 2006, p. 88). But enforced inclusion is not conducive to inclusion in practice. For them, employing different inclusions is empowering, and managing the extent of them can give them a level of control. This variable model of inclusion allows minority groups to engage and disengage with inclusion in different arenas: there is different inclusion into, and for, different groups or activities. And there is chronological variability in the type and level of inclusion. Embracing and working with variability in inclusion is an action for inclusion.

Dangerous Words – The Current Model of Inclusion in Education Social inclusion in education stumbles at meaningful attempts at inclusion. Cigman (2007) argues that, at its simplest, inclusion is a form of respect, but I come back again to the concept of perspective. As Koutsouris et al. (2020) point out, “people can understand and interpret respect differently” (p. 180). So, faced with the complexities of the concept of inclusion and the challenge of the changes in attitudes and behaviors needed for any meaningful attempt at inclusion, the current model of inclusion in education instead applies a version of pseudo-inclusion, more akin to integration. Not only is this version ineffective, it creates a damaging illusion by which the majority society can claim to be inclusive without investing socially or financially in the inclusion of the minority. It provides appeasement but lacks substance. It is a worked example of neoliberal ideology, tasking the minority for their failure to be included into an exclusive majority, and it largely persists in education systems globally to date.

Notes



1. Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. 2. Not statutory policies for academies relate to pay, governance and sex and relationships education. 3. The latest three school term (whole academic year) statistic available at the time of writing is for the academic year 2018/2019. The Explore Education Statistics website (2020) explains its grouping of ethnic minorities as such: “Mixed” represents “white and black Caribbean, white and black African, white and Asian any other mixed background.” “Asian” represents “Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi any other Asian background.” “Black” represents “black Caribbean, black African any other black background.” 4. The Explore Education Statistics website (2020) offers the subheading “Special educational needs (SEN) pupils” which is at odds with the accepted use of reference to young people with … rather than defining by the use of labels. 5. The Explore Education Statistics website (2020) explains “pupils of Gypsy/Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage ethnic groups had the highest rates of permanent and fixed-period exclusions – but as the population is relatively small these figures should be treated with some caution.”

76  Angela Tuck

6. Autumn term 2019/2020, the most recent data available at the time of writing. 7. Academic year 2016/2017, the most recent data available at the time of writing. 8. Academic year 2018/2019, the most recent data available at the time of writing, and using Progress 8 scores, which provide a relative measure using actual against expected progress from KS2 to the end of KS4. 9. “The Roma Press Center (RPC) is the first Roma news agency in Hungary with the goal of reducing prejudice against the Roma” (Bogdan, 2017, p. 751).

References Berryman, M., & Eley, E. (2019). Student belonging: Critical relationships and responsibilities. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(9), 985–1001. Bogdan, M. (2017). Roma Press Centre – 20 years of making a difference. Identities, 24(6), 751–759. Cator, A. (2019). The Inclusion Paradox – an examination of Travellers’ place in an East Coast high school (Ed.D thesis). UEA, Norwich. Cemlyn, S., Greenfields, M., Burnett, S., Matthews, Z., & Whitwell, C. (2009). Inequalities experienced by Gypsy and Traveller communities: A review. London: Equality and Human Rights Commission. Council of Europe. (1995). Framework convention on the protection of national minorities. Retrieved May 31, 2020 from https://www.coe.int. Cudworth, D. (2008). There is a little bit more than just delivering the stuff: Policy, pedagogy and the education of Gypsy/Traveller children. Critical Social Policy Ltd, 28(3), 361–377. Cudworth, E., & Cudworth, D. (2010). Educating the outcast? Policy and practice in the teaching of Gypsy/Traveller children. At the Interface/Probing the Boundaries, 60, 27–47. DeNicolo, C. P. (2019). The role of translanguaging in establishing school belonging for emergent multilinguals. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(9), 967–984. Department for Education. (2013). Statutory guidance national curriculum in England: Citizenship programmes of study for key stages 3 and 4. London: Crown Copyright. Department for Education. (2014). Promoting fundamental British values as part of SMSC in schools. London: Crown copyright, 4–5. Department for Education. (2015). The prevent duty. London: Crown copyright. Department for Education. (2019). National statistics. Crown copyright. Department for Education (2020). Explore education statistics. Crown copyright. Department for Education and Skills (2007). Diversity and citizenship curriculum review. Crown Copyright. Deuchar, R., & Bhopal, K. (2013). “We’re still human beings, we’re not aliens”: Promoting the citizenship rights and cultural diversity of Traveller children in schools: Scottish and English perspectives. British Educational Research Journal, 39(4), 733–750. Doingsmsc.org.uk. (2015). What is SMSC? Retrieved July 25, 2017 from http://www.doingsmsc. org.uk/. Filia, K., Jackson, H., Cotton, S., Gardner, A., & Killackey, E. (2018). What is social inclusion? A thematic analysis of professional opinion. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 41(3), 183–195. Foster, B., & Walker, A. (2009). Traveller education in the mainstream: The Litmus test. Hopscotch. Koutsouris, C., Anglin-Jaffe, H., & Stentiford, L., (2020). How well do we understand social inclusion in education? British Journal of Educational Studies, 68:2, 179–196. Larsen, T., Holloway, J., & Hamre, B. (2019). How is an inclusive agenda possible in an excluding education system? Revisiting the Danish Dilemma. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(10), 1049–1064.

Social Inclusion 77 Levinson, M., & Sparkes, A. (2006). Conflicting value systems: Gypsy females and the homeschool interface. Research Papers in Education, 21(1), 79–97. Lewis, I., Corcoran, S. L, Juma, S., Kaplan, I., Little, D., & Pinnock, H. (2019) Time to stop polishing the brass on the Titanic: Moving beyond “quick-and-dirty” teacher education for inclusion, towards sustainable theories of change. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(7–8), 722–739. Magnússon, G. (2019). An amalgam of ideals – images of inclusion in the Salamanca Statement. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(7–8), 677–690. McAnelly, K., & Gaffney, M. (2019). Rights, inclusion and citizenship: A good news story about learning in the early years. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(10), 1081–1094. Meijer, J. W., & Watkins, A. (2019). Financing special needs and inclusive education – from Salamanca to the present. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(7–8), 705–721. Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. Retrieved May 26, 2020 from https://www.oxfordlearnersdic tionaries.com. Parekh, B. (2000). The future of multi-ethnic Britain: The Parekh Report. London: Profile Books Ltd. The National Archives. (1975). Ministers of the Crown Act. Crown Copyright. UNESCO,. (1994). The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education. Retrieved May 26,2020 from HYPERLINK“https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/? url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.unesco.org%2F%5BAccessed&data=04%7C01%7Cs. themelis%40uea.ac.uk%7C8ff77a6b4b6e408b8b0c08d87e963827%7Cc65f8795ba 3d43518a070865e5d8f090%7C0%7C0%7C637398530941388771%7CUnknown% 7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1ha WwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=DeDNDkURsjRD4e5cNdXRQencwu Rf2YFL07JEX1q4nbY%3D&reserved=0” https://en.unesco.org/

10 Markets Dionysios Gouvias

In the last two decades, significant institutional changes that resonate with the neoliberal ideology have taken place across the globe, especially within the Higher Education (HE) sector. Neoliberalism, as a theory of political economic practices, “proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade […]” and “if markets do not exist (in areas such as […] education […]), then they must be created, by state action if necessary” (Harvey, 2005, p. 2). To Harvey’s notion of “necessary action” one could add convincingly the interstate and non-state actors, as we will see in our analysis. The neoliberal discourse in HE is gaining momentum across Europe, and indeed across the globe, under the combined pressures from international “players,” such as the European Union (EU), the OECD, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO), which –along with various transnational corporations – criticize the “state monopoly” in educational provision, and urge governments to “liberalize the educational market” (Harvey, 2005; Marginson, 2006). The cornerstones of this ideology regarding HE are the increasing reliance on “policy borrowing” at international level, the encouragement of private investment and the preponderance of competition among educational establishments, matched by diminishing rates of public expenditure (Auld & Morris, 2014; Ball, 2007; Ball & Youdell, 2007; Erkkilä & Piironen, 2014; Lipman, 2004). The present text will attempt to pinpoint the major advancements of neoliberal ideology, notably the “market” rhetoric in HE institutions across the EU, with special reference to Greece, as a simultaneously exemplary and exceptional case. Two important “policy levers” have been used so far for the radical overhaul of the European HE systems: (1) the intergovernmental agreements at EU-wide level; and (2) the publication of benchmarking indices and comparative rankings and the corresponding promotion of a “global competitiveness” ethos among academics institutions.

Markets 79 As the first policy lever is concerned, according to the European Higher Education Area’s (EHEA) aims (see the Bologna Declaration, on the 19th of June 1999, a purportedly educational strategy that transcends the EU level), and in line with the so-called “Lisbon Strategy” (a purely EU economic strategy, agreed on by member states in March 2000), the main pillars of the new EU policy on HE can be summarized as follows (CEC, 2003, 2004, 2005; CHEPS, 2010; Yerevan Communiqué, 2015): establishment of an across-the-board “culture of excellence” by concentrating on funding more “flexibility” and “openness” to the labour market in teaching/ learning fostering the “employability” of graduates throughout their working lives greater program “diversity” and more “mobility” promotion of “competitive procedures” at the universities creation of a network of “quality assurance agencies” (QAAs). What the literature documented in recent developments across Europe is the rise of a new institutional ethos, which stresses accountability, compatibility, comparability, new ways of funding and new management and/or governance practices of HE institutions (Aamodt et al., 2010; Federkeil, 2008; Frølich, Coate, Mignot-Gerard, & Knill, 2010; Miclea, 2003; Giesecke, 2006; Serrano-Velarde & Stensaker, 2010; Stankovic, 2006). Additionally, and in line with the Bologna Declaration, many initiatives have been taken by various governments of the EU in recent years toward the enhancement of the employability and mobility of citizens and the increase in the international competitiveness of the European system(s) of Higher Education (CEC/EACEA/Eurydice, 2013; Voegtle, Knill, & Dobbins, 2011; Yerevan Communique, 2015). For example, the Czech Republic “concentrates on enhancing the status of undergraduate education and supports on-the-job oriented Bachelor’s degree programs,” whereas in Italy, “the new higher technical institutes have been set up, [….] to respond to the skills demands of local economies, in particular in technological areas that correspond to the projects for industrial innovation in the plan ‘Industry 2015’” (CEC/EACEA/ Eurydice, p. 42). Some countries identified the short-cycle, two-year tertiary qualifications, focused on areas where a skills shortage exists, as being particularly effective in improving the link between education and labor market “needs” (CEC, 2012). The above are not arguments – much less assertions – that the Bologna Process is a unidirectional, homogenous and uninterrupted process. In a recent report by the European University Association (EUA) on the Bologna process (Sursock, 2015), it was stressed that “[D]espite the coordination effort of the

80  Dionysios Gouvias EC, the national policy reform process [in Higher Education] is very dynamic, but one that is no longer convergent even within the European Union […] policy approaches vary from country to country, and there is little policy coordination at the European level.” (p. 49; see also in CHEPS, 2010). In Greece, in the last 15 years new legislation has been introduced, which challenges the traditional autonomy of universities and other HE institutions (GMERRA, 2017; GMNELLRA, 2010, 2011; GMNERA, 2005a, b, 2007). These reforms propagate radical transformations in HE institutions, such as new types of studies (part-time degrees, long-distance and e-learning courses), new degree structures (progressive introduction of three-year degrees and two-year vocationally oriented courses, hitherto prohibited), more “applied” areas of knowledge and research, new funding arrangements (e.g. competitive bidding for research funding), new labor relations for academic personnel (e.g. changes in tenure and increasing reliance on short-term contracts, hiring of doctoral students or post-doctoral fellows), stricter regulations governing students’ obligations (e.g. length of study) and many more (for an early assessment of the trends see Gouvias, 2012a, b, c). One could hardly argue that the Greek HE institutions are “market-­ oriented,” in the sense that “the ideology of the ‘free market,’ […] is decisively influencing […] the agenda for educational reforming” (Gouvias, 2007a, p. 35). We should not forget that the Greek Constitution of 1975 (article 16) guarantees “free education for all” (the so-called Dorean Paedea) at every level of the education system. In Greece, university textbooks are provided free of charge for all students, while a considerable number of them (i.e. students) are also entitled – depending on income and other social ­c riteria – to free accommodation and lunches. In that sense, the Greek case is one of the most characteristic examples of resistance against the introduction of market reforms in education (for details see Gouvias, 2007a, 2012a, b). The private educational provision is insignificant, when compared to other countries. The private sector’s proportion of the total number of educational establishments, or of enrolled students, at primary and secondary levels, is extremely low (CDEP-GCWUG, 2015, pp. 15–50; HSA, 2017, pp. 131–136), whereas at higher level things are more restrictive for private initiatives since, according to the Greek Constitution, HE is provided exclusively by state establishments. Nevertheless, the austerity measures imposed on Greece in the last 10 years deeply affected public education too, with drastic spending cuts on almost everything, from faculty salaries to students’ welfare. This was the result of neoliberal policies that accompanied the successive bail-outs imposed by the “Troika” (consisting of the EU Commission, the ECB and the IMF), from May 2010 onwards. According to official figures, the (projected) public spending on Education in 2016 was 5% lower than in 2014 (GMERRA, 2016, p. 2), even

Markets 81 though a supposedly left-wing party (SYRIZA) was in power. Spending for HE institutions has been cut by nearly 60% from 2008 to 2014 (the decrease reached 68% for concurrent expenditure, including a 22% cut in student welfare) (GAOMEHR, 2014, table 2). This is a taken-for-granted “fact” for the Greek state authorities, and in every occasion, formally or informally, public HE institutions are encouraged to diversify their funding sources and create conditions for a “viable funding mechanism” and an “increase of institutional autonomy” (CNSDE, 2016, p. 71; HQA, 2017, p. 58). To these developments the contribution of indirect EU intervention is crucial, not only in terms of policy-making targets and specific directives, but also in terms of funding. As Gouvias (2011) showed, in the last three decades, there has been an increasing importance of EU funding on the smooth functioning of even basic dimensions of Greek public education. More specifically, ­hundreds of millions of euros from EU money have been channeled into the country’s public (i.e. state) schools and universities, under the umbrella of ­various EU programs. As Gouvias (2011, p. 401) explained “[T]he money poured into the various Higher Education departments –always distributed on a highly competitive basis – induces each academic to work, and most of all think, as an individual ‘investor’ […] who is trying to maximise his/her profit in outperforming the others” (see also what Ball [2003] described as the “ethics of competition.”). The previous Greek government (formed mainly by the left-wing party called SYRIZA), through the enactment of a Parliamentary Act (L. 4485/2017), and in sharp contrast to its previous commitment to total abolition – or at least radical reduction – of graduate study fees (for more relevant statements, see SYRIZA, 2016, p. 39), accepted de facto that the Greek state cannot financially support graduate studies and/or life-long learning structures, and it attempted to impose a regulatory framework that would balance the cost of those studies for the most needy (e.g. those below the official poverty threshold) (GMERRA, 2017). As far as the second policy-lever is concerned, that is the cultivation of a “competitiveness” ethos among academic institutions, the developments are more than conspicuous. The practice of comparing foreign educational systems, or institutions within the same system, has seized to be the reserve of specialized academics; it has been “transformed over the last 30 years and is now dominated by transnational agencies, consultancies, policy entrepreneurs, policy makers and the media” (Auld and Morris, 2014, p. 129). Comparisons now are “underpinned by a hard currency of statistical indicators, derived from educational surveys that promise an even rate of exchange across national boundaries” (ibid.). As Erkkilä and Piironen (2014) inform us, “[T]he first global university ranking was published in 2003 by Shanghai Jiao Tong University,” followed by “another global ranking produced by the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2004” (p. 181). Since then, new comparative rankings have emerged, which

82  Dionysios Gouvias draw the public’s attention with increasingly sophisticated indicators regarding the HE institutions’ quality across the globe.1 The compilation of performance indicators and rankings of universities goes hand-in-hand with a wide range of controls and monitoring mechanisms, such as the external assessment of the quality of research and teaching. The (­official) reasoning behind this development focuses on three specific objectives: (i) The allocation of limited public funds based on quantitative criteria; (ii) the codification of the academic labor process based on the use of comparable efficiency indicators for closer internal and external monitoring; and (iii) the encouragement of universities’ potential “clients,” mainly students (Maroudas & Kyriakidou, 2009). To frame these developments within the global socio-economic transformation, Rikowski (2012, p. 24) indicates that neoliberalism encourages free market-based development in HE “through the development of choice, competition, and [….] the buying and selling of goods and services.” This process refers not only to the so-called “knowledge production” in universities (modules, lectures and research projects), which is increasingly commodified, but also to the rise of antagonism between HE institutions (enterprises), staff (producers) and students (consumers), and among HE staff (Corbett, 2012; Erkkilä and Piironen, 2014; Federkeil, 2008; Klumpp, de Boer, & Vossensteyn, 2014; Stromquist, 2017). Standardized evidence, as this is provided by “big-data” analyses, makes it possible for institutions “to seek regional or national prestige via rankings, for legislators and funding agencies to efficiently and simplistically compare organizations, and for the public, now positioned as consumers, to ‘objectively’ compare institutions” (Wall, Hursh, & Rodgers III, 2014, p. 7). This obsession with rankings, has led – among other things – to the emulation, by many European universities, of certain success models – the so-called “Harvard” effect, that is the “identification and copying of certain institutional practices that are seen as recipes for success” (Erkkilä & Piironen, 2014, p. 182). The EU itself, as a powerful transnational policy body, with its own educational agenda (e.g. the Bologna Process and its connection to the Lisbon Strategy), has lately started to not only acknowledge, but to actively promote academic rankings in order to ensure “transparent information about the […] performance of individual institutions,” so that “policy-makers will be in a better position to develop effective higher education strategies, and institutions will find it easier to build on their strengths” (CEC, 2011, pp. 2–3). The European Commission even funded an initiative called “U-Multirank tool,” which is not a ranking per se, but rather a mapping of certain (preselected) attributes of HE (Kauppi & Erkkilä, 2011).2 Greece has been a relative “late-comer” in this global competition game, but there is a growing concern among academics about the placement of the Greek HE institutions in the most popular rankings (Stamelos &

Markets 83 Kavasakalis, 2017). From the early 2010s, national research bodies (e.g. the National Documentation Centre’s collection of bibliometric data), departmental research laboratories (e.g. the HEPNET at the University of Patras, with its regular report on the Greek HE institutions’ position in the world rankings) and individual academics and/or researchers spend significant time and resources in outlining the place of Greek HE on the global “academic map,” or rather “academic pyramid” (EKT, 2016; HEPNET, 2014, 2016). Additionally, an increasing number of popular daily newspapers and special educational portals devote space for the position of the Greek HE institutions in these rankings (Alphatv.gr, 2017; Lakassas, 2017; Nikolaou, 2017). What is more important, the HEI themselves start to pay special attention to international rankings, usually through praising their own standing on a national, European and global scale.3 As we have seen by examining the recent policy reforms and developments, the rhetoric of “restructuring,” “quality assurance,” “comparability,” “adaptability to the needs of the labor-market,” has started to dominate educational policy-making in Greece, as the country’s HE institutions are coming under an immense financial pressure to survive (Gouvias, 2012c). The Greek state (i.e. the class-based economic and political interests behind it) is becoming surprisingly interventionist and “regulatory” (Gouvias, 2007b), especially after the 2011 HE reform, and it is increasingly assuming a “pro-market” role. It seems to be responding – not without resistance, contradictions and even regression – to the global needs of capitalist production, which has been in an unprecedented transformation in recent decades (Bell, 1976; Castells, 1996; Held & McGrew, 2000). The imposition of the so-called “policy package of structural reforms” (i.e. the austerity measures) shows the limits of left-wing political interventions on the state mechanism in the given structural context of the global capitalist crisis. The state, especially in a politically centralized system such as the Greek one, despite the foot-dragging that preceded the last three bail-outs, seems to set the agenda for wider changes in educational restructuring, something that is actually an “alignment” of the functioning of educational institutions to the rapidly changing economic “necessities” of capitalist markets, at a national and global level. The capitulation of the (leftwing-turned-social-democratic) Greek government to the demands of Troika and the neoliberal experiment carried out according to its mandates (e.g. dismantling of the post-War Welfare state, privatization of public assets, introduction of market forces in every occupational domain, deregulation of the labor market, etc.) has its parallel developments in the educational field as well. The Greek government is trying to enforce – even with a notable delay – what has already been agreed upon by the Greek state authorities and the respective authorities of the other partners in the EU, and which has been in the (political) agenda for the last two decades. Since it became obvious –from

84  Dionysios Gouvias the summer of 2015 – that breaking away from the EU was impossible – some might say “undesirable” – the implementation of the neoliberal project in Greek HE is well under way.

Notes



1. For example, the “Webometrics”: http://www.webometrics.info/; the “QS World University Rankings”: https://www.topuniversities.com/; the “U.S. New & World Report”: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities?int=ad4909, the CWTS Leiden Ranking: http://www.leidenranking.com/ranking/; etc. 2. See also: https://ec.europa.eu/education/ initiatives/u-multirank_en and http://www. umultirank.org/#!/home?name=null&trackType=home. 3. For example, http://www.uoi.gr/ekpaideysi/university-rankings/, http://www.uoa.gr/ anakoinoseis-kai-ekdhloseis/proboli-newn/sta-300-kalytera-panepistimia-ston-­kosmoto-ekpa.html, https://www.ntua.gr/el/news/ntua-at-world/item/298-­mesa-sta-150prota-panepistimia-tou-kosmou-to-ethniko-metsovio-polytexneio, etc.

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86  Dionysios Gouvias Gouvias, D. (2012a). Accountability in the Greek Higher Education system as a high-stakes p­ olicy-making instrument. Higher Education Policy, 25(1), 65–86. Gouvias, D. (2012b). A new “Configuration” of the “Field” of Higher Education in latest reforms in Greece. Journal of the World University Forum, 5(2), 59–71. Gouvias, D. (2012c). The post-modern rhetoric of recent reforms in Greek Higher Education. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 10(2), 282–313. Greek Documentation Centre (EKT). (2016). Research & development expenditure and personnel in Greece, in 2014 (March 2016). Athens: EKT. (in Greek) Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs (GMERRA). (2016). State budget for education – 2016. Athens: GMERRA. (in Greek) GMERRA. (2017). Parliamentary Act 4485/2017: Organization and operation of Higher Education, and other provisions. Athens: Government Printing Office. (in Greek) Greek Ministry of National Education, Life-long Learning and Religious Affairs (GMNELLRA). (2010). National Plan for Higher Education – Self-government, Accountability, Quality, Extroversion. Consultation Document presented at the Greek University Rectors’ Conference, Rethymnon, Crete, 23 October 2010. Athens: GMNELLRA. (in Greek) GMNELLRA. (2011). Parliamentary Act 4009/2011: Structure, operation, quality assurance and internationalization of the Greek Higher Education institutions. Athens: Government Printing Office. (in Greek) GMNERA. (2005a). Parliamentary Act 3369/05: On Life-long learning and other provisions. Athens: Governmental Printing Office. (in Greek) GMNERA. (2005b). Parliamentary Act 3374/05: Quality assurance in Higher Education, European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) and diploma supplement. Athens: Governmental Printing Office. (in Greek) GMNERA. (2007). Parliamentary Act 3549/07: Reform of the institutional framework regarding the structures and operations of the Greek Higher Education institutes. Athens: Governmental Printing Office. (in Greek) Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Held, D., & McGrew, A. (2000). The global transformations reader. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency (HQA). (2017). Quality assurance report for Higher Education – 2016 (July 2017). Athens: HQA. (in Greek) Hellenic Statistical Authority (HSA). (2017). Hellas in Figures. April–June 2017. Retrieved on May 12, 2017, from http://www.statistics.gr. (in Greek) Higher Education Policy Network (HEPNET). (2014). The Greek Higher Education Institutions in the world rankings. Policy Report No11 (January). Patra: HEPNET. HEPNET. (2016). The Greek Higher Education Institutions in Webometrics. Policy Report No17. Patra: HEPNET. Kauppi, N., & Erkkilä, T. (2011). Struggle over global Higher Education: Actors, institutions and practices. International Political Sociology, 5(3), 314–326. Klumpp, M., de Boer, H., & Vossensteyn, H. (2014). Comparing national policies on institutional profiling in Germany and the Netherlands. Comparative Education, 50(2), 156–176. doi: 10.1080/ 03050068.2013.834558. Lakassas, A. (2017). Relegation of Greek Universities in the global ranking. Kathimerini, 9.6.2017. Retrieved on September 9, 2017 from http://www.kathimerini.gr/913121/article/­epikairothta/ ellada/ypoxwrhsh-ellhnikwn-aei-sthn-katata3h. (in Greek) Lipman, P. (2004). High Stakes Education: Inequality globalization, and urban school reform. New York, NY: Routledge/Falmer. Marginson, S. (2006). National and global competition in Higher Education. In: H. Lauder, P.  Brown, J.-A. Dillabough, & A.H. Halsey (Eds.), Education, globalization and social change (pp. 893–908). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Markets 87 Maroudas, L., & Kyriakidou, O. (2009). The Implementation of new public management in universities: From professional bureaucracy to new organisational forms. The Greek Review of Social Research, 130, 93–121. (in Greek) Miclea, M. (2003). Institutional-level reform and the Bologna Process: The experience of nine universities in South East Europe. Higher Education in Europe, 28(3), 259–272. Nikolaou, K. (2017). The Greek Universities’ position in the “Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)” (also known as the “Shanghai ranking”). EduGuide, on-line news and guide on Higher Studies. Retrieved on September 9, 2017 from https://www.eduguide.gr/ nea/poia-einai-h-katata3h-twn-ellhnikwn-panepisthmiwn-ana-gnwstiko-a/. (in Greek) Rikowski, G. (2012). “Life in the higher sausage factory.” Guest lecture to the Teacher Education Research Group – The Cass School of Education and Communities, University of East London. Retrieved on November 20, 2017, from http://www.ieps.org.uk/PDFs/lifeinthehighersausagefactory.pdf. Serrano-Velarde, K., & Stensaker, B. 2010. Bologna – realising old or new ideals of quality?. Higher Education Policy, 23(2), 213–226. Stamelos, G., & Kavasakalis, A. (2017). Quality assurance in Greek Higher Education: Tensions, development and implementation. In G. Stamelos, K. M. Joshi, S. Paivandi (Eds.), Quality assurance in higher education a global perspective (pp. 1–18). New Delhi: Studera Press. Stankovic, F. (2006). Entrepreneurialism at the University of Novi Sad. Higher Education in Europe, 31(2), 117–128. Stromquist, N. P. (2017). The professoriate: The challenged subject in US higher education. Comparative Education, 53(1), 132–146. doi:10.1080/03050068.2017.1254975. Sursock, A. (2015). Trends 2015: Learning and teaching in European universities. Brussels: European University Association. SYRIZA (Coalition of Radical Left). (2016). Main Action Plan prepared by the Central Committee for the 2nd Party Congress (June 2016). Retrieved on July 9, 2016, from http://www.syriza.gr. (in Greek) Voegtle, E. M., Knill, C., & Dobbins, M. (2011). To what extent does transnational communication drive cross-national policy convergence? The impact of the Bologna-process on domestic higher education policies. Higher Education, 61(1), 77–94. Wall, A. F., Hursh, D., & Rodgers III, J. W. (2014). Assessment for whom: Repositioning Higher Education assessment as an ethical and value-focused social practice. Research & Practice in Assessment, 9, 5–13. Yerevan Communiqué (the). 2015. Joint Statement regarding the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) of the Ministers of Education of the countries participating in the “Bologna Process,” meeting in Yerevan, Armenia, on 14–15 May 2015. Retrieved on September 9, 2017, from http://www.ehea.info/.

11 League Tables and Targets Patrick Yarker

English school league tables (“school performance tables”) were first published in 1992. They rank-order all state-funded schools in England, region by region, on the basis of annual public examination results: primarily in GCSE (16+) exams and Key Stage 2 (11+) National Curriculum tests. One way the Department for Education holds state-funded schools to account is by setting targets (currently “floor standards” and “­coasting” standards), notably in relation to attainment in public exams, and at Primary Level in relation to notional measures of “progress.” Government periodically resets these targets and changes the basis on which they are calculated. For league table purposes, the government requires a stated percentage of the examined cohort to achieve a given grade or level in relation to specified subjects and, in the case of primary schools, in relation to the amount of progress all pupils make between Key Stages 1 and 2 in Reading, Writing and Mathematics, as compared with pupils of similar prior attainment nationally.1 A school’s failure to meet targets may have significant consequences for the institution, including takeover by an academy-chain, or closure. Increases in public exam attainment (as defined) are presented by the Department for Education (DfE) as proof of increases in the standard of education provided by a state-funded school. Educational quality, a concept which reveals itself after a moment’s thought to be complex, multi-faceted, dynamic, and subject to a host of determining factors, is reframed as simply quantifiable: a score or set of scores (Fielding, 2006). This enables discussion about what might be understood as “educational quality” to be sidestepped, or quarantined by a requirement to acknowledge the conclusiveness of the quantitative measure. Application of such a measure also renders schools comparable on the apparently fair and objective grounds which numbers are deemed to provide. This serves the wider ideological purpose of facilitating the so-called parental “choice” of school, a necessary adjunct when entrenching a market in education. By de-limiting the matter of “quality” to questions of attainment-scores, governmental discourse can marginalize

League Tables and Targets 89 and disempower approaches which seek to value or appraise aspects of the qualitative or immeasurable. In recent decades, UK governments of various stripes, have committed to neoliberal economic policies and re-constituted the entire public sector under the rubric of efficiency, marketization and consumer-choice. The trajectory of such an approach is toward the privatization of as many aspects of public services as possible (Chitty, 2013). In England, the mechanism of league tables, and the deployment of centrally determined targets for schools, fits this broader project. It characteristically proceeds by disciplining the institution through performance indicators such as targets and tables, to bring home to individuals the reality of the new form of accountability within which they have been positioned. This new context is understood to shape the activities and decision-making of practitioners who work within it. What has come to be known as “hyper-accountability” in teaching (Mansell, 2007) undermines trust as a basis on which members of the public meet workers in schools, and as a way practitioners may themselves work together. The notion of a public service ethos or vocation is rendered redundant. Certain principles, found to have motivated teachers and to have made their practices meaningful, come to be supplanted by an alternative set from a tradition toxic to public service, namely that of private profit-making. In Stephen Ball’s words, “Beliefs are no longer important: it is output that counts.” (Ball, 2003, p. 223). A number of practical consequences in the lives of students and teachers result. The pressure to meet given targets, and to maintain or improve league table position, encourages practices which erode, contravene or overthrow the core purpose of schooling: to cater for the best educational interests of children individually and collectively. This properly child-centered value is ousted by the privileging of what is perceived to be of benefit to the institution. So, students are entered for qualifications which may not be educationally appropriate, useful or valuable but are seen as helpful in securing a school’s league table position. Conversely, a student may be prevented from taking an exam if, by the student’s taking it, the school’s performance seems likely to be worsened. Exclusion of children, or manipulation of registration details, ahead of highstakes public exams enables the calculation of a school’s headline results to appear more favorably. Individuals in schools have reportedly engaged in practices regarded as dishonest, in order to boost attainment in high-stakes exams. A school’s high league table position can make it more probable that students regarded as likelier to succeed under the current dispensation will apply for places there. This allows those schools which are their own admissions authority (such as all academies and free schools) more scope to shape their intake in

90  Patrick Yarker the hope of ensuring continued success in the system. Existing hierarchies are reproduced, together with existing inequalities. A league table system, combined with an outlook which prioritizes marketization, replaces with competition established practices of co-operation between schools across a locality. Competition makes it more difficult for ­education-workers to see themselves and their institutions as at the service of all the children of the area. Instead, competition encourages the valorization only of the children at “our” school. There need be no concern for, or responsibility toward, a child who ceases to belong to “our” school. Such an outlook can have a material effect on the way the educational rights of children excluded from a school are upheld. In order to make more teaching-time available for particular subject-­ areas, and so maximize the chance of meeting targets or boosting scores, schools have narrowed their curriculum. For the same reasons, schools have concentrated resources on designated groups of children, in ways which undermine notions of inclusion and equality. Teachers have found themselves harried to cram students for an exam, or to teach-the-test, rather than to engage students with a rounded and responsive curriculum offer, or enable wider student-choice. Such pressures undermine both the agency and the morale of education workers, and begin to reshape the way they see themselves. It becomes harder to inhabit the role of teacher as principled, ethically alert, and appropriately autonomous, rather than as instrumentalist, compliant and dependent for professional validation on external authorities (Ball, 2003). The fallibility of the statistical basis on which league tables are compiled has also been revealed (see Bird et al., 2005; Leckie & Goldstein, 2008, 2017). Use of target-setting and league tables helps to establish as the grounds for debate a particular version of what constitutes education, or how education is to be valued. League tables appear fair, easy to understand and helpful to parents and carers as they choose a school. Target-setting appears to serve the aim of raising educational standards. But the very simplicity of the mechanisms is deceptive. Everyone understands how a league table works, so the familiarity of the format prevents its being interrogated. Decisions which inform or help constitute the data from which the tables are compiled need not be made clear. Individual histories, circumstances and experiences which generate the aggregate scores are of no account. The notion that schools should compete rather than co-operate is naturalized. Targets reinforce the idea that educational progress is really measurable by testing, and that it is linear and predictable rather than recursive, uncertain, complicatedly context-bound, and better approached through observation and evaluation. A focus on numbers, norms and rankings makes it easier to regard the work of school as akin to the work of any other business: a matter of inputs

League Tables and Targets 91 and outputs and hence efficiency, in the sense criticized in another era by Lawrence Stenhouse: If we take the systematic efficiency model [for determining the quality of schools] then accountability is substituted for responsibility. In this sense, accountability is responsibility without freedom. Teachers and schools have little control of the criteria of accountability. They are tested, usually in terms of “product”, as in payment by results. Support for teachers then rests on a deficit model. (Stenhouse, 1975, p. 185) Stenhouse’s comment, with its reference to payment by results, is a reminder that a “systematic efficiency model” for determining the quality of schools has a history almost as long as state-funded schooling itself. “Payment by results” was the accountability system established by government following the 1870 Education Act. That system aimed, in the words of the distinguished historian Brian Simon, to: … concentrate the efforts of the teachers on the three Rs … The system was effectively enforced by an annual examination of all schools receiving a government grant, conducted by the inspectorate. The “standards” to be attained … were precisely defined by the Education Department … Grants to schools were calculated on the basis of the number of passes in each subject in each standard, together with the level of attendance during the year … No system could have been better designed to limit and stultify the educational process. (Simon, 1965, pp. 115–116) The struggle against that stultifying system, although long and hard, was successful. Those struggling against its contemporary version know that better ways to understand educational quality, and individual progress, have been put into practice in other countries, and continue to be pursued against the odds in this one.

Note

1. For further details, see: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/school-performancetables-about-the-data#history.

References Ball, S. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228. Bird, S., Cox, D., Farewell, V. T., Goldstein, H., Holt, T., & Smith, P. C. (2005). Performance indicators: Good, bad, and ugly. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, 168, 1–27.

92  Patrick Yarker Chitty, C. (2013). New Labour and Secondary Education 1994–2010. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, Chapter 6. Fielding, M. (2006). On the Promise and Poverty of Quality Teaching: Some Messages from Recent Research. Address to the Post Primary Teachers’ Association Professional Conference 2006: “Quality Teaching Leading The Way,” Wellington Convention Centre, Wellington, New Zealand. Gann, N. (2020). Recapturing the castle: Looking to the de-corporatisation of schools and a post-viral revival of educational values. FORUM, 62(3), 405–422. Leckie, G., & Goldstein, H. (2008). League tables: What can they really tell us?” Significance, 67–69. Leckie, G., & Goldstein, H. (2017). The evolution of school league tables in England 1992–2016: “Contextual value-added,” “expected progress” and “progress 8.” British Educational Research Journal, 43(2), 193–212. Mansell, W. (2007). Teaching by numbers; the tyranny of testing. London: Politicos Publishing. Simon, B. (1965). Education and the labour movement 1870–1920. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Stenhouse, L. (1975). An introduction to curriculum research and development. London: Heineman.

12 Managerialism Richard Hall

Managerialism is now operating much more intensively inside increasingly corporate educational institutions. It rests on a belief that traditional, ­public-sector organizations are inefficient and lack the organization and leadership to maximize student learning outcomes or teaching quality (Friedman, 1962; Gates Foundation, The, 2014). New forms of public management, like deliverology (Devarajan, 2013) or the World Bank’s “science of delivery,” are implemented to rationalize and quantify processes and goals that are grounded in techniques of performance management. Often these processes are crystallized inside individuals and institutions as performativity, or the incorporation of hegemonic practices and beliefs (Ball, 2003; Butler, 2015). Across educational domains, managerialism reshapes the curriculum around commodity-valuation rooted in the measurement of teacher/ student performance, like income generation, research outputs, employability metrics or student outcomes and progression rates (Hoareau McGrath, Guerin, Harte, Frearson, & Manville, 2015). Any hope for those opposed to new forms of managerialism that radical subjectivity might emerge from the messy realities of the curriculum are lost in the processes of performance that subvert the concrete work that teachers and students do inside and outside the classroom. In theorizing these processes, Ball (2012) writes of three stages of neoliberalism, as a governance project that seeks the managerial control of everyday life. The first proto stage refers to the intellectual genesis and maturation of the neoliberal project. This stage witnesses a cultural attack on the everyday reality of the public and of the State, and it lays the groundwork for managing a consensus around the value of the market in defining the production of everyday life. In the second, rollback stage, social life that was hitherto experienced as public, and which included free-at-the-point-of-delivery education, is ­broken-up. Rollback connects to the third, rollout stage of the new neoliberal normal, through for instance: public policy that enables privatization; the insuring or indenture of access to public goods like higher education; and, opening up access to public, educational data for private gain.

94  Richard Hall Inside education in the global North, these processes are reinforced through new public management techniques (Davies, 2014), which accelerate the quantification of academic practices through performance metrics related to teaching quality, learning environment, student outcomes and research impact (Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS), 2015). Managerial processes that are grounded in the quantified academic self are amplified by competition, which forces individual universities: to restructure using bond finance to enable capital investment; to rebrand themselves for international markets; to engage in labor arbitrage, or the reduction in labor costs, through precarity and outsourcing; to drive strategies for entrepreneurialism or social enterprise, which refocus academic work on spin-out companies and intellectual property or generate new brand identities; and to engage explicitly in corporate partnerships with publishers and finance capital that pivot around the production of value. Here the proto phase of the marketization of higher education meets the rollback of State funding and regulation, and the rollout of opportunities for marketization and accumulation, in a messy and contested set of spaces (Mazzucato, 2013). Such contestation demands the imposition of managerialism inside the corporate University, in order to regulate the institution and those who labor within it. This is imposed through: techniques of coordination, like service development plans and workload management that identify academics and students as resources (Ball, 2003; McGettigan, 2015); performance-management techniques that seek to optimize outcomes or impact (DBIS, 2015); and the imposition of systems of command, such as those which emerge from more nuanced analysis of the data produced by academics and students, including learning analytics (Crawford, 2014) and “liquid information” (Manyika et al., 2013). As a result, managerialism signals appropriate behaviors amongst academic communities, so that obedience is reproduced (Foucault, 1975; Tiqqun, 2001). For Foucault (1975), such forms of regulation crystallize disciplinary management by: drawing up tables; prescribing movements; imposing exercises; and arranging tactics. Disciplinary managerialism enables a qualitative shift in the types of outcomes accumulated, whether they are framed as student satisfaction, research impact, institutional surpluses, teaching excellence and so on. A critical moment in the generation of managerialism across higher education is the entrepreneurial turn inside the University, as that working space mirrors the generation of the creative-commodity economy outside. This turn recasts the academic as innovator whose formation inside-and-outside the University can be witnessed and judged as creative and valuable, not because it is useful, but because it can be exchanged and can generate a surplus or a profit (Hall & Smyth, 2016). This is not about the relationships that the academic has either with her peers, her students or most importantly herself (Amsler 2015;

Managerialism 95 hooks 1994); it is about the enclosure and commodification of that life under the organization of the market. A critical managerial impact of this internalization of performance is the reduction of academic autonomy, which is accompanied by new, systemic myths that prioritize “resilience” as key performance characteristics (Plan, 2014). An individual’s resilience inside an organization is here defined as a positive emotional and cognitive adaptation despite experiences of significant adversity. As managerialism generates academic alienation, for instance through targets for external income generation, faster turnaround times for assessment feedback, and new workload models, the resilient individual has to adapt to survive (Hall, 2018). Managerialism enables the restructuring of the University as a business through the alienated academic-self (Tokumitsu, 2014). Target-driven fears and anxieties form the internalized boundaries of a structural and structuring performance management (Ball, 2003; Hall & Bowles, 2016). In education, such internalized managerialism reifies certain forms of work because they are intellectual, creative or social, whilst also internalizing the demand to be competitive and outcomes-focused. Thus, as managerialism enforces the routinization and proletarianization of educational work (Cleaver, 2000), academic labor becomes subsumed inside a structure that exists for the autonomy of Capital alone (Hall, 2014; Marx, 1993). Here, under the law of value, labor is alienated from the individual worker and reproduces capitalist social relations. These social relations, framed by competition, the market and commodification, reinforce precarious employment, the drive for productivity and an attrition on labor costs and rights. The purpose of this is to frame social relations for the production of surplus-value, and not to support the autonomy or freedom of individuals. Education as a global, economic sector, and individual educational institutions are caught up in these cycles of competition, reinforced through managerialism, and centered upon the production, consumption and financialization of educational services as commodities. Across higher education in the Global North, this has been amplified through the rapid increase in student fees and institutional debt, the implementation of student satisfaction and teaching quality metrics, a focus upon student outcomes in terms of future earnings and employability and ongoing institutional and subject-based audits related to research and teaching. Generally, such educational imperatives sit inside a wider policy framework focused upon human capital and productivity (Hall, 2018). Such tactics focus competition for scarce resources like student numbers and research funding at both the institutional and subject-level. As a result, managerialism, as a reflection of the internalization of competition across institutions, comes to dominate and control autonomy over time, such that teachers and students have increasingly little control over their activities. Moreover,

96  Richard Hall individual teachers and students are increasingly aware of their own situation in a symmetrical relation to each other. Competition is the completest expression of the battle of all against all which rules in modern civil society. This battle, a battle for life, for existence, for everything, in case of need a battle of life and death, is fought not between the different classes of society only, but also between the individual members of these classes. Each is in the way of the other, and each seeks to crowd out all who are in his way, and to put himself in their place (Engels, 1845/2009, p. 111). Thus, managerialism drives the proletarianization of education by re-­ engineering the work of teaching and learning, scholarship and research and administration, so that the focus becomes less the concrete labor that produces the classroom or its teaching materials, scholarly outputs or engagements with a range of publics. Instead, a managerial focus rooted in the delivery of outcomes, repositions institutional work against the exchange-value that can be extracted from those products. Thus, managerialism drives and responds to competition for research funding, knowledge transfer, impact or the fees that accompany student retention. Moreover, given the competitive framing for global education, generating efficiencies in time through technological and organizational innovations enables educational labor to be stripped of its intellectual content. Such innovations are predicated upon the development of the productive power of academic labor and an attrition on its costs. As a result, managerialism drives productivity, intensity and competition, by amplifying the flows between: • • • •

• •

Technological and organizational innovation, and the production/consumption of new services, such as workload management systems and learning analytics. An attrition on the labor-time for assessing/teaching/publishing compared to rival institutions, through performance management. Casual and precarious employment, in order to drive down labor costs. Changes in the technical conditions of the process of academic production, which enable new accumulations of academic products to become additional means of production, for instance, through Massive Open Online Courses. The accumulation of surpluses that can be invested in estates and infrastructure projects; and The drive to centralize and monopolize the production, circulation and accumulation of academic value through comparative national and international league tables.

However, in these sets of interconnected processes, it is important to highlight how managerialism exists as a terrain of domination, enacted through a

Managerialism 97 range of corporate partnerships, including those with policymakers, software retailers, educational publishers, management consultants, venture capitalists and so on. These terrains of domination operate transnationally, and ensure that managerialism can be leveraged through associations of capitals, rather than simply being exerted inside discrete, educational institutions. As a result, competition can be enacted through cultural norms that are presented as transnational and transhistorical, and managed through hegemonic cultural definitions and recognitions (Connell, 1987), which are forms of enclosing alternative narratives (Braidotti, 2011). Thus, in particular, managerialism is the deterritorialization of positions and modes of becoming that are not defined as white, male and heteronormative. Such positions and modes of becoming are re-territorialized in order to maintain hegemonic processes of becoming and reproduction. Thus managerialism in its deployment of organizational forms, technologies and institutional spaces, pedagogic practices and assessment regimes, seeks to maintain the domination of the market and the commodification of educational life for value. As such, in overcoming managerial domination, it becomes important to nurture alternative educational spaces with alternative modes of democratizing governance, which seek to abolish ideas of management and leadership that simply reinforce hegemonic, alienating anchoring points (Braidotti, 2011; Yuval-Davis, 2006). Thus, one crucial rupture point in this struggle between Capital and Labor for autonomy is the raising of voices that are systematically marginalized. Processes of managerialism tend to increase the pressures on subjects who are female, feminized and/or racialized, in workplaces that function as white, male hegemonies (Arday & Mirza 2018; Gallant, 2014; James, 2013). Managerialism reproduces educational practice through a white curriculum that is rooted in colonial power, and inside institutions where it is exceptionally difficult for individuals racialized as black to attain high-status positions, like professorships (Rhodes Must Fall, 2020; Why is my curriculum white? collective, 2015). The managerial recalibration of institutions around specific forms of performance that are productive of value amplifies methods of exclusion, because the construction of educational settings is framed by those who have the power to voice in those spaces, and to co-author those spaces. The underlying, ongoing logics of colonialism are revealed inside educational institutions that reflect a power structure rooted in further colonization that serves the purposes of value production, circulation and accumulation. In responding to the ongoing colonization of education by managerialism, it is important that educators and students contest the democratic deficit inside their own institutions, which is revealed in day-to-day performance management and governance practices (McGettigan, 2014). Emergent themes connected to personal narratives need to highlight the local, regional and transnational impacts of managerialism on the bodies and souls of educators

98  Richard Hall and students (Hall, 2018). This is important because managerialism that is designed to open up and connect datasets around academic performance, like progression, the repayment of student fees and future earnings profiles for graduates, stitches education into global geographies of financialization and marketization (Ball, 2012). As educational performance becomes a tradable commodity, and as curriculum inputs are re-engineered to enhance futures trading in educational outcomes and earnings (McGettigan, 2015), there is a need to think through how the management and governance of education might be liberated as a form of open, co-operative, common property that is itself rooted in social struggle beyond the University. Might e­ ducators and students build something that is engaged and full of care, and where they no longer simply learn to internalize, monitor and manage their own alienation.

References Arday, J., & Mirza, H. S. (Eds.) (2018). Dismantling race in Higher Education: Racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Amsler, S. (2015). The education of radical democracy. London: Routledge. Ball, S. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228. Ball, S. (2012). Global Education Inc. New policy networks and the neo-liberal imaginary. London: Routledge. Braidotti, R. (2011). Nomadic theory: The portable Rosi Braidotti. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Butler, J. (2015). Notes toward a performative theory of assembly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cleaver, H. (2000). Reading Capital Politically. Oakland, CA: AK Press. Connell, R. (1987). Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Crawford, K. (2014). The anxieties of Big Data. The New Inquiry. Retrieved from http://thenewin quiry.com/essays/the-anxieties-of-big-data/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Davies, W. (2014). The limits of neoliberalism: Authority, sovereignty and the logic of competition. London: SAGE. DBIS. (2015). Fulfilling our Potential: Teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_ data/file/474227/BIS-15-623-fulfilling-our-potential-teaching-excellence-social-mobilityand-student-choice.pdf (Accessed 29 June 2020). Devarajan, S. (2013). Deliverology and all that. Retrieved from http://blogs.worldbank.org/ developmenttalk/deliverology-and-all (Accessed 29 June 2020). Engels, F. (1845/2009). The condition of the working class in England. London: Penguin. Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. London: Penguin. Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gallant, A. (2014). Symbolic interactions and the development of women leaders in higher education. Gender, Work & Organization, 21(3), 203–216. Gates Foundation, The. (2014). College-Ready Education, Strategy Overview. Retrieved from http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/US-Program/College-Ready-Education (Accessed 29 June 2020).

Managerialism 99 Hall, R. (2014). On the abolition of academic labour: The relationship between intellectual workers and mass intellectuality. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 12(2), 822–837. Retrieved from http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/597/638 (Accessed 29 June 2020). Hall, R. (2018). The alienated academic: The struggle for autonomy inside the university. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hall, R., & Bowles, K. (2016). Re-engineering higher education: The subsumption of academic labour and the exploitation of anxiety. Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labour, 28, 30–47. Retrieved from http://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/article/view/186211/185389 (Accessed 29 June 2020). Hall, R., & Smyth, K. (2016). Dismantling the curriculum in Higher Education. Open Library of the Humanities, 2(1), p.e11. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.66 (Accessed 29 June 2020). Hoareau McGrath, C., Guerin, B., Harte, E., Frearson, M., & Manville, C. (2015). Learning gain in Higher Education. RAND Corporation. Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/pubs/ research_reports/RR996.html (Accessed 29 June 2020). hooks, bell. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. London: Routledge. James, J. (2013). Transcending the talented tenth: Black leaders and American intellectuals. New York, NY: Routledge. Manyika, J., Chui, M., Farrell, D., Van Kuiken, S., Groves, P., & Almasi Doshi, E. (2013). Open data: Unlocking innovation and performance with liquid information. McKinsey Global Institute. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/28Qy8aN (Accessed 29 June 2020). Marx, K. (1993). Capital, Volume 2: A critique of political economy. London: Penguin. Mazzucato, M. (2013). Financing innovation: creative destruction vs. destructive creation. Industrial and Corporate Change, 22(4), 851–867. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/ dtt025 (2 November 2020). McGettigan, A. (2014). Financialising the University. Arena Magazine. Retrieved from http://arena. org.au/financialising-the-university/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). McGettigan, A. (2015). The Treasury View of HE: Variable Human Capital Investment. Political Economy Research Centre, Papers Series 6. Retrieved from https://www.perc.org.uk/ project_posts/perc-paper-the-treasury-view-of-higher-education-by-andrew-mcgettigan/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Plan, C. (2014). We Are All Very Anxious. Retrieved from http://www.weareplanc.org/blog/ we-are-all-very-anxious/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Rhodes Must Fall. (2020). Rhodes Must Fall. Retrieved from http://rhodesmustfall.co.za/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Tiqqun. (2001). The Cybernetic Hypothesis. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/mTWhMI (Accessed 29 June 2020). Tokumitsu, M. (2014). In the Name of Love. Jacobin Magazine, Issue 13. Retrieved from https:// www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/in-the-name-of-love/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). “Why is my Curriculum White?” collective. (2015). 8 Reasons the Curriculum is White. Retrieved from http://wire.novaramedia.com/2015/03/8-reasons-the-curriculum-is-white/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Yuval-Davis, N. (2006). Intersectionality and Feminist Politics. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13(3), 193–209. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506806065752 (Accessed 2 November 2020).

13 Employability Tom G. Griffiths and Bill Robertson

At face value, who could argue against efforts to use education, whether schooling or post-schooling, to address the “employability” of individuals or populations for productive work? A “developmentalist” logic has arguably prevailed across capitalist and historical socialist societies, with a shared faith in endless, linear, economic growth and development (Wallerstein, 1995). The role of human labor in this globalized development project led to human capital theory, whereby investments in education would produce an economic return to the nation, and to individuals themselves, coming from their improved levels of training and productivity (for the early elaboration of this, see Schultz, 1961). The promise of an economic return to individuals reinforces key messages that have also been consolidated as “common sense.” These include the idea that individuals should cover an ever-larger proportion of their education costs, particularly at higher levels; and in turn the idea that finding meaningful employment and wider social well-being is primarily, if not entirely, the responsibility of individuals, grounded in their taking action (and individual responsibility) to make themselves employable. We are all too familiar with this sort of language in public policy generally, and in education policy and practice in particular, albeit with locally specific variations shaped by local histories and conditions. To develop a sense of “employability” we consider it first in terms of the Soviet and capitalist perspectives of national development, as noted above, to highlight some common features across ideologically opposed social and political systems, and then through a world-systems analysis approach to challenge the term more deeply. Under the Soviet version of historical socialism, an emphasis on lifting labor productivity through education was evident across its history. A major aspect of historical socialism was its focus on the rational planning of production and distribution, to make optimal use of physical and human resources on the path toward socialism and communist abundance. The push for increased ­productivity of human capital was geared toward the fruits of the labor provided by the more highly educated workforce contributing to the common good. There was clearly a humanitarian impetus in the massive expansion of

Employability 101 education at all levels following October 1917, particularly aimed at redressing the historical exclusion from the benefits of education of working-class and peasant populations (Johnson, 2008; Laibman, 2017). At the level of Higher Education, the over-arching and dominant view of its role in Soviet society and in the construction of socialism and communism, was to “train a professional workforce for the needs of the state, using the ‘human material’ of the state and state-owned material resources” (Kuraev, 2016, p. 184). As expressed by Johnson (2008), higher education embraced the “fundamental goals of industrial modernisation and social development, at the same time that millions more gained access to new professional careers and other vocational opportunities” (p. 163). This was, explicitly, a training model approach to higher education. Khrushchev’s (1956) report to the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union offers a further, succinct articulation of this, at a time when the Soviet Union was officially endorsing the concept of a “peaceful transition” to socialism in newly independent, developing countries: Soviet people know that higher productivity of labor is the foundation of their increasing well-being. Hence we must tirelessly improve the organization of labor and production and do away with wastage of material resources and working time (p. 11). It was Khrushchev who launched the Soviet Union’s program of providing university education, free of charge, to students from newly independent, post-­ colonial, “developing” or “under-developed” states in 1956 (Griffiths & Charon Cardona, 2015). This program included the creation of dedicated universities in the Soviet Union to receive these students, though the majority undertook their studies in regular Soviet institutions, alongside Soviet investments in educational facilities in the countries themselves. The founding Chancellor of the Patrice Lumumba University, more commonly known as the People’s Friendship University in Moscow, similarly affirmed the importance of preparing highly qualified human capital for their developing home countries: The experience of Soviet Union and the socialist countries had shown that is impossible to increase the productivity of a society without the creation of the national intelligentsia, with broad knowledge of contemporary science and educated in a patriotic spirit (Rumiantsev, 1960, p. 5). The capitalist variant was no less instrumental, emphasizing a measurable rate of return on investments in education under a human capital theory approach.

102  Tom G. Griffiths and Bill Robertson Schultz’ (1961) articulation of the rationale for investing in education had observed that “It simply is not possible to have the fruits of a modern agriculture and the abundance of modern industry without making large investments in human beings” (p. 16). This thinking connected directly with Rostow’s (1959) anti-communist manifesto, elaborating universal stages of economic growth that could be achieved by all states, provided the “correct” choices were made by policymakers. Preparing human capital for more efficient/productive employment in the national economy was an integral factor in this theorizing. We see this logic in a 1980 World Bank Education Sector paper, for example, which claimed that: Studies have also shown that economic returns on investment in education seem, in most instances, to exceed returns on alternative kinds of investment, and that developing countries obtain higher returns than the developed ones …. education facilitates the advancement of knowledge in pure and applied fields (World Bank, 1980, p. 14). The common emphasis we are highlighting here, across the socialism of the Soviet Union and the capitalist, post-War reconstruction vision of the World Bank, is one of expanded and more specialized education to create a productive and disciplined labor force that can deliver national economic growth and development. The specific language of “employability” is not in circulation, but the grounds for its use and abuse are established. Of course, the geopolitical context is radically different today, and the language of “development” and “underdevelopment” is more qualified. However, ideas of enhanced individual employability through education and training, on this grounding of education to prepare a productive and disciplined labor force, has arguably come to dominate educational policy globally, again with local variations. The basic principles of human capital theory are evident across contemporary policy, along with a seeming resurgence of modernization/ developmentalist theory presenting all nations (and all individuals within nations) as able to achieve economic growth and well-being, so long as the correct policies are followed, and correct decisions made both by the nation and by individuals. At this macro-level, points of multiple critique are evident. Under the reality of structural unemployment in capitalist contexts, and growing references to the “persistent jobless growth” (World Economic Forum, 2014, p. 11) as a feature of economic recovery, Vally and Spreen’s (2012) insight into how “education is perceived as a panacea for problems that have their root causes elsewhere in the wider economy and society” (p. 179) is more relevant than ever. From a world-systems perspective, taking the historical development and trajectory of

Employability 103 the capitalist world-economy as its primary unit of analysis, the “developmentalist” logic of endless, linear, growth and development for all nation-states is inherently flawed. World-systems analysis points to the historical and ongoing accumulation of capital in the core areas of the capitalist world-economy as resting, in part, on the transfer of surplus from the periphery to the core, and so on the relative immiseration (low wages, poor conditions, high unemployment regardless of formal skills and credentials) of peripheral zones of the world-economy (Wallerstein, 2005). Under the current neoliberal phase of capitalism, and the associated conditions of austerity in many parts of the world (including core states) as public provision of services is rolled back, the tensions associated with the paradigm of education as panacea are exacerbated. This extends to both the myth of education as the instrument to resolve a nation’s relative under-development, and as the primary means for individuals to become more employable, and so to achieve the centrist liberal dream of upward social mobility through education and employment (Wallerstein, 2011). Revisiting his credential inflation thesis, whereby ever increasing levels of formal credentials are required by workers for the same jobs, Randall Collins (2013) recently highlighted how “the mass inflationary school system tells its students that it is providing a pathway to elite jobs, but spills most of them into an economy where menial work is all that is available unless one has outcompeted 80% of one’s school peers. No wonder they are alienated” (p. 53). Blacker (2013) presents a similarly bleak state of affairs. Not surprisingly then, after decades of neoliberal discourse, policy and practice, these sorts of structural causes of unemployment, and with them the failure to make use of human skills and talent, seem to have been written out of the official story. The concept of “employability,” under current conditions operates to shift all emphasis and responsibility for such outcomes onto individuals themselves, who must endlessly make and remake themselves in a bid to become and remain “employable.” Decades of policy emphasizing individual choice, of policy shifting responsibility for a range of once public services onto private providers, has sought to absolve the state, and implicitly the overarching capitalist economic system, of any responsibility for these systemic failures. Worse still, despite increased levels of formal qualifications as Collins and others have documented, “employability” is increasingly used as a punitive tool by the state, linked to conditional forms of welfare. Crisp and Powell (2016), for example, argue that the way the term has been colonized by the state has made it inadequate for analyses of unemployment and marginalization. As with so many of the words addressed in this volume, “it remains a legitimate object of academic analyses in terms of how it functions as a discursive formation to validate particular forms of neoliberal statecrafting” (Crisp & Powell, 2016, p. 20).

104  Tom G. Griffiths and Bill Robertson The results of these sorts of measures will be well-known to readers of this volume, including growing rates of unemployment, under-employment and low-paid employment (working poor) within all parts of the world-economy. In the process, the myth of employment following making oneself (more) “employable” through education and training is repeatedly exposed. Reporting on the exodus of Nepalese youth seeking work in “slave labor” type conditions in Qatar, Fagotto (2014) observed that “Remaining in Nepal is not an option,” citing a 19-year-old youth’s reflection that: “In this country it doesn’t matter how much you study, you will never get a job,” (p. 10). Responses like this, from what might once have been extreme or outlier conditions, risk becoming more generalized across all areas of the world-economy. Raising and questioning the “employability” of labor is, we argue, one of many “false” problems we are presented with in the face of structural crises of capitalism as a world economic system. This so-called “problem” deflects attention from the actual, systemic causes of current crises, and from the need to radically reimagine and redistribute work and socio-economic well-being, and so the need to radically reimagine and create the structural systems that can deliver this for people everywhere. This is not a call for a return to some romanticized past in which the developmentalist logic delivered on its promises of generating national economic growth, and jobs, such that upward social mobility through education could be realized. Like many others, we are emphasizing that current conditions are qualitatively and quantitatively worse, tied to the trajectory of global capitalism and its structural incapacity to resolve multiple crises without a systemic change. Under current conditions, ­“employability” becomes a concept that hollows out possibilities, diverting attention from the necessary task of constructing alternative systems of universal, meaningful, fulfilling, socially useful work and labor. The alternative systems and structures required must be non-capitalist alternatives, in which the underlying logic of the system ceases to facilitate the endless accumulation of capital and extraction of surplus value as profit. Breaking this systemic logic is a prerequisite for reversing human-induced global warming that if unchecked, risks destroying the capacity of the globe to support human life entirely, and so is a prerequisite for creating alternative systems of ecologically sustainable production and consumption that can fulfil human needs universally. In keeping with the world-systems analysis framework used here, we make no claim to a detailed prescription of how this alternative future could and should be organized, and how it would function (see e.g. Wallerstein, 1998). With respect to education, there is a critical role to be played in preparing citizens across the globe with the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed to contribute to the required transition toward alternative local and global systems. We might, for example, replace concepts like education

Employability 105 for “employability” with education for “living well,” as advocated in some Latin American countries in recent years seeking to elaborate and build a model of socialism for the 21st century (Ellner, 2013; Griffiths, 2013; Harnecker, 2013). There is no shortage of literature under the broad banner of critical pedagogy/critical education that can inform thinking and action by educators who are themselves conscious of and committed to the need for systemic change. More broadly, we argue that the global convergence of curricular themes like global citizenship, environmental sustainability, multi-­culturalism, etc., provide significant spaces within official curriculum content to develop students’ critical consciousness of social reality and the need to act to transform reality. The objective realities of ongoing and worsening wars, poverty, austerity, inequality, within and between countries, underpins the popular rejection of the elite political class being experienced and expressed in many parts of the world, and arguably the growing search for and attraction to alternative social and political movements, and social practices (Mason, 2015; Wallerstein, Collins, Mann, Derlugian, & Calhoun, 2013). Any number of myths of contemporary capitalism – for example, social mobility through education, ­trickle-down wealth distribution, ecological sustainability under production for profit – are at breaking point, supporting the work of critical educators within existing, globalized education systems. As articulated by Wallerstein (1999): “These are our times, and it is the moment when social scientists will demonstrate whether or not they will be capable of constructing a social science that will speak to the worldwide social transformation through which we shall be living” (p. 201).

References Blacker, D. J. (2013). The falling rate of learning and the neoliberal endgame. Winchester, U.K.: Zero Books. Collins, R. (2013). The end of middle-class work: No more escapes. In I. Wallerstein, R. Collins, M. Mann, G. Derlugian, & C. Calhoun (Eds.), Does capitalism have a future? (pp. 37–69). Oxford, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Crisp, R., & Powell, R. (2016). Young people and UK labour market policy: A critique of “employability” as a tool for understanding youth unemployment. Urban Studies, Online first. doi:10.1177/0042098016637567. Ellner, S. (2013). Introduction: Latin America’s radical left in power: Complexities and challenges in the twenty-first century. Latin American Perspectives, 40(3), 5–25. doi:10.2307/23466002. Fagotto, M. (2014, July 19, 2014). Soccer’s slave labour deaths. The Saturday Paper, pp. 1 & 10–11. Griffiths, T. G. (2013). Higher Education for socialism in Venezuela: Massification, development and transformation. In T. G. Griffiths & Z. Millei (Eds.), Logics of socialist education: Engaging with crisis, insecurity and uncertainty (pp. 91–109). Dordrecht: Springer. Griffiths, T. G., & Charon Cardona, E. T. (2015). Education for social transformation: Soviet university education aid in the Cold War capitalist world-system. European Education, 47(3), 226–241. doi:dx.doi.org/10.1080/10564934.2015.1065390.

106  Tom G. Griffiths and Bill Robertson Harnecker, C. P. (2013). Cuba’s new socialism: Different visions shaping current changes. Latin American Perspectives, 40(3), 107–125. doi:10.2307/23466007. Johnson, M. S. (2008). Historical legacies of Soviet Higher Education and the transformation of Higher Education systems in post-Soviet Russia and Eurasia. In D. Baker & A. Wiseman, W. (Eds.), Worldwide transformation of Higher Education (Vol. 9). Emerald Group Publishing. Krhrushchev, N. S. (1956). Report of the central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. Kuraev, A. (2016). Soviet higher education: An alternative construct to the western university paradigm. HIgher Education, 71, 181–193. Laibman, D. (2017). The Russian Revolution after a century: Its enduring impact. Science and Society, 81(4), 515–532. Mason, P. (2015). PostCapitalism: A guide to our future. New York, NY: Allen Lane. Rostow, W. W. (1959). The stages of economic growth. The Economic History Review, 12(1), 1–16. Rumiantsev, S. V. (1960, May 04). Aims of the University and Preparation of this educational institution towards its opening. Pravda. Schultz, T. W. (1961). Investment in human capital. The American Economic Review, 51(1), 1–17. Vally, S., & Spreen, C. A. (2012). Human rights in World Bank education strategy. In S. J. Klees, J. Samoff, & N. P. Stromquist (Eds.), The World Bank and education: Critiques and alternatives (pp. 173–187). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Wallerstein, I. (1995). The concept of national development, 1917–1989: Elegy and requiem after liberalism (pp. 108–122). New York, NY: The New Press. Wallerstein, I. (1998). Utopistics: Or, historical choices of the twenty-first century. New York, NY: The New Press. Wallerstein, I. (1999). The rise and future demise of world-systems analysis. In The end of the world as we know it: Social science for the twenty-first century (pp. 192–201). Wallerstein, I. (2005). After developmentalism and globalization, what? Social Forces, 83(3), 1263–1278. Wallerstein, I. (2011). The modern World-System IV: Centrist liberalism triumphant, 1789–1914. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wallerstein, I., Collins, R., Mann, M., Derlugian, G., & Calhoun, C. (2013). Does capitalism have a future? Oxford, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. World Bank. (1980). Education sector policy paper. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. World Economic Forum. (2014). Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015. Retrieved from http://reports. weforum.org/outlook-global-agenda-2015/wp-content/blogs.dir/59/mp/files/pages/files/ outlook-2015-a4-downloadable.pdf.

14 Ability Patrick Yarker

The discourse of “ability” frames and grounds the way young people are seen as learners in England’s state education system. It generates and perpetuates “fixed ability thinking,” the teaching profession’s common sense. As such, it is the engine of that “prophetic pedagogy” (the term is Malaguzzi’s) which “knows everything beforehand … has no uncertainty … [and is] a complete and visible humiliation of children’s ingenuity and potential” (Cagliari et al., 2016, pp. 421–422). According to this view, each learner arrives at school with an inborn, fixed and measurable quantum of intelligence or potential or ability. Differences in attainment between individuals can be ascribed to differences in this fixed quantum, whose measurability enables future attainment within the system to be confidently predicted (Hart, Dixon, Drummond, & McIntyre, 2004). In its hardest form, fixed ability thinking understands “ability” as a genetic endowment whose horizon cannot be crossed. It is an inheritance never to be risen above. Softer versions argue for the impact of social or cultural deprivation to explain differences in test scores designed to measure “ability” or to stand as a proxy for it. Fixed ability thinking engenders the practice of ability labelling: the routine description of individual learners, or groups of learners, as, for example, “low ability” or “high ability” or “bright” or “academically able.” Other formulae such as “high prior attainment” or “low-attaining pupil” may be mobilized to indicate the “ability” level of the learner. Such an indication is essential, for the discourse of “ability” dictates and legitimizes central elements of children’s educational experience in school: how they are grouped within a class or a cohort; what curriculum offer is made to them; how they are treated by teachers; and how they come to see themselves as learners (Boylan & Povey, 2013; Hart et al., 2004; Marks, 2016). The practices which fixed-ability thinking validates and enforces help reproduce the conditions which make such thinking appear the natural, indeed the professional, way to understand and talk about learners. In England, ability labels are typically assigned to learners on entry to the system, or very soon after, and formally reconfirmed at various points later.

108  Patrick Yarker (For a useful overview of the process, see Gripton, 2020.) Some secondary academies now “ability-test” their incoming Year-7 cohort during the days set aside for transition from primary to secondary school. Such a practice is logical given the pervasiveness of the “ability” discourse, which sanctions an understanding of education as, first and foremost, an activity concerned with data over and above people. So-called diagnostic testing, the basis of “ability” labelling, produces simulacra of learning. It has suborned the subtle activity of assessment, which requires respect for the significance of the learner’s meaning-making, and thinking about their thinking. As Michael Armstrong has noted, we have stopped doing this kind of thinking and instead fallen in love with the labels (Armstrong, 1997). As if ashamed of itself, “ability” labelling in the Primary phase is frequently covert. The names given to tables of children in a primary classroom (for example: “Snails,” “Hedgehogs,” “Zebras,” “Snow Leopards”) will convey many associations, but the discourse of fixed ability will provide the most salient meaning to practitioners. The name of the table accords with the supposed “ability” of the children seated there (Marks, 2013). Such codes are rapidly deciphered by children as well as by adults. At secondary level, the sifting of young people into top, middle and bottom sets is undisguised and profoundly damaging (Boaler, Wiliam, & Brown, 2000). By recognizing the learner in this way, as “bright” or “average” or “slow,” the teacher is licensed to shape and resource a differentiated educational offer for each member of the class, or for groups. Such differentiation purports to be equitable because it would seem to cater for each child’s individual needs, as revealed by their ability label. But ability labelling misconceives every child. It is especially concerning that the narrowing of the educational offer made to those labelled “low ability” ensures it is all the harder for them to demonstrate the false basis on which they have been so labelled. There are also adverse consequences for those labelled “high ability” (see Francis, Read, & Skelton, 2012). Ability labelling, and the resulting practice of differentiation or applied fixed ability thinking, undermines good teaching. It hampers the teacher’s attempt to pay proper attention to the learner, and so intervene in their learning in an informed way, because the learner is prevented from disclosing or presenting themselves on their own terms, without prejudice. Ability labels are summative, and received as judgements on the whole self. They are enduring, and act to influence our conception of ourselves as learners both within school and long after school days are over (Boaler, 2005). The especially detrimental effect on those labelled “of low ability” is, by now, wellknown (see Hart et al., 2004). Fixed-ability thinking stems in large part from psychometric approaches developed in Europe and the United States at the turn of the 20th century and structured into the English state system in the 1930s and 1940s via IQ testing,

Ability 109 the “streaming” of pupils in Primary schools and the tripartite system of education established after World War II (Chitty, 2007). Such approaches were gradually exposed as bankrupt at the time (Pedley, 1963; Simon, 1953) but their discursive power persists. The discourse of fixed, innate “ability” serves certain economic and social interests, and may not be dissolved at the level of ideas alone. The spread of the comprehensive principle (which is to say of free high-­quality education available for all in non-selective common schools in which students are regarded as of equal value and are equally respected), and a rolling-back of structures of streaming and setting, to be replaced by “mixed ability” grouping, advanced in some areas for a period. Nevertheless, the underlying ideology of fixed, innate ability was left intact. To deem a class “mixed ability” still relies on the view that each child in the class is of a particular fixed ability. The 1988 Education Reform Act spurred the revival in England of the fixed ability discourse. Primary schools were encouraged to (re)introduce setting by ability in 1993, and in 1997 New Labor urged that ability-setting become the norm in all secondary schools (Hallam, Ireson, Lister Chaudhury, & Davies, 2003). The practice of grouping children as young as four by “ability” persists, and is likely to be boosted by the introduction of baseline assessment. The designation of pupils by so-called ability, and their subsequent segregation in school by varieties of ability-based grouping, generates a stratified population whose hierarchy tends to mimic the inequalities prevalent in the social structure (Gillborn and Youdell, 2000). The more deprived and impoverished the pupil, the more likely he or she is to find himself or herself in a bottom set (Dunne et al., 2007; Henry, 2015). The issue is complicated by the way inequalities determined by the class structure intersect with those generated by racist and sexist attitudes and beliefs. Once attached, ability labels persist and are very difficult to dislodge. Teachers who hold a more optimistic view of human educability than that which characterizes fixed-ability thinking, and whose educational values or teaching experience leads them to recognize that ability-labelling plays their pupils false, have worked against the discourse to develop more educationally fruitful approaches (Florian and Linklater, 2010; Swann, Peacock, Hart, & Drummond, 2012). These approaches are not merely palliative. They seek to ameliorate educational damage and also to empower teachers and students. They are founded on a view of the learner as a site of manifold possibility, always already expert in her or his own learning, and apt to learn more when conditions both external and internal are made more enabling (Hart et al., 2004). Such teachers acknowledge the way fixed-ability thinking and its associated practices of ability-labelling, grouping, differentiation and withdrawal, do not meet the needs of learners either individually or as a group. These teachers reject the paradox inherent in fixed-ability thinking, that, while the teacher is

110  Patrick Yarker supposed to enable the pupil to learn, what matters most in terms of learning is beyond the teacher’s power to affect. If the learner is born with a given quantum of “ability,” then the best a teacher can hope to do is help a learner reach, though never surpass, their presumed potential (Leach & Moon, 2008). Fixedability thinking, and the determinist pedagogy and practice it spawns, serves an education system in thrall to the notion that children come in kinds, and that to label the child accordingly is an equitable practice. It is the first step in meeting the child’s needs. This false view constructs what it purports merely to recognize. “Ability” is not fixed, nor is it independent of task, context and circumstance. A century of fixed-ability thinking and practice in education will not be easily done away with. Even when pupils perform in ways that explode their given ability labels and demonstrate once again the falsity of the determinist pedagogy on which such labels are based, the discourse retains its hold (Yarker, 2011). Yet the conception of human educability as unlimited continues to inspire teachers to work as best they can in the current highly adverse circumstances to challenge the fixed-ability discourse at root, and to change the conditions which give rise to it.

References Armstrong, M. (1997). The leap of imagination: An essay in interpretation. FORUM, 39(2), 39–45. Boaler, J. (2005). The “Psychological Prisons” from which they never escaped: The role of ability grouping in reproducing social class inequalities. FORUM, 47(2&3), 125–134. Boaler, J., Wiliam, D., & Brown, M. (2000). “Students” experience of ability groupings – ­disaffection, polarisation and the construction of failure. British Education Research Journal, 26(5), 631–648. Boylan, M., & Povey, H. (2013). Ability thinking. In D. Leslie & H. Mendick (Eds.), Debates in mathematics education. London: Routledge. Cagliari, P., Castagnetti, M., Giudici, C., Rinaldi, C., Vecchi, V., & Moss, P. (Eds.) (2016). Loris Malaguzzi and the Schools of Reggio Emilia: A selection of his writings and speeches, 1945–1993 (pp. 421–422). Oxford: Routledge. Chitty, C. (2007). Eugenics, race and intelligence in education. London: Continuum. Dunne, M., Humphries, S., Sebba, J., Dyson, A., Gallannaugh, F., & Nuijis, D. (2007). Effective Teaching and Learning for Pupils in Low Attainment Groups. University of Sussex Research Report DCSF-RR011. London: DCSF. Florian, L., & Linklater, H. (2010). Preparing teachers for inclusive education: Using inclusive pedagogy to enhance teaching and learning for all. Cambridge Journal of Education, 40(4), 369–386. Francis, B., Read, B., & Skelton, C. (2012). The identities and practices of high achieving pupils: Negotiating achievement and peer cultures. London: Continuum. Gillborn, D., & Youdell, D. (2000). Rationing education: Policy, practice, reform and equity. Buckingham: Open University Press. Gripton, C. (2020). Children’s lived experiences of “ability” in the Key Stage One classroom: Life on the “tricky table.” Cambridge Journal of Education, 1–20. Retrieved from https://doi.org/ 10.1080/0305764X.2020.1745149.

Ability 111 Hallam, S., Ireson, J., Lister V., Chaudhury, I., & Davies, J. (2003). Ability grouping practices in the primary school: A survey. Educational Studies, 29(1), 69–83. Hart, S., Dixon, A., Drummond, M. J., & McIntyre, D. (2004). Learning without limits. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Henry, L. (2015). The effects of ability grouping on the learning of children from low income homes: A systematic review. The STeP Journal, 2(3), 70–87. Leach, J., & Moon, B. (2008). The power of pedagogy. London: SAGE. Marks, R. (2013). “The blue table means you don’t have a clue”: The persistence of fixed-ability thinking and practices in primary mathematics in English schools. FORUM, 55(1), 31–44. Marks, R. (2016). Ability-grouping in primary schools: Case studies and critical debates. Northwich: Critical Publishing. Pedley, R. (1963). The comprehensive school. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Simon, B. (1953). Intelligence testing and the comprehensive school. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Swann, M., Peacock, A., Hart, S., & Drummond, M. J. (2012). Creating learning without limits. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Yarker, P. (2011). Knowing your mind: Teachers, students and the language of ability. FORUM, 53(2), 225–234.

Part II

Words of Possibility Introduction In this part, we discuss words which critique and directly resist the neoliberal status quo in education and society, such as alternative education, utopia, youth, social movements and socialism. The aim of this set of keywords, is to point to alternative social relations to neoliberal capitalism. As is the case with the keywords presented in Part I, keywords presented here are not neutral. They also create subjectivities of a certain kind. Their function is counter-hegemonic to the dominant ideology. Some of these keywords (e.g. reflexivity, school, post-­ critical education), serve as an opportunity to examine our role in resisting neoliberalism and seeking alternatives and new horizons. That is to say they are the raw materials in the process of conscientization that can create class alliances to fight against the neoliberal capitalist order and the negation it represents. They extend our gaze beyond the what is and allow us to contemplate possibilities about the what could be.

15 Essence Grant Banfield

It can be seen how the rich man and the wealth of human need take the place of the wealth and poverty of political economy. The rich man is simultaneously the man in need of a totality of vital human expression; he is the man who his own realization exists as inner necessity, as need. … Poverty is the passive bond which makes man experience his greatest wealth – the other man – as need. The domination of the objective essence within me, the sensuous outburst of my essential activity, is passion, which here becomes the activity of my being. (Marx, 1975, p. 356) Our capacity to learn, the source of our capacity to teach, suggests and implies that we also have a capacity to grasp the … essence of the object of our knowing. Mere mechanical memorization of the superficial aspects of the object is not true learning. (Freire, 1998, p. 66)

Introduction “Essence” is a very dangerous word: politically dangerous. Appeals to essences can reveal or occlude relations of power that give rise to the possibilities of emancipation, oppression, freedom or subjugation. Essence draws attention to the nature of the world: how things are and how things could be. It is called upon by defenders of the status quo and advanced by social revolutionaries. For example, social conservatives call on essences to draw moral absolutes that align the existing social order with the nature of things. Likewise, defenders of liberal democracy and capitalism portray individual rights and private property relations as reflecting the human condition. Revolutionaries point to the fundamentally inhuman workings of existing social arrangements and the need for their root and branch overthrow. Social reformers are likely to be suspicious of any of the above. Reference to essences is to be avoided for its tendency

116  Grant Banfield to lead to fundamentalism, essentialism and the ultimate limiting of political possibilities. The dangerousness of essence is multifaceted and demands taking ontology seriously.

Ontological Seriousness The chapter opened with revolutionary appeals to essence by Karl Marx and Paulo Freire. Their words reveal a shared approach to understanding of human nature via capacities. They also indicate the depth of Freire’s philosophical grounding in the radical humanism of Marx (Kress & Lake, 2013). Freire is generally understood as a central, if not founding, figure in the historical development of critical pedagogy (Adkins, 2014), Freire expressed his debt to Marx this way: Even before I ever read Marx I had made his words my own. I had taken my own radical stance on the defense of the legitimate interests of the human person. There is no theory of socio-political transformation that moves me if it is not grounded in an understanding of the human person as a maker of history and one made by history. (Freire, 1998, p. 115) Freire’s realization that his words were Marx’s words rested in the synergy he discovered with the German revolutionary’s view that the capacity for historical agency was essentially a human one. In this way, both are realists. However, their realism extends beyond “common-sense” realism that simply takes things to exist independent of human awareness of them (Psillos, 2007, p. 399). Theirs is a depth ontological realism whereby those worldly things are understood as emergent forms of underlying essences not directly revealed to the senses. Furthermore, Marx and Freire show themselves to be critical realists for their insistence that human beings possess the capacity “to grasp the essence of the object of knowing” and make it an object of critique. They hold no divide between epistemology and ontology so that one may come to obscure the other. Knowledge of objects beyond their appearances is not only possible but also necessary for transformative practice. To transcend the forces of human oppression, it is essential that the deep sources of subjugation are brought to the surface of attention. The potential for critical consciousness or “conscientization,” as Freire put it, is a human quality. The raising of critical consciousness is the marker that differentiates the purpose of true education from the purpose of training or “banking education” (Freire, 1970b). While both are unavoidably political, it is only the former that is reflexively self-aware, i.e. capable of recognizing its human-ness and its grounding “in the educability of the human person” (Freire, 1998, p. 100). Marx and Freire

Essence 117 understand education as a process of struggle to be fully human. Their ethics are deeply ontological and naturalist. The radical revolutionary impulse of critical pedagogy insists that it is because of our capacity to be human that we are all (potentially) educators. But this requires a “sensuous outburst of essential activity” that Freire (1970a) knew as “cultural action for freedom.” Education is not to be confined to historically specific institutionalized forms. Rather, it is to be understood in its broadest possible terms as a humanizing project. The humanism shared by Marx and Freire is deeply agential. To be fully human is to engage in the struggle to know the world – not simply for its own sake but in order to change it to meet human needs. It is a radical humanism of a kind that Edward Said (2003) described as “the only, and, I would go as far as saying, the final, resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history” (p. xxiii). Of course, both humanization and de-humanization are both real possibilities but, as Freire stressed, “only the first is people’s vocation” (1970b, p. 25): My radical posture requires of me an absolute loyalty to all men and women. An economy that is incapable of developing programs according to human needs, and that coexists indifferently with the hunger of millions of people to whom everything is denied, does not deserve my respect as a human being. (Freire, 2007, p. 36) The “economy” to which Freire refers is one ruled by the logic of capital. It is capitalism and its fundamental indifference to human beings and human need that Freire has in his sights. We recall that Marx’s intent in writing his magnum opus, Capital, was to reveal the inner dynamics of capital to the exploited so they might use that knowledge to transcend its anti-human essence. He opens Capital by getting straight to the point: “The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an immense collection of commodities” (Marx, 1976, p. 126). Under capitalism, wealth is only conceived as the accumulation of non-human things. Dehumanization rules and the ­“activity of being human” is appropriated in commodity production and denied in the flurry of commodity exchange. For Marx this was only the appearance of wealth: a shallow unethical smothering of real wealth found in the “experience of the other as need.” Marx’s scientific realism to which Freire was committed forged a path of depth ontology (Banfield, 2010, 2016). Not only where appearances shown to be emergent forms of more basic underlying mechanisms but also it was within human capacity to know and change the world beyond its superficial presentation. This is foundational to critical pedagogy. As the Marxian and Freirean scholar Paula Allman put it, “if you abstract Freire’s ideas from their

118  Grant Banfield Marxist theoretical context, you will miss the precision of his analysis and ignore the revolutionary or transformative intent of his work” (Allman, 1999, p. 90). Instructively, Allman also notes that the extent of the revolutionary embrace of Freire’s radical ontology within critical pedagogy is culturally and historically bound. While she notes from her experience that Latin American educators appreciate Friere’s debt to Marx, the same is not necessarily the case with Western admirers of Freire. She concludes that “this may go some way toward explaining why some of his ideas have been so readily incorporated by liberal/progressive educators” (Allman, 1999, p. 88). Allman points to the obvious: critical pedagogy is far from unified in theory or practice. Its historical and theoretical developments are diverse (Lake & Kress, 2013). Beyond Marxism (Ford, 2017; Mayo, 1999, 2015; McLaren, 2005), they include: liberation theology (Neumann, 2011; Stenberg, 2006), feminist theory (Lather, 1991, 2001; Neumann, 2011; Stenberg, 2006), the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory (Gur-Ze’ev, 1998), Derridean deconstruction (Biesta, 1998) and post-modern social theory (Giroux, 1996). Lather (1998) aptly referred to this diversity as the “big tent” of critical pedagogy. Under its canvass there are many lines of demarcation and significant points of fracture. As already noted, not all share the ontological boldness of Marxian inspired Freireanism and council epistemological caution.

Epistemological Caution Recent realist developments in the philosophy of science have shown that tensions around theory and practice in the human sciences and applied fields like education have their origins in confusions in and around ontology and epistemology (Bhaksar, 1986, 1989, 1998). The field of critical pedagogy is not immune. For example, against ontological and epistemological boldness, Gert Biesta (1998) stresses that any critical social theory or practice requires a modest approach to what can be known. More particularly, he insists that critical pedagogy can only get off the ground with an attitude of “fundamental ignorance.” However, it is not a naive ignorance but one that he refers to as an emancipatory ignorance that confronts the future in its ontological openness and … does not claim to know how the future will be or will have to be. It is an ignorance that does not show the way, but one that only issues an invitation to set out on the journey. It is an ignorance that does not say what to think of it, but only asks, “what do you think about it?” (Biesta 1998, p. 505) For Biesta (1998), emancipatory ignorance is the simultaneous rejection of naïve realism and its positivist illusion that the world can be directly apprehended

Essence 119 in thought. With the impossibility of complete ontological demystification, critical pedagogy must embrace epistemological caution. Indeed, it is to be wary of approaches claiming to offer “some superior knowledge or privileged vision” (p. 505). Significantly, it is Marx’s historical materialism that Biesta portrays as the prime example of a “grand narrative” assuming epistemological privilege. Peter McLaren’s Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy (Farahmandpur, 2005; McLaren, 1998, 2005) with its Marxian historical materialist framing is offered as a prime example. Following Foucault, the question for Biesta (1998) rests on “whether there is any reason to believe that the knowledge produced by the criticalists is itself uncontaminated by the operations of power” (p. 506). He sees the “traditional answer” that comes from, what he refers to as, the “Western tradition” as inadequate. According to Biesta (1998), this response simply refers the “question back to the nature of human beings, to their natural capacity of reflexivity (Aristotle’s rational animal), thereby trying to safe guard the possibility for critique in an ontological way” (p. 506). Biesta’s post-modernism rejects appeals to essences and ontological claims to the nature of things as inevitably falling to the positivism of naïve realism. In buying epistemological caution at the expense of ontological boldness, it is not clear what place, if any, Freire’s radical humanism has under the critical pedagogy tent. Taking a similar post-positivist line to that of Biesta, Stanley Aronowitz attempts to come to Friere’s rescue. His method involves drawing on earlier critiques of historical materialism in which he argued that the essence of Marx’s method revealed mechanical determinist economism that must ultimately fall “into the mire of positivism” (Aronowitz, 1990, p. 99). Aronowitz tries to shepherd Freire from this fate by aligning him with, what he sees as, the more superstructurally nuanced and subjectively conscious developments of Western Marxism. In other words, Freire was not the Marxian ontological realist he thought he was. Aronowitz put it his way: In contrast to mechanical revolutionary Marxism, Freire’s philosophy was continuous with what has been euphemistically termed “Western” Marxism, which embraces the quest for a sufficient theory of subjectivity identified in the post-war periods with the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology. (Aronowitz, 2013, p. 2) The warnings of epistemological caution offered by Biesta and Aronowitz are representative of much contemporary post-positivist social theorizing in what will be described below as their Kantian anti-realist suspicion of ontology (Groff, 2004). Of particular relevance here is the recognition that the field of Marxist education is not immune from tendencies to “ontological shyness”

120  Grant Banfield (Banfield, 2016). On this matter, Wayne Au observes that given “a clear analysis of the Marxism within [Freire’s] conception of critical, liberatory pedagogy has yet to be completed” (Au, 2007, p. 176) this task must begin by rejecting the Western Marxist alignment of Freire’s theorizing to a Kantian epistemology. Drawing on Bhaskarian critical realism, Au pushes critical pedagogues to confront the deep ontological assumptions of their practice. By evoking Kant he draws attention to necessarily confronting a problem with a long history in Western philosophy: the distinction between real and nominal essences.

Real and Nominal Essences It was John Locke (1632–1704) who first drew attention to the distinction between real and nominal essences. In doing so, he laid the foundations for empiricism by insisting that while things of the world are constituted by observable and unobservable properties it is only the former that can be known. The positivist rejection of metaphysics was born. Real essences were taken to be matters of metaphysics and, as such, illegitimate abstractions for science. The path was set for the likes of David Hume (1711–1776) to associate objective science with “fact finding” and, much later, for Karl Popper (1945) to assert his theory of falsification proved Marxism to be an unscientific metaphysical “totalising ideology.” The earliest post-positivist move against empiricism came from the “transcendental idealism” of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). He rejected the idea that knowledge flows unproblematically from sensory experience. Rather than experience shaping ideas it was ideas that shape experience. Kant advanced a form of “perspectivism” that took human knowledge to carry the weight of subjectivity. In doing so, he established what Bhaskar (1998) has referred to as “the quarrel between the champions of meaning and law” (p. 136). The quarrel has a long history and persists in debates over theory and practice in fields like critical pedagogy. But significantly, the quarrel is not one over the status of real essences. Just like the champions of law, the Kantian champions of meaning take the position that only nominal essences matter. Both are aligned in their suspicion of real essences and the possibility of knowledge about them. For Humean positivists, epistemology is sidelined in favor of an ontology of surface appearances. For Kantian post-positivists, ontology gives way to an epistemology of perspective. The contemporary post-positivist suspicion of ontology is probably best captured in Hilary Putnam’s critique of ontological realism as necessary falling to the correspondence view of truth: to an unobstructed “God’s Eye” of the “way the world is” (Putnam, 1981, p. 49). Putnam rejected what he referred to as “metaphysical realism” in favor of “internal realism.” Truth was not a universal norm. Nothing could be said about, for example, human nature and the

Essence 121 struggle to be human. “Truth” was to be taken as socially constructed beliefs established “internally” within specific socio-cultural arrangements and conventions. Metaphysical realism simply assumed “the world consists of some fixed totality of mind-independent objects” (Putnam, 1981, p. 50). Its appeals to “essence” were apologies for existing states of affairs, permanence and stasis. Readily associated with political conservatism, such ontological and epistemological certainty was nothing but Donna Haraway’s (1991) “god trick”: “of seeing everything from nowhere” (p. 189) where “grammar is politics by other means” (p. 3). Neo-Kantian perspectivism draws a straight and solid line between reductionism, fixed identity and essentialism. If there is a defining feature of anti-essentialism it is the dual objections to reductionism and “fixity.” British philosopher and social scientist Andrew Sayer (1997) puts it this way: If there is anything common to all critiques of essentialism in social science, it is a concern to counter the characterization of people, practices, institutions and other phenomena as having fixed identities that deterministically produce fixed, uniform outcomes. (p. 81) Anti-essentialist critiques are therefore likely to be presented as necessary correctives to bad abstractions or, as Sayer (1997) puts it, “complacent categorizations” (p. 81) that obscure complex realities of human social existence. “Essential” becomes watchword for crude social reductionism: the tendency to explain all in terms of determinant “laws” founded in, for example, biology, economics or supernatural force. Essentialism hails fixity and explains away injustice. Talk of essences naturalizes the status quo and masks the historical contingency of social privilege. But such scepticism bears bitter fruit. It nurtures a wariness of ontology and metaphysical realism to the extent that social nature is evacuated from social science and human nature is absented from human science. A further challenge to positivism was to come from post-structural philosophy of the 1960s and 1970s. But unlike neo-Kantianism, post-structuralism consisted in an explicit anti-humanism. Its origins can be traced to historical and conceptual tensions in Marxism where Louis Althusser (1972) famous proclaimed that history was “a process without a subject” (p. 183). Althusser was rejecting the humanistic idealism of the emerging New Left in post-WWII France and insisted that people were not makers of history but mere bearers of historical forces. His anti-humanism invited a post-structural retreat from the hope of mass social change in the face of revolutionary disappoints of a post1968 world (Banfield, 2016, pp. 47–54). The Althusserian “death of the subject” occluded questions of agency and power. The denial of existential intransivity

122  Grant Banfield fostered an anti-naturalism and ontological shyness that typified developments the post-1968 Western Marxism and left intellectualism (Banfield, 2016, pp.  35–56). Post-modernism broadly and post-Marxism in particular have served to push aside deep explanatory power of Marx’s historical materialism and consequently the transformative potential of critical pedagogy. Questions of anti-essentialism and ontological shyness bring to the surface Marx’s materialist view of history and the place of class relations in Marxian critiques of education. … From a critical realist perspective, it is not essentialist understandings that should be rejected but rather reductionist ones. (Banfield, 2016, p. 117)

Contemporary Essentialism The “contemporary” essentialist (Orderberg, 2007) does not hold to a correspondence view of truth. Bhaskar (1993) refers to a correspondence view of truth as “monism”: an unexamined “starting point which is the ending point” (p. 375). Bhaskar’s is a philosophy of natural kinds (or real essences) – like that of Marx and Freire –resting in an ontology of capacities: a “scientific essentialism” (Ellis, 2001). This is essentialism without falling to monism and reductionism. Contemporary essentialism advances a theory of truth where the pursuit of scientific knowledge is the endeavor to know and explain the nature of real essences. Concepts are not mere social constructions. Nor are they straightforward representations of plain facts. Rather, they are hermeneutic mediators between human beings and the world. This is what Collier (1999) instructively refers to as the principle of “aboutness”: the recognition that knowledge of “external” reality is both possible and fallible. Judgemental relativism does not have to be accepted and epistemological relativism is not denied. In other words, all views do not have to be judged as equally valid because of the potential fallibility of human knowledge. The capacity to assess the relative explanatory powers of competing truth claims remains. Without such human potential, critical pedagogy, transformative education and the making of history would not be possible. For contemporary essentialists, absolute truth is not the question.

Conclusion The response of the social sciences to the problem of essentialism has been to find comfort in the Kantian anti-naturalist rejection of real essences. Epistemological caution is bought with a solid dose of ontological caution. Both Marx and Freire remind us that education must simultaneously be about

Essence 123 something and for something: it comprises content and ethic. This I take as Freire’s meaning of the praxis of pedagogy: “reflection and action on the world in order to transform it” (Freire, 1970b, pp. 32–33). “Essence” is politically and ideologically charged. In the social and human sciences – to which this piece is primarily concerned – the status of “essence” and the commitment to “essentialism” it implies are controversial. While some philosophers and scientists might accept the existence of essences in the natural world the time–space persistence of foundational things in the social world is likely to be met with skepticism or outright rejection. Others, drawing for example on classical Marxist theory or on recent realist developments in the philosophy of science (Bhaksar, 1998), will insist that taking the ontology of essences seriously is vital not just to scientific explanation but also to human emancipation (Bhaksar, 1986). This is the essential task of not just critical pedagogy but any education worthy of the name. As Freire knew well, the foundations to this historical task are realized in the non-reductive realism of Marx: World and human beings do not exist apart from each other, they exist in constant interaction. Marx does not espouse such a dichotomy, nor does any other critical, realistic thinker. What Marx criticized and scientifically destroyed was not subjectivity, but subjectivism and psychologism. Just as objective social reality exists not by chance, but as the product of human action, so it is not transformed by chance. If humankind produces social reality … then transforming that reality is an historical task, a task for humanity. (Freire, 1970b, pp. 32–33)

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124  Grant Banfield Banfield, G. (2016). Critical realism for Marxist sociology of education. London: Routledge. Bhaksar, R. (1986). Scientific realism and human emancipation. London: Verso. Bhaksar, R. (1989). Reclaiming reality – a critical introduction to contemporary philosophy, London: Verso. Bhaskar, R. (1993). Dialectic – the pulse of freedom. London: Verso. Bhaksar, R. (1998). The possibility of naturalism – a philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences. London: Routledge. Biesta, G. (1998).You say you want a revolution … suggestions for the impossible future of critical pedagogy. Educational Theory, 48(4), 449–510. Collier, A. (1999). About aboutness. Alethia, 2, 2–5. Ellis, B. (2001). Scientific essentialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Farahmandpur, R. (2005). The revolutionary pedagogy of Peter McLaren. In M. Pruyn & L. M. Heurta-Charles (Eds.), Teaching Peter McLaren – paths of dissent (pp. 126–145). NewYork, NY: Peter Lang. Ford, D. R. (2017). Education and the production of space – political pedagogy, geography, and urban revolution. New York, NY: Routledge. Freire, P. (1970a). Cultural action for freedom. Cambridge: Harvard Educational Review Press. Freire, P. (1970b). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy and civic courage. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Freire, P. (2007). Pedagogy of the heart. New York, NY: Continuum. Giroux, H. (1996). Counternarratives: Cultural studies and critical pedagogies in postmodern spaces. New York, NY: Routledge. Groff, R. (2004). Critical realism, post-positivism and the possibility of knowledge. London: Routledge. Gur-Ze’ev, I. (1998). Toward a nonrepressive critical pedagogy. Educational Theory, 48(4), 463–486. Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature. New York, NY: Routledge. Kress, T., & Lake, R. (2013). Freire and Marx in dialogue. In R. Lake & T. Kress (Eds.), Paulo Freire’s intellectual roots – towards historicity in praxis (pp. 29–51). London: Bloomsbury. Lake, R., & Kress, T. (Eds.). (2013). Paulo Freire’s intellectual roots – towards historicity in praxis. London: Bloomsbury. Lather, P. (1991). Getting smart: Feminist research and pedagogy within the postmodern. New York, NY: Routledge. Lather, P. (1998). Critical pedagogy and its complicities: A praxis of stuck places. Educational Theory, 48(4), 487–497. Lather, P. (2001). Ten years later: Yet again (pp. 183–196). In K. Weiler (Ed.), Feminist engagements: Reading, resisting, and revisioning male theorists in education and cultural studies. New York, NY: Routledge. Marx, K. (1975). Economic and philosophical manuscripts (1844). In Karl Marx – early writings (pp. 279–400). London: Penguin Books. Marx, K. (1976). Capital – a critique of political economyVolume 1. London: Penguin. Mayo, P. (1999). Gramsci, Freire, and adult education. London: Zed Books. Mayo, P. (2015). Antonio Gramsci’s impact on critical pedagogy Critical Sociology, 41(7–8), 1121–1136. McLaren, P. (1998). Revolutionary pedagogy in post-revolutionary times: Rethinking the political economy of critical education. Educational Theory, 48(4), 431–462. McLaren, P. (2005). Capitalists and conquerors – a critical pedagogy against empire. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Neumann, J. W. (2011). Critical pedagogy and faith. Educational Theory, 61(5), 601–619.

Essence 125 Orderberg, D. S. (2007). Real essentialism New York, NY: Routledge. Popper, K. (1945). The open society and its enemies. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Psillos, S. (2007). Realism. In M. Hartwig (Ed.), Dictionary of critical realism (pp. 379–400). London: Routledge. Putnam, H. (1981). Reason, truth and history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Said, E. (2003). Preface. In E. Said (1977) orientalism –Western conceptions of the orient (pp. xi–xxiii). London: Penguin. Sayer, A. (1997). Essentialism, social constructionism and beyond. Sociological Review, 45(3), 453–487. Stenberg, S. (2006). Liberation theology and liberatory pedagogies: Renewing the dialogue. College English, 68(3), 271–290.

16 Reflexivity Elisabeth Simbürger

The concept of reflexivity has been omnipresent in the academic sphere over the last 30 years (May & Perry, 2017), with some even speaking of the so-called “reflexive turn” in the social sciences (Ventakesh, 2013). Looking at the literature from reflexive theory to reflexive methods, reflexive teaching and reflexive academics and students, it seems that reflexivity has almost turned into a precondition of academic life and educational activity. Thus, it does not come as a surprise that some describe reflexivity as “a twenty-first century disease, situated between habitual reflexivity or the reflexive habitus” (Sweetman, 2003). Against the background of this conceptual fashion, we will look behind the scenes of the emergence of this concept, its promises as well as its failures in an educational context. How has reflexivity been theorized? Does academic practice in the university live up to the reflexive aspirations of academics? Putting it bluntly: has academia turned into a more reflexive space since the supposed “reflexive turn”? This chapter will provide preliminary answers to these questions, particularly focusing on gender and reflexivity in the university. First of all, I will critically discuss the varied theoretical approaches to reflexivity. In the second part of this chapter I will discuss conceptual shortcomings of reflexivity and analyse where academic practice in the university does not live up to the high standards of reflexivity academics set themselves. Finally, I will shed light on the case of the Chilean feminist students’ movement, discussing the implications of reflexive voids in the university.

Unpacking the Concept of Reflexivity When writing about reflexivity in education, a line of epistemological questions emerge which need to be considered. The main challenge of researching our own spaces consists in the fact that as academics we are part of what we are researching. We are thus confronted with the paradox of being inside and outside of our research object at the same time (Bourdieu, 1993;

Reflexivity 127 Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant examined the dichotomy of being inside and outside of one’s research by means of participant observation. Feminist researchers go one step further and have discussed introspection into one’s own intellectual biography as a fruitful resource for constructively dealing with the subject–object relationship and subsequently leave this dichotomy behind altogether (Hill Collins, 1986; Stanley & Wise, 1990). In a previous piece of work I extensively analysed the varied conceptualizations of the notion of reflexivity with regard to the academic world and identified three different dimensions of reflexivity (Simbürger, 2014). The notion of reflexivity in higher education can have meanings as diverse as (1) a meta-­analysis of the research process by the researcher and the researched with regard to how their socioeconomic status, gender and general values in life may affect the research process and in particular the interpretation of data, (2) reflexivity as a defining characteristic of all human action and as a condition of modernity where thought and action are always related back to each other (Archer, 2007; Giddens, 1990) and (3) the idea of reflexivity in academic work as the combination of reflexive aspirations and reflexivity in practice in all dimensions of academic life. In this last dimension, academics are held accountable to their reflexive aspirations, thereby departing from the premise that the scholarly, personal and political dimensions of academic work can never be seen in separation from each other (Gouldner, 1970).

Reflexivity and Methodology In particular in the literature on research methods, reflexivity has become a fashionable term from the 1990s onwards. Discussions of reflexivity mostly revolve around qualitative methods (May and Perry, 2014), whereas quantitative methods and reflexivity issues seem to be associated less frequently with each other (Ryan & Golden, 2006). The majority of publications focus on the relationship between the researcher and researched (Dressel & Langreiter, 2003; Mauthner & Doucet, 2003) and how a researcher’s position, gender, race and social class alter the relationship with the researched (Alvesson & Skoeldberg, 2000; Berger, 1990; Davies, 2008) as well as on ethics and the research process as a whole (Bryman, 2008; Dench, Iphofen & Huws, 2004). With regard to the research process, the literature distinguishes between the researcher and her role as interviewer and writer. The increasing number of publications on researchers and their (auto)biographies as well as the emergence of auto-biographic writing as a method (Cosslett, Lury, & Summerfield, 2000; Stanley and Wise, 1990) can be seen as another result of the reflexive turn. Autobiographical writing allows us to make the links between our lives, social and political contexts and our research explicit (Caetano, 2015a), rather

128  Elisabeth Simbürger than seeing our research topics and the way we approach them as a neutral and apolitical endeavor. Feminist auto-ethnography has played a key role in this context, giving more visibility to gender in the research process. However, one of the challenges of autobiographically inspired research writing is to set a healthy limit to the presentation of the self. Quite often, these accounts lack a mechanism by which reflexive confessions and statements can be held accountable in academic practice (Simbürger, 2014). Reflexivity in Social Theory The rise of reflexivity as a topic of interest in research methodology has been accompanied by a growing number of social theorists discussing the topic (Simbürger, 2014). One of the main representatives is Pierre Bourdieu (1993) for whom a reflexive approach to one’s field of studies, in his case – a sociology of sociology, is the first prerequisite of any scientific activity. For Bourdieu, self-analysis reveals the relationship between intellectual ideas and cultural and economic structures as documented by Bourdieu’s work on French universities (Bourdieu, 1988). Important inroads with regard to social theory and reflexivity were made by Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Scott Lash in the 1990s with their book Reflexive Modernization (Beck, Giddens, & Lash, 1994). According to Giddens, modernity is the period where reflexivity fully develops, being a defining characteristic of all human action (Giddens, 1990). Like Giddens, Margret Archer considers reflexivity as a default mode of modern societies and of all human beings and as the missing link between structure and agency (Archer, 2003, 2007). According to Archer (2007), reflexivity is accomplished by the internal conversation. Since the mediation between structure and agency is a precondition of being human, all human beings would be reflexive, per se. Providing a critical reading of Archer’s reflexivity, Caetano notes that it leaves out a more complex understanding of social factors such as social origin and socialization (Caetano, 2015b). One of the challenges of employing Giddens’ and Archer’s notions of reflexivity for the context of universities and education is that it is not clear what reflexivity really involves and how those who pronounce themselves as reflexive can be held accountable (Simbürger, 2014). In contrast to the previously discussed approaches, Alvin Gouldner’s Reflexive Sociology points toward an understanding of the role of the academic that encompasses scholarly, personal and political dimensions (Gouldner, 1970). Similar to C. Wright Mills, he defends an epistemological position with practical and political implications. Hence, not only does it matter how one expresses oneself on the pages of social theory, but also whether one’s social and academic practices in the classroom and with colleagues live up to the high

Reflexivity 129 standards of critique one perhaps set oneself in one’s writings. According to Gouldner, social theory is the first form of sociological practice. It is an intrinsic expression of the infrastructure, the belief systems and the conditions out of which it arose (Gouldner, 1970). Yet, rather than wanting to turn reflexivity into a fetish, Gouldner declares that it is important to constantly question and revise our social theories and social practice in the university and to remain open to critique (Gouldner, 1970). As such, it doesn’t come as a surprise that other social theorists such as Liz Stanley identified a gender void in Gouldner’s work (Stanley, 2000). With Michael Burawoy’s 2004 Presidential Address to the American Sociological Association “For Public Sociology,” we encounter a more current engagement with the ideas of Alvin Gouldner and their relevance to academic life and in particular sociologists in current times (Burawoy, 2005). However, in his reflexive endeavors to renew sociology, Burawoy has not highlighted the necessity to pay more attention to gender. On the other hand, feminist theory has been at the forefront of contributing to universities being more reflexive and critical spaces. Historically, knowledge production has been a highly gendered process; one that has championed the role of rational man as the objective knower and consistently excluded women, both as critical subjects and as independent producers of knowledge. Feminism considers the failure of the Enlightenment to live up its own promise as an emancipatory project as one of its biggest shortcomings. At the center of feminist critique is the pretension that knowledge produced by a male and white rational subject claims to have objective status and universal validity (Harding 1990; Smith 1974). The rise of reflexivity as a research topic has also reached the literature on teaching in higher education. Several publications discuss the challenge of teaching reflexivity with regard to research methods to students and analyse how reflexivity can be taught, putting emphasis on gender (Bondi, 2009) as well as using reflexivity to promote students’ learning of qualitative research (Goldblatt & Band-Winterstein, 2016).

Reflexive Aspirations and Un-Reflexive Academic Practice in the University: Gender, Anyone? One of the challenges of a lot of literature on reflexivity in the social sciences is the frequent absence of a discussion of how academics’ aspirations to be reflexive in their research can be made accountable in academic practice (Simbürger, 2014). When speaking to academics about their identities and about their academic practice, one encounters many contradictions (Guzmán-Valenzuela  & Barnett, 2013). Academics don’t always act according to their aspirations. Who comes across as very critical on the page, may be devaluing the importance

130  Elisabeth Simbürger of teaching and rather focus on higher-valued research and publications in order to make a career (Simbürger, 2010; Smith, 2011). This is what Lisa Lucas termed as “academics playing the game” (Lucas, 2006). May and Perry observe that universities need to watch out for reflexivity and critique not getting erased in the course of a managerial culture in higher education (May & Perry, 2013). Internationally, some observers even argue that neoliberalism would not have evolved as much in academia without the compliance of academics (Collyer, 2015; Lucas, 2014), for example with current research imperatives (Leathwood & Read, 2013). While one would expect researchers in the field of higher education studies being at the forefront of contesting the marketization of universities, the contrary seems to be the case. In higher education studies, there is a tendency of framing the marketization of universities as inevitable (Davies & Bansel, 2007) rather than as a political choice (Munck, 2003). Having analysed presentations of international higher education conferences, Doherty notes that the “global” dimension of marketization is often cited as a reference point by means of which privatization can be normalized. Research into higher education that makes use of critical theories questioning the status quo would be an exception (Doherty, 2015), thus pointing to a reflexive void. Gender and Epistemology: Un-reflexive Voids Gender is one of the key dimensions of reflexivity in universities. Whereas feminists have been successful in unmasking some of the epistemological concepts that have traditionally been seen as “neutral” knowledge claims, as representing only the vested power interests of elite white men (Do Mar Pereira, 2017), the epistemological integration of gender is still ongoing. On the contrary, funding cuts in higher education endanger fields such as gender studies and reshape existing epistemic hierarchies, as do Mar Pereira has shown in relation to gender and feminist studies in Portugal (Do Mar Pereira, 2015). Within academic practice, the crafting and interpretation of social theory has the highest status in the hierarchy of activities such as teaching, research and admin – at least in the social sciences and humanities. The perspectives from which the world is mostly described in social theory is reduced to a single standpoint: male, white, middle-class, European. Critical inquiry and the belief in knowledge were brought forward as the promises of the Enlightenment (Hawthorn, 1987; Kilminster, 1998). Replacing religion, knowledge was considered the key to the world, perceived as objective and universally valid. Yet, the streamlined perception of the social world as conveyed in large parts of social theory seems to be inconsistent with the experience of actors that find themselves outside of what is understood to be a universal experience. Essentially, this different kind of experience and the knowledge that arises

Reflexivity 131 from it is what sets feminists in opposition to social theory that claims universal validity (Hill Collins, 1986). As I have demonstrated in an analysis of interviews on sociologists’ relationship to their discipline in theory and practice, many interviewees brought forward their pressing concerns about sociology’s and sociologists’ inability to be critical and reflexive in social theory (Simbürger, 2015). For many female academics, echoing fundamental feminist epistemic principles, their background and experience led them to embody difference as a key analytical category, having an impact on the construction of knowledge and their academic practice. The fact that gender studies is still an exclusive field and hardly ever taught within a social theory course apart from an extra gender session or a specialist gender option, further supports the thesis of feminist sociology and gender studies having the status of a specialism within sociology rather than being part of the canon (Abbott & Wallace 2005; Simbürger & Undurraga, 2013). Moreover, the different hierarchies within social theory are perpetuated in the writing of textbooks. In a powerful way, the consistent ignorance of major insights into gender in sociology by sociology textbook writers, shows that disregarding gender as a major analytical category also represents a violation of sociologists’ principles of being open to “new” insights and integrating them. Speaking with Gouldner, one of the reasons for current sociologists’ persistent fading-out of gender in social theory could be seen in the potential clash with what Gouldner phrased as their domain assumptions (Gouldner, 1970, p.  32). For Gouldner domain assumptions “are intellectually consequential” and “theory-shaping” but not because they “rest on evidence nor even because they are provable” (Gouldner, 1970, p. 35). Rather, every social theory would be a personal theory as well as a tacit theory of politics. Hence, as the integration of gender as an underpinning analytical category would threaten the domain assumptions of a lot of social theorists, gender is mostly still left at the doorstep of social theory.

The Chilean Feminist Students’ Movement – Reflexivity at Its Best In this final section, we will turn to analysing the ongoing feminist students’ movement in Chile as a current expression of reflexivity in practice in the global university context. Chile is known as one of the most neoliberal countries on the planet, going back to the Pinochet military dictatorship (1973–1990) that forcefully implemented neoliberal measures in the 1980s and had severe effects on public education, health and work (Taylor, 2002). From 2006 and in particular from 2011 onwards, the Chilean students’ movement demanded “non-profit universities” and the right for free, public education of high quality (Aguirre &

132  Elisabeth Simbürger García, 2014; Mayol, 2012; Simbürger & Neary, 2015; Somma, 2012). The movement culminated in a more general critique of the privatization of public goods (Berroéta & Sandoval, 2014; Guzmán-Valenzuela, 2017) and in the development of a higher education reform promising free education for students from the poorest income groups. The reform has been harshly criticized as it continues to treat public and private education on equal terms under the pretext of providing a “mixed” and “diverse” system, rather than making public education a priority (Alonso, Rosenbluth & Cantuarias, 2017). Nevertheless, the students’ movement can be seen as a key promotor of reflexivity in Chilean society, having prompted a general questioning of the naturalization of neoliberal discourse in higher education (Simbürger & Donoso, 2018). Gouldner’s dynamic understanding of reflexivity in the university, constantly questioning our conceptualization and practice of reflexivity and critique, comes at hand with regard to an analysis of the Chilean students’ movement. While the achievements of the Chilean students’ movement from 2011 are without question, critics argue that it maintained a machista logic of political organization (Follegati Montenegro, 2018). The Chilean feminist students’ movement that took place between May and August 2018 turns the traditionally masculine logic of political organization upside down. Rather than acting through the elected students’ centers – that often perpetuate male politics of representation – students organized themselves in feminist assemblies, without a declared leader or chairperson (Zerán, 2018). Against the backdrop of many cases of sexual harassment in universities and only very few universities with gender and equality units with legal procedures in place in relation to gender and diversity (Undurraga & Simbürger, 2018), students started to organize themselves. The strikes and in some cases occupations of university departments lasted for four months and encompassed public and private universities and all disciplines. The main demands of the movement were non-sexist education, the implementation of gender in the curriculum on all levels and the foundation of gender and equality units in all universities, assuring that sexual harassment and gender discrimination would be prosecuted (Zerán, 2018). Without doubt, feminist researchers have observed the epistemological absence of gender in the curriculum in Chile before (Simbürger & Undurraga, 2013). Yet, with its demands for epistemological renovation and the integration of gender on all levels of the curriculum, the feminist students’ movement prominently brought the topic to the fore, thereby also filling an intellectual void of the students’ movement from 2011, whose demands for “higher education of quality” Richard described as neoliberal (Richard, 2018). Where does this leave us in our analysis of reflexivity as a concept? Going back to Alvin Gouldner, we would like to leave the reader with a blunt yet poignant conclusion: unless reflexivity is filled with content and is constantly

Reflexivity 133 revisited, questioned and renewed, it becomes a decorative void, a fashionable concept without life. As such, reflexivity has the potential to be an utterly boring concept or, in an ideal case, it can live up to its critical promise in theory and practice in educational spaces.

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Reflexivity 135 Munck, R. (2003). Neoliberalism, necessitarianism and alternatives in Latin America: There is no alternative (TINA)? Third World Quarterly, 24(3), 495–511. Richard, N. (2018). La insurgencia feminista de Mayo 2018. In F. Zerán (Ed.), Mayo feminista. La rebelión contra el patriarcado (pp. 115–126). Santiago: LOM Ediciones. Ryan, L., & Golden, A. (2006). “Tick the box please”: A reflexive approach to doing quantitative social research. Sociology, 40(6), 1191–1200. Simbürger, E. (2010). Critique and sociology: Towards a new understanding of teaching as an integral part of sociological work. EliSS Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences, 3(1). Retrieved from http://www.eliss.org.uk/. Simbürger, E. (2014). Reflexivity in qualitative social research: Bridging the gap between theory and practice with Alvin Gouldner’s. Reflexive sociology. magis, Revista Internacional de Investigación en Educación, 7(14), 55–68. Simbürger, E. (2015). El género y la escritura selectiva de la teoría social: Notas para la reescritura de lo social. Cuadernos de Teoría Social, 1(2), 33–47. Simbürger, E., & Donoso, A. (2018). Key elements in the naturalisation of neoliberal discourse in higher education in Chile. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. doi: 10.1080/ 01596306.2018.1512953. Simbürger, E., & Neary, M. (2015). Free education! A “live” report on the Chilean student movement 2011–2014 – reform or revolution? [A political sociology for action]. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 13(2), 150–196. Simbürger, E., & Undurraga, R. (2013). Jerarquías epistemológicas: formas de invisibilizar el género en las carreras de sociología en Chile. In Mora, Claudia (Ed.), Desigualdad en Chile: La Continua Relevancia del Género en Chile (pp. 171–195). Santigo de Chile: Editorial Universidad Alberto Hurtado. Smith, D. 1974. Women’s perspective as a radical critique of sociology. Sociological Inquiry, 44(1), 7–13. Smith, E. (2011). Teaching critical reflection. Teaching in Higher Education, 16(2), 211–223. Somma, N. (2012). The Chilean student movement of 2011–2012: Challenging the marketisation of education. Interface, 4(2), 296–309. Stanley, L. (2000). For sociology: Gouldner’s and ours. In Anne Witz, John Eldridge, John MacInnes, Sue Scott, & Chris Warhurst (Eds.), For sociology: Legacies and prospects Durham, UK: Sociology Press. Stanley, L., & Wise, S. (1990). Method, methodology and epistemology in feminist research processes. In L. Stanley (Ed.), Feminist praxis. Research, theory and epistemology in feminist sociology (pp. 20–60). New York, NY: Routledge. Sweetman, P. (2003). Twenty-first century dis-ease? Habitual reflexivity or the reflexive habitus. The Sociological Review, 51(4), 528–549. Taylor, M. (2002). Success for whom? An historical-materialist critique of neoliberalism in Chile. Historical Materialism, 10(2), 45–75. Undurraga, R., & Simbürger, E. (2018). Género y políticas institucionales en universidades chilenas: un desierto con incipientes oasis estatales’. En C. Mora, A. Kottow, V. Osses, & M. Ceballos (Eds.), El género furtivo: la evidencia interdisciplinaria del género en el Chile actual. Santiago: LOM. Venkatesh, S. A. (2013). The reflexive turn: The rise of first-person ethnography. The Sociological Quarterly, 54(1), 3–8. Zerán, F. (Ed.). (2018). Mayo feminista. La rebelión contra el patriarcado. Santiago: LOM Ediciones.

17 Utopia Tom G. Griffiths and Jo Williams

In mainstream or popular usage, the term utopia(n) is commonly invoked to dismiss an idea or argument, completely, with the implicit or explicit assumption that the idea or argument in question (and/or frequently that the person making the argument) is overly simplistic, or idealistic, or naïve, and so should be dismissed entirely in favor of more realistic positions. This sort of usage arguably has its roots in the Greek etymology of the word, translated as “nowhere” or “place that does not exist,” perhaps inferring that such a place cannot realistically exist. Thomas More’s famous work of fiction and political philosophy, Utopia, published in 1516, contributed to the concept of utopia as a currently non-existent, but essentially good or better, place. But in current political contexts across the globe, in which neoliberal policy prescriptions continue to dominate political discourse and public policy, the tag of utopian is increasingly applied to what were once orthodox social democratic practices of state intervention to mitigate market failure. A result is that just about any politically progressive social policy is rejected, and its advocates told they must be “realistic” about what can be achieved. To cite just one ongoing example in the Australian context, any suggestion that the Australian Government grant residency to asylum seekers who arrive on Australian territory by boat, and whose claims for asylum and refugee status are subsequently assessed and upheld, is dismissed in a bipartisan way by the two major political parties (the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal National Coalition). Such reasonable claims for asylum, grounded in international law, are dismissed as unrealistic and utopian, driven by “do-­ gooders” (also used pejoratively by the current Minister for Immigration, Peter Dutton). Incarcerating those seeking asylum indefinitely, and arbitrarily (based on their mode of arrival) in remote offshore “processing centers,” to deter others from attempting the pursuit of a better and safer life for themselves and their families, is presented as the only realistic option. Expecting or asking governments to take action to deliver a good and better place for all, or for the majority, is just naïve, while the reality that we are told we must accept is much bleaker.

Utopia 137 This brief intervention is grounded in a rejection of this use of the term utopia, and so a rejection of the subsequent rejection of ideas put forward that are negatively labeled as utopian. Beyond this misrepresentation of the term, we are insisting that the need for utopian thinking is more urgent than ever, as projects of imagining alternatives to capitalism and its multiple crises, and projects that involve action to create such emancipatory alternatives. We are arguing that utopian thinking and inspired action is not just needed in response to capitalist crises (the crisis of global climate change linked to capitalist production and consumption being the most critical), but that it is an inherent requirement of any social and political action and change. Imagining utopian alternatives to how things are, is in this sense an essential part of understanding actual reality, as expressed by Stetsenko (2017): The complex dialectic implied in this premise is that it is impossible to imagine a future unless we have located ourselves in the present and its history; however, the reverse is also true in that we cannot locate ourselves in the present and its history unless we imagine the future and commit to creating it. (p. 110) Crucially, we also insist that the educational project in its broadest sense is inherently, and unavoidably, a utopian project. In accordance with Stetsenko’s conceptualization, the act of education, and construction of education systems, is committed to creating a vision of the future. Even when this vision is restricted to ideas of preparing “good workers” and “good citizens,” who will in turn contribute through their future work and actions to some conception of the “good society,” it remains in its core a utopian project. In this sense, mass schooling shares a commitment to the future that in historical (and some current) socialist countries was explicitly articulated in terms of creating the “new man/woman,” or “new socialist citizen,” with in some cases corresponding subjects/curricular content to impart the desired knowledge, skills and dispositions. The historical socialist understanding of this future that students were being prepared to contribute to, and to build, shared an emphasis on developing human capital, in a rational and planned way, for projects of rapid national economic growth and development (e.g. Griffiths, 2009, 2011, 2013). The historical socialist variant of the economic development approach was coupled with distinctive features like the ideals of surpassing hierarchical distinctions between mental and manual labor, moving beyond abstracted conceptions of labor’s value toward systems of reward and resource distribution guided by human and social need. The Party was (problematically) promoted as the guiding, vanguard force in society leading this transformation. These aspects aside, there are some similarities with mass schooling in capitalist societies – a shared emphasis on preparing skilled, disciplined labor to contribute to programmes of national economic development, with rational policymakers in government

138  Tom G. Griffiths and Jo Williams and public bureaucracies guiding the nation toward some claimed vision of well-being for all at some point over the horizon. The concept of utopia as a yet to be established, good/better society, is evident in radical critiques of the developing class-based society, and the imagining of classless society. The utopianism of the 18th and 19th centuries reflected the urgings of an emerging working class increasingly conscious of its exploitation, but also influenced by the revolutionary democratic ideas of the radicalized, European bourgeoisie. Debates within the left over the need for countries to move through distinct stages of first a bourgeois revolution, and full development of capitalism, prior to more utopian socialist and communist phases, saw all sides acknowledge the possibility of the future classless society. In today’s context, after the rise and demise of historical socialism, we have repeatedly been forced to confront its historical experience and legacy. The popular use of the term utopia(n) to dismiss progressive/radical ideas invokes this historical experience of socialist political projects seeking to construct “real existing” socialist utopias. As a long-standing critic of the capitalist world-­ system and advocate for its replacement with a socialist alternative, Wallerstein (1998) observed that: … politically they [utopias] tend to rebound. For utopias are breeders of illusions and therefore, inevitably, of disillusions. And utopias can be used, have been used, as justifications for terrible wrongs. The last thing we really need is still more utopian visions. (p. 1) This perspective is supported by historians like Hobsbawm (2002) who described historical socialism’s “landscape of material and moral ruin,” (p. 127). Against this sort of historical baggage, it’s not surprising that the idea of fundamentally transforming existing capitalist society is dismissed as utopian. The dismissal of socialist utopias directly and/or indirectly maintains the establishment (“There is No Alternative”) line: that socialism has been tried and failed, that such ideas are inherently and inevitably flawed, unachievable, that socialism leads inexorably to dictatorship, and that capitalism, with all of its deficiencies, its structural inequalities, its environmental destruction, is the only viable system for organizing global society. But Wallerstein’s (1998) rejection of “utopian visions” is qualified, part of an introduction to a volume making an argument for the concept of “utopistics” which he describes as: the serious assessment of historical alternatives, the exercise of our judgement as to the substantive rationality of alternative possible historical systems. It is the sober, rational, and realistic evaluation of human social

Utopia 139 systems, the constraints on what they can be, and the zones open to human creativity. Not the face of the perfect (and inevitable) future, but the face of an alternative, credibly better, and historically possible (but far from certain) future. (pp. 1–2) World-systems analysis, as developed by Wallerstein, centers on arguments that the capitalist world-system is in phase of transition toward an alternative but uncertain replacement system (see for example Wallerstein, 2010; Wallerstein, Collins, Mann, Derlugian, & Calhoun, 2013). As the quote indicates, within the argued reality of a system in the process of transition, this perspective also highlights the increased potential for collective human agency/ action to influence the process of systemic change and so to shape the structure and functioning of the replacement system in ways that are more equal, just, peaceful and democratic. Philosophers like Laura Valentini (2012) have mapped out ideal versus non-ideal theory/theorizing in relation to normative claims for action. She discusses three interpretations of this divide in reference to Rawls’ theory of justice: the first centers on the degree of compliance (partial or full); the second on considerations of feasibility (which characterizes the popular rejection of utopian thinking as simply not feasible/realistic); and the third contrasts a focus on transitional improvements against the ideal end state (reform versus revolution?). Valentini (2012) concludes by acknowledging “clear connections” between these three interpretations, and that: … there is no right answer to the question of whether a normative political theory should be “ideal” or “non-ideal” (meaning more-or-less realistic). What type of idealizations are appropriate, and what facts ought to be taken into account in the design of normative principles, depends on the particular question the theory itself is meant to answer. (p. 662) A striking feature of her work is that each of the three interpretations of the divide between non-ideal and ideal theory is presented as involving some sort of continuum, from the partial, (under current conditions and c­ onstraints) feasible, transitional, goals and actions; moving toward an understood (utopian) ideal/endpoint. Some conception of the ideal endpoint is present, even when simply articulating what the principles for a partial, transitional, or feasible, action might be, as an incremental step along the continuum. Wallerstein’s emphasis on realistic, rational evaluations of what is possible, and on the credibility of alternatives, can be read in these terms. Similarly,

140  Tom G. Griffiths and Jo Williams Erik Olen Wright’s (2010) work on “real utopias” aligns with these sentiments, characterized by him as: elaborating a systematic diagnosis and critique of the world as it exists; envisioning viable alternatives; and understanding the obstacles, possibilities, and dilemmas of transformation. In different times and places one or another of these may be more pressing than others, but all are necessary for a comprehensive emancipatory theory. (p. 8) Ana Cecilia Dinerstein (2017) makes an argument rejecting Wright’s concept of “real utopia” precisely for its invocation of what is “feasible,” and insistence then on considering the viability or achievability of proposed alternatives. This is counter-posed by “Bloch’s concrete utopia [which] refers to concrete action toward the anticipation of the not-yet.” The tension here centers on the nature and limits of the “not yet,” with projects constrained by what is feasible under existing conditions arguably imposing unnecessary constraints on our affirmative imagining of what is yet to be assembled. Our position in relation to these debates is to argue for an openness to all claims along utopian continuums, in the spirit of not limiting thinking about alternatives to capitalism. We can and should continue to debate the merits of alternatives put forward, which may include consideration of the specific feasibility of particular claims or actions, depending on the nature and focus of what is put forward. In all cases, some utopian imagining of how things could and should be, and so toward which our actions aim to contribute, is present. It is this openness to utopian thinking and dreaming, as a basis for political action, that can be extended within existing educational systems, including their dominant curricular and pedagogical frameworks. This has long been advocated by some strands of “critical pedagogy” or “critical education,” calling for practice that raises students’ critical consciousness about social reality, their place in it and their capacity to take action in the world to change the world. Engaging students across educational systems in activities that involve their creative imagining of (utopian) alternatives to how things are, and the actions that can be taken to transform reality in those “not yet” but better futures, remain as feasible strategies for critical and utopian educators. Compounding the negative legacies of historical socialism, decades of neoliberal policy and practice have seemingly buried any utopian socialist past – real or imagined – adding to the dismissal of any prospect of an alternative utopian future. But to accept this line of argument is to capitulate to what Badiou (2008) described as the “unified world of capital” involving “the brutal division of human existence into regions separated by police

Utopia 141 dogs, bureaucratic controls, naval patrols, barbed wire and expulsions” (p.  38). And of course, as is now widely accepted, history is not dead as proclaimed by Fukayama (1992). One of the compelling reasons for utopian thinking is its potential to counter these trends, and the accompanying cynicism behind the oft-cited statement attributed to Jameson that in this epoch “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” (Jameson, 2003, p. 76). Another compelling argument for the concept of utopia is the idea of the “utopian force” of these ideas to inspire and guide action. We could list and discuss a large number of current and ongoing social and political and economic injustices, upheaval, conflict and crises, alongside the ecological crisis threatening the very capacity of the plane to sustain human life. The utopian force of imagined, dreamed, alternatives realized through collective action, provides some anchoring for political life in response to the otherwise bleak pessimism of 21st-century capitalism, which students contend with daily in their lives within and outside formal educational institutions. One of Paulo Freire’s (2012) many articulations of this work notes that: It is certain that men and women can change the world for the better, can make it less unjust, but they can do so only from the starting point of the concrete reality they “come upon” in their generation. They cannot do it on the basis of reveries, false dreams, or pure illusion. What is not possible, however, is to even think about transforming the world without a dream, without utopia, or without a vision … Dreams are visions for which one fights. (p. 45) We need the utopian force of projects that are grounded in socialist ideas of peace with justice, of social and economic equality, of meaningful and socially useful work, of authentic participation in democratic systems of governance, of authentic ecological sustainability and an alternative driving logic of production and consumption based on human need. And we need more people acting in social movements toward the realization of such alternatives. A further dimension of contemporary utopian thinking and action rests in the reality that many contemporary projects for social change, coupled with visions of alternative futures, may turn out to be not utopian at all, in the sense of delivering a better/good society, or indeed of constructing a more equal and just, classless society. Wallerstein (2010) warned that we regularly confront pseudo reforms/change/transformation, designed to “change everything so that nothing changes” (p. 141). These programs are frequently

142  Tom G. Griffiths and Jo Williams advanced by the bourgeois that has long since cleansed itself of progressive or radical ideas. Their vision for the future is the prospect of an alternative, post-capitalist, system that retains and/or deepens the hierarchical divisions and inequalities that characterize current arrangements: “a green universe, a multicultural utopia, meritocratic opportunities for all – while preserving a polarized and unequal system” (Wallerstein, 2010, p. 141). Current systemic crises exacerbate these possibilities as the 1% (or 0.01%) work to maintain their position of privilege. We agree with Freire that we need dreams and dreamers. Achieving systemic change requires and demands their presence. But if they are to have any real significance, both dreams and dreamers need concrete points of historical and contemporary reference, at multiple levels of scale. Not something locked in the past, and with it locked into old debates, nor something reserved only for abstract philosophical inquiry. Neither will utopia be sustained and developed by the tepid propositions of a pragmatic left that has long ago abandoned any adherence to the utopian force of socialism. If utopia is to thrive it will most likely come from the daring rebellions of the young, from confrontations, and from the tearing down of the new walls and towers that protect the most ruthless and barbaric of ruling classes in history – today’s 0.01%. The utopian language and ideals of the Occupy movement in the United States beginning in 2011, for example, was grounded in a rejection of the grotesque inequality between the 1% (and within it the 0.01%) and the 99%, and all of the associated international political structures and systems that sustain the unprecedented levels of global social and economic inequality (see Giroux, 2012). Similarly, grassroots responses to the call of some Latin American political leaders to redefine and construct socialism for the 21st century, for example, continue to invoke systemic change and imagine radically alternative ways of being (e.g. Venezuelanalysis & Saman, 2017). Despite the inevitable push-back from capital, and the weaknesses of national political parties seeking to harness these movements within liberal democratic political structures, their actions inspired by ideas of systemic alternatives persists. The Chilean student movement (2011–2016) stands as another contemporary social movement, inspired by ideas of free university education for all (dismissed as utopian and unviable under neoliberal policy frameworks), and alternative conceptions of formal education to the dominant human capital logic. Adopting the famous slogan from the May-June uprisings in Paris, 1968 “Nuestros sueños no les pertenecen” or “Nobody owns our dreams” the Chilean students embodied a new civic courage through a relentlessly hopeful rebellion, grounded in the history of mass struggle in Chile. Through a counter-practice that saw pedagogy reclaimed as political and public, the movement and their allies/supporters forced a nation-wide discussion around Chile’s social and

Utopia 143 economic inequality (Williams, 2015), thereby throwing open opportunities to consider alternatives. The Chilean students signal that dreamers can and will continue to make history.

References Badiou, A. (2008). The communist hypothesis. New Left Review, (49), 29–42. Dinerstein, A. C. (2017). Concrete Utopia: (Re)producing life in, against and beyond the open veins of capital. Retrieved from Public Seminar website: http://www.publicseminar.org/2017/12/ concrete-utopia/. Freire, P. (2012). On the right and the duty to change the world. In M. Nikolakaki (Ed.), Critical pedagogy in the new dark ages: Challenges and possibilities (pp. 45–52). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The end of history and the last man. London: H. Hamilton. Giroux, H. (2013). Youth in revolt: Reclaiming a democratic future. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Griffiths, T. G. (2009). 50 Years of socialist education in revolutionary Cuba: A world-systems perspective. Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 15(2), 45–64. Griffiths, T. G. (2011). World-systems analysis and comparative education for an uncertain future. The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 10(1), 20–33. Griffiths, T. G. (2013). Mass education and human capital in the capitalist world-system. In T. G. Griffiths & R. Imre (Eds.), Mass education, global capital, and the world: The theoretical lenses of István Mészáros and Immanuel Wallerstein (pp. 41–66). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Hobsbawm, E. (2002). Interesting times: A twentieth-century life. Great Britain: Abacus. Jameson, F. (2003). Future city. New Left Review, (21), 65–79. Stetsenko, A. (2015). Theory for and as Social Practice of Realizing the Future: Implications from a Transformative Activist Stance. In J. Martin, J. Sugarman, & K. L. Slaney (Eds.), The Wiley Handbook of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology: Methods, Approaches, and New Directions for Social Sciences (pp. 102–116). Canada: Wiley Blackwell. Valentini, L. (2012). Ideal vs. non-ideal theory: A conceptual map. Philosophy Compass, 7(9), 654–664. Venezuelanalysis, & Saman, E. (2017). Eduardo Saman: We Are Making the Revolution Within the Revolution. Venezuelanalysis. Retrieved from venezuelanalysis.com website: https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13539. Wallerstein, I. (1998). Utopistics: Or, historical choices of the twenty-first century. New York, NY: The New Press. Wallerstein, I. (2010). Structural crises. New Left Review, (61) (March–April), 133–142. Wallerstein, I., Collins, R., Mann, M., Derlugian, G., & Calhoun, C. (2013). Does capitalism have a future? Oxford, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Williams, J. (2015). Remaking education from below: The Chilean student movement as public pedagogy. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 55(3), 496–514. Wright, E. O. (2010). Envisaging real utopias. London: Verso.

18 Hope Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy

In almost every country in the world, many people live in conditions of misery, which they cannot control, change or abolish. Most of them would like to have their life in their hands, to experience freedom, to have humane work and better material conditions. In capitalist and totalitarian/dictatorial countries, many citizens know that the system does not allow them to have an equal and fully secure life, so they do not seek to challenge the system thinking that “there is no alternative.” Furthermore, they think that they cannot escape from their destiny, and they feel impotent. By contrast, when they think that it is possible to change their destiny, they do so by uniting, organizing, consciously acting, struggling, and sometimes by fleeing from their lands. When people think that their undesired condition and place in the world can be changed by their action, then eventually hope emerges. It may come from the inside or the outside, but hope is an overwhelming energy for human beings who are in difficult condition. It causes people to act and struggle for their own or others’ life. In an award-wining Turkish movie titled “Umuda Yolculuk/Reise der Hoffnung” [Journey to Hope] (1990), there was a story of so-called “illegal” migration of a Turkish family to Switzerland. The family left home (from a Turkish city) in winter time and fled to Switzerland with the support of human traffickers. During the journey, they faced adverse weather conditions, as is currently happening in many parts of the world, and they lost their toddler boy due to the freezing temperature. In Switzerland, the Swiss police asked the father about what brought them there. His answer was very short: “hope.” Human will and actions may be triggered by unrealistic ideals and expectations which do not result from critical consciousness and sufficient/proper knowledge. Even when there is no reason to think that things will get better, people may still think: “everything will be fine.” In this case, we may be talking about optimism rather than “hope.” Because religions promise a better after-life, billions of people in the world practice religion and they also act for “the hope of a heavenly reward.” The promise of the religion, according to Marx, is more like opium. In his famous piece, Marx ([1844]/1967, p. 250) wrote “Religious suffering is the expression of real suffering and at the same time the protest against

Hope 145 real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and spirit of the spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” As Marx argued, when people do not see how to get out of a desperate condition, they resort to religion to relieve them from their suffering. Hope, in this case, will be for a utopian place that depicts a life in the place where people won’t need a painkiller. When utopia becomes a possibility it becomes a very real source of motivation to be reached or constructed. Sometimes, before the utopia has been constructed, dystopia which is currently being experienced by many people, may be destroyed through very different ways. However, this could be harder than to construct a new better hopeful life, since oppressors would like to continue to deepen the inequalities and exploitation instead of creating justice, equity and welfare for all. Hope is being produced in very different contexts and by different means, such as individually, socially, religiously, economically and politically. For critical minds and theory, the suffering of the people can be expressed in the real world where we are in, hence the suffering can be defeated/abolished within the same world. However, in order to get rid of suffering there needs to change of the social and economic conditions through a change in the social formation. The Communist Manifesto (Marx & Engels, 1848/2008) reveals the dehumanizing roots of the capitalist formation and it points to a better, equal and just world in a very abstract and basic level. After about 170 years, it still works as a guide and source of hope to avoid conditions of suffering and, in our times, to refrain from the immiserating neoliberal policies and the attendant undemocratic political and economic practices. Increasing critical consciousness may be helpful to create hope for escaping from immiseration. However, this goal (escaping from immiseration) is closely related to critical education owing to its ability to reach large audiences. The education of people (as mass education) is a political issue and progressivist and critical educators, families and citizens are criticizing the education systems since they are not providing any emancipatory development for the participants/student. Since education is a site of conflict and struggle for different political, economic, social, religious and cultural groups, education with democratic characteristics can be accepted as an important part of hope. In an unjust, unequal society, when education does not support the participants who come from the lower income level, part of the society and the children of the oppressed, it may not be a source of hope, but an “ideological apparatus” (Althusser,1971/2014) of the oppressors. In this case, like other social and political institutions, education is not able to create automatically a climate of hope. In order to create a hopeful future, especially for the oppressed groups, two issues matter a lot: making public education “emancipatory” and international solidarity. However, while hope is a collective issue, it should also be seen as an individual pursuit which directly reinvigorates one’s existence as well as his/her consciousness.

146  Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy It should be mentioned that hope is not something that exists within individuals’ emotional situations or optimism (Eagleton, 2016). It is a source of energy, a reason of the possibility which can help people change the conditions that cause them to suffer. Because of this, hope is a political matter (by rejecting fatalism and revealing the will) and is in opposition to optimism. Hope is something that is combined with human knowledge, emotion, insight and desire which may encourage an action, a move forward. It does not exist by itself in a state of misery or when everything is perfect, but it can be constructed or resulted from conscious actions or reflection. It is part of our life and it should be part of the struggle carried out by conscious subjects. Hope should be, along with all struggles, carried out in different fields of life by the “oppressed” or “wretched” people of the world. The horizon and the context of hope is related to the consciousness of people and it is connected with changing the social formation and/or satisfying basic needs such as clean water, subsistence, free education and employment. Freire (2014) focused on hope as an “ontological need.” According to Freire, we are in need of hope in order to survive. Hope is necessary, but not enough. Freire’s remarks on hope regarding educational settings are very substantial. According to him, (Freire, 2014) the function of hope in our life is a kind of rejection of hopelessness: “When it becomes a program, hopelessness paralyzes us, immobilizes us. We succumb to fatalism and then it becomes impossible to muster the strength we absolutely need for a fierce struggle that will re-­ create the world.” Freire sees hope as connected with emancipatory education. For him, education should be emancipatory. Hence, constructing hope needs emancipatory education/training, as a practice of freedom (Freire, 1991). Similarly, Eagleton argues that hope is not a way of thinking that comes from temperament (Eagleton, 2016). In other words, hope is not optimism but it is the opposite of pessimism. To sum up, both optimism and pessimism can be part of fatalism. Hope can be an apparatus which is connected with critical pedagogy and may be used to fight against the darkness both in educational and political context (Aksoy, 2017). Holloway (2005) uses scream as a metaphor to remark on the hope which is required by the oppressed to change the world that negates and exploits their humanity. The situation they/we live in is not acceptable. How can we continue to live with the negation of our humanity; where should we start from or what can we start with? Asking these questions is a starting point about the negation of “negation” which rejects the people’s humanity. According to Holloway, screaming is another starting point! I am here under oppression/ exploitation by the powerful and I do not want to be in such conditions. I am screaming. I want to be in another point and there is a gap between the place where I am standing now and the place I should be. I know that I am in a very bad situation, sometimes in misery, too weak to escape from this situation, but

Hope 147 still I am thinking that it is possible. I am screaming because scream includes hope which can be constructed. From this perspective, Holloway searches, discusses and guides us to find a way to escape from the capitalist exploitation and dehumanization. He tries to show us that there may be a way to demolish savage power in the nuclear age, through revealing how capitalist dehumanization works and what its weakest side is. Holloway talks about the Zapatistas and subcommandante Marcos and their understanding which was developed against dehumanization practices of those in power. Their activities and interventions in every domain of daily life have brought hope to very large groups in Mexico/Oxaca and other parts of the world. The daily practices and activities which are directly connected with the needs of society, seem to carry a hope for the future of the undeveloped, illiterate and oppressed groups. Some may not find these good enough for hope, but hope is constructed through direct contact with people. Drawing on Freire, we may say that, “hope” can be infectious. However, it can’t be transplanted from one context to another without challenges and difficulties. It is something that can be re-constructed by the conscious subjects through reflection and praxis. A democratic win or maybe a revolution in any part of the world may excite us and make us feel good. This can encourage us to think that this development is also possible in our country. In this regard, hope is not the change, but only a part of the possibility for change which our consciousness will sense/perceive. Our interest regarding hope here is to find a way to hope. In this context, hope should be gained by the critical consciousness, struggle, solidarity, and by collective and individual effort. Otherwise, hope will only be part of some disappointment: the bigger the hope is, the bigger the disappointment might become. The starting point for constructing hope may be pain, disappointment and all kinds of difficulties and oppressions which will be evaluated through critical consciousness. Hope can turn the lights on against ideological manipulation/hegemony which eradicates the thinking of the possibility for a better life. In this context, the World Social Forum is part of “hope” that creates the alternative discourse as “another world is possible” against the fatalism of “there is no alternative” that is championed by neoliberal protagonists, such as Thatcher, Reagan and their followers. Bloch (2007) reminds us that “hope” may be the antithesis of fear. In uncertain and oppressive times, we can ask for a definite future and think that uncertainties can create some concern and fear. Fear is a feeling/ emotion which is harmful to the harmony and wholeness of the person. But hope is a feeling/emotion that heals that fear and encourages us to move forward (Bloch, 2007). In the current era of the conservative-neoliberal policies, as a concept and base for life, hope is crucial for all people and especially for those who live in

148  Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy misery and oppression. Hope is combined with our critical views, struggle, solidarity, dialogue, praxis and all our historical- collective and i­ndividual­heritage. Being a “hopeful subject” means being closer to emancipation/ humanization as opposed to being “a hopeless person.” We may see the possibility for change and moving forward may be the only acceptable/possible option. Thus, in those times “hope” energizes the people and shows them where to move ahead. Hope does not function as an illusion, but, on the contrary, it shows the very concrete possibilities you can achieve. A concrete and physiological impact of hope can be felt in our bodies. People can feel the light consciously. The darkness which surrounds us is preventing us to see the past, the present and the future in their entirety. Hope is an immaterial source which motivates me to move, step forward, get up earlier or stay awake at night and search for someone else to act in solidarity. Through collective search, we are becoming “hopeful subjects” instead of falling into hopelessness. Crossing the old borders which prevent us from being human may give us a new space to live and new hopes.

References Aksoy, H. H. (2017). Umut. Eleștirel Eğitim ve Siyasal Alanın Ortak Arayıșı. [Hope. A mutual search of the critical pedagogy and political field]. Eleştirel Pedagoji. (49), 34–38. Althusser, L. (1971/2014). On the reproduction of capitalism: Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. Translated by G. M. Goshgarian. London: Verso. Originally published in 1971. Bloch, E. (2007). Umut İlkesi. Cilt 1 [The Principle of Hope, Vol. 1]. İstanbul: İletișim Publishing. Originally written in 1938–1947 and published in 1959. Eagleton, T. (2016). Iyimser Olmayan Umut [Hope without optimism]. Translated by E. Ayhan. Istanbul: Ayrinti Publishing. Freire, P. (1991). Ezilenlerin Pedagojisi [Pedagogy of oppressed]. Translated by D. Hattatoğlu & E. Ozbek. Istanbul: Ayrinti Publishing. Freire, P. (2014). Pedagogy of hope. Reliving pedagogy of the oppressed. (With Notes by Ana Maria Araùjo Freire). Translation to English by R. R. Barr. New York, NY: Bloomsbury. [Elektronik Version. 2014 A&C Black]. Holloway, J. (2005). Change the world without taking power. The meaning of revolution today (2nd ed.). London: Pluto Press. Marx, K. ([1844]/1967). Toward the critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law: Introduction. In. L. D. Easton & K. H. Guddat, (Trans. and Eds.), Writings of the young Marx on philosophy and society (pp. 249–264). Garden City, New York, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books. First published in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, 1844 in Paris. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848/2008). The Communist manifesto. London: Pluto Press. Originally published at February 1848 as titled “The Manifesto of the Communist Party”. Umuda Yolculuk/Reise Hoffnung [Journey to Hope] (1990). Movie. Retrieved from https:// www.imdb.com/title/tt0100470/.

19 Social Movements Laurence Cox

Society in Movement The changing meanings of “social movement” sketch a history of the past quarter-millennium of popular struggles to change the world: how people have organized themselves and understood their activity. The term appeared in mid-19th century Europe to grasp the French Revolution, the pan-European revolutions of 1848, and the rise of democratic, nationalist and socialist organizations. Contemporary elites were experiencing a disconcerting shift, mapped in the changing meanings of “society” away from the small world of those who counted, as in the capitalized usage of “Society,” when others (the vast m ­ ajority) could be expected to “know their place” (Williams, 1983). Earlier elites, then, had conceptualized the human world purely in terms of political theory or economics. Our use of “society” to refer to all human beings and their interrelationships came into being as those others stepped out of “their place,” raising “the social question.” “The social movement” represented the attempts of the vast majority to answer “the social question”; or the uprising of society against Society in a struggle for equality, democracy and the future (Cox, 2013). This took many different forms: conspiratorial democrats, working-class socialists, Polish or Irish nationalism, resistance to imperial wars, freethought, opposition to slavery, women’s struggles for equality among others (Barker, 2013). The movement of society against the status quo was not a single, or simple, thing: individuals and organizations involved themselves with many different issues as they arose in actual organizing. There was much to be gained by this, in a world where left and right both assumed that increased democracy would inevitably lead to social change. Before  formal democracy, independent nation states and the end of empires, ­welfare states, legal equality for women, the abolition of slavery, religious freedom etc., it was reasonable to believe that transforming just one of these dimensions might entail far wider changes. However, in this same period – between the revolutions of 1848 and the defeat in most countries of the revolutionary

150  Laurence Cox wave of 1916–1924 – most European elites shifted from trying to put “society” back in its box to strategies of securing popular consent for continued inequality, whether by selective concessions to individual groups or through mass popular mobilization on the right, a strategy pursued from Bonapartism via fascism to Christian Democracy and present-day racism (Cox, 2018).

Movement as Political Organization Movement successes changed the practical meaning of “movement,” as the earlier situation – of sporadic waves of mass revolt, often clandestine organizations in a context of generalized illegality and tenuous links with individually sympathetic elite members – was replaced by one where even working-class struggles could sustain large trade unions, extensive mutual aid organizations, women’s and youth groups, national and local daily papers or mass political parties, typically organized hierarchically: the classic example being the German SPD. It also became necessary to speak of multiple movements, as fascist movements grew, the alliance between liberal and working-class movements broke apart, and the latter split between communist and social-democratic forms. In the early 20th century, these all took state power, and used it brutally against their opponents. So too, starting in Ireland, and after WWII across Asia and Africa, anti-colonial and nationalist movements took power, with varying relationships to peasant and working-class movements. The changed structure of popular action meant that “movement” was often a synonym for a party-­ affiliated constellation of organizations aiming at, or controlling, state power. Hence “movement” became a dirty word in post-war West Germany, associated with Nazism and orthodox communism (Raschke, 1988); while one could tot up references to “ThiGMOO,” “this great movement of ours” at British Labour Party conferences (Byrne, 1999).

New Social Movements By contrast with mid-20th century left, nationalist and fascist movements, the New Left from the mid-1960s on used “new social movements” to describe things as diverse as the US Civil Rights Movement, west European opposition to nuclear weapons, student activism culminating in 1968, the Prague Spring, feminist and gay liberation activism, the counter-culture, squatting, anti-­ nuclear power or environmental struggles. This usage spread to the majority world, particularly to Latin America and South Asia, by the 1970s and 1980s. Often, within a Marxist analysis, such movements were seen as “new” because they lacked the hierarchically controlled architecture of mass organizations, the single party line – and sometimes any obvious link between participants’ material situation and the movements’ core issues.

Social Movements 151 Some Marxists in the United States and UK – themselves nostalgic for “proper movements” more imagined than real – read this as a political or theoretical choice between movements. This drew on a (university-based, white, male) identity politics whose “workerist” view of popular movements excluded actual left histories of support for women’s struggles, anti-racism, resistance to militarism and cultural radicalism (Rowbotham & Weeks 1977; Thompson, 1976). In these countries, with unions under particularly vicious and decisive assault from 1979–1980 and far left parties typically micro-organizations, the use of “movement” for labor, socialism, anarchism, working-class community activism etc., fell out of favor. Meanwhile, much Anglophone Marxism shifted to academic and publishing contexts which rewarded a focus on structure rather than agency, so that ­working-class struggles were now subordinated to discussions of political economy. Something similar happened with the development of academic feminism, black studies, post-colonialism, queer studies, ecological philosophy, peace studies etc. One practical result, in English, is that “social movement” increasingly excludes the main organizational components of popular activism between the 1880s and the 1960s. Political parties, trade unions, activist media, popular subcultures or politicized religion are rarely recognized as the sediment of popular struggle or seen in relationship to wider movements; they are typically studied in isolation from one another. Simultaneously, b­ oundary-construction to shape new fields like “civil society” or “resistance” disperses understanding, and interest, further. This specialization is paralleled by the increasingly niche world of radical publishing and communication, which, in neoliberalism, favors fragmentation and the elevation of one aspect of popular struggle over others, often as a marker of identity. As mass popular organizations declined in the minority world, movements’ own intellectual life became increasingly shaped by the logics of commercialism and celebrity, rewarding a politics of opinion based on attacking or ignoring other movements rather than building alliances. There were also non-intellectual reasons for this. The events of 1968 – whether in Prague, Paris or Derry – showed the “last-instance” power of the superpower-backed state. With urban guerrilla strategies increasingly self-defeating, movements came to define themselves in terms which excluded revolution – in stark contrast to previous history. In the majority world, the disappointments of national-developmentalism, and the subsequent transformation of independent nation–states into transmission belts for neoliberal policies, also undermined the credibility of older state-centric revolutionary discourses, a process encapsulated in the title Change the World without Taking Power (Holloway, 2002) and the impressive politics of the Zapatista revolution. The prestige of state socialist revolutions similarly declined among movement actors, long before 1989 in most countries.

152  Laurence Cox In the 1980s and 1990s, a new wave of movement (semi-) institutionalization saw a further division between environmental, women’s, LGTBQ+, development, peace, anti-poverty, anti-racist and other NGOs, staffed by a small number of professionals dependent on elite support (for funding, media ­coverage, legal battles, access to policy-making, academic credibility etc.) and a new kind of “incivil society,” a tension intensified in majority world neoliberalism, where NGOs have increasingly taken on quasi-state roles (Sen, 2007). The phrase “social movements,” however, often remained in use despite this radical shift in practical meaning.

Movements and Education Education was a significant site of political struggle from an early point, as a location where top-down power intersected ordinary people’s lives, asserting control of them as children, or of their children. Religion played a central role in constructing European education systems; universities bore the marks of this origin until well into the 19th and often the 20th centuries, including religious requirements for entry, while schools, commonly controlled by religious bodies, concerned themselves closely with the moral lives of their pupils. Non-participation, or the construction of independent educational structures, was thus a frequent response. The children of the gentry, meanwhile, often had private tutors or went to fee-paying schools of various kinds: even where these latter were not religious, their purpose of shaping elite solidarity and forming “character” left them as eminently disciplinary institutions. As industrializing states developed compulsory education systems, these were politicized in different ways in different contexts. In early 19th-century Ireland, for example, where the colonial Anglican church dominated, Catholic children typically attended independent “hedge schools” structured around directly supporting a local teacher (often, paradoxically, a radical) with money or in kind; the eventual outcome of reforms was a standardized education system in which virtually all schools were run by a church (Catholic, Anglican or non-conformist). Similarly, in colonial Sri Lanka, state-subsidized missionary schools used English-medium education and a “modern” curriculum to challenge the traditional temple schools of the Sinhala Buddhist majority. The missionary schools would themselves be challenged by the Buddhist Theosophical Society’s schools, combining Englishlanguage provision and a modern curriculum with a modernizing Buddhist ethos and serving as an organizing ground for the developing nationalist middle class (Cox & Sirisena, 2016). In Britain, meanwhile, working-class radicals resisted upper-class attempts to provide “useful knowledge” to their children (in the sense of training them directly in technical skills and workplace discipline) with struggles for “really

Social Movements 153 useful knowledge,” understanding that would help challenge the power of the employers politically and validate a wider perspective on what human beings were, and could be. These religious and class dimensions combined in the 1871 Paris Commune, which saw schools, including girls’ schools, being expropriated from Catholic religious orders and run on free and egalitarian lines: this programme would win out a decade after the Commune’s defeat. More radically, the execution of educationalist Francesc Ferrer following Barcelona’s 1909 working-class uprising led to the formation of anarchist and secular “Modern Schools” on the model he had pioneered, notably in the United States (Avrich, 1980). From the later 19th century on, however, the combination of the costs involved in running mass education and its increasing political significance in an age of rising working-class self-assertion meant that a combination of state, religious and private schools dominated. The anarchist school movement represented an extraordinary achievement in terms of self-organization, as did the various forms of radical working-class adult education (self-organized, supported by sympathetic elites or within trade union and political party contexts). The Steiner–Waldorf school movement, which in very different ways challenged the instrumentalist view of education as a means to discipline and train future workers, began in 1919 with a model school that brought together all the children of the Waldorf cigar factory in Stuttgart – workers’, clerks’ and managers’ children alike – in a co-educational context shaped by German Romanticism to initiate a movement which remains active to this day as probably the single largest alternative/independent education movement on the planet.

1968  and the Challenge to Educational Power Despite these marginal challenges, however, the new dispensation was remarkably successful in many different political contexts in imposing its definition of the meanings and purposes of education: moral character (whether framed in religious terms or not, but always with a strong gender component); the making of citizens (through using the dominant national language and an official curriculum around national literature, history etc.); social selection; and more or less visibly employment-related training. Consistent with this, most conflicts around education for several decades were dominated by issues of religious power and distributive issues, or at the most radical (as in colonial Burma) the formation of an alternative national elite that sought to replace the existing power structure. The educational struggles now symbolized by the date 1968 were of a very different kind (Mohandesi, Risager, & Cox, 2018). As already noted, the state as an agent of positive change was now less credible; those destined for

154  Laurence Cox white-collar jobs on graduation were no longer enthused by the prospect; and cultural change had eroded the viability of older, moralizing discourses (recall that the uprising in the secular French system was sparked off in part over the issue of student sexuality). Along with these conflicts came an increasing critique of what Paulo Freire would call “banking education,” a top-down, teacher-dominated system geared to the transmission, memorization and repetition of supposedly neutral knowledge. Students turned the critical eyes of their own disciplines (particularly in the social sciences and humanities) on the actual social relations of education, while also drawing on newer forms of anti-authoritarian Marxism, radical democracy and anarchism – soon to be joined by the developing discourses of feminism, Black studies, post-colonialism, queer studies and other perspectives. Although these struggles came toward the end of the “thirty glorious years” (1945–1975) of expanding university, other educational and welfare-state provision, they succeeded in substantially challenging power relations within the university, introducing new pedagogical approaches, democratizing many everyday interactions – and unleashing radical impulses into children’s and adult education, social care and youth work, children’s publishing and media, and many other areas of life. These impulses were increasingly contained or even the object of culture-war offensives from the right in later decades, as well as being more quietly defeated by neoliberal cuts, an increasing focus on testing students and evaluating faculty, and a grimmer economic outlook which privileged instrumental approaches to education and employer interests. However, the legacy of radical thought within education remains significant, and if student movements are once again primarily organized around distributive concerns, they are more likely to do so as part of a wider critique of society.

Education and Social Movements Post-Fordism saw two important shifts from the later 1970s: a major shift in employment structures which undermined the traditional organizations of the working class, while as noted above statist (social-democratic, communist, nationalist) political parties were also in decline. The loss of these and other traditional bases for radical organization – such as independent newspapers – coincided with the institutionalization of non-elite forms of third-level education, in terms both of employment situation and student recruitment, to make universities an obvious, not always conscious, site for the formation of new kinds of movement thinking. Along with IT workers, academics today often have a relative control over their working time and ability to switch employer that parallels those of the classic 19th-century radical trades such as cobblers

Social Movements 155 and 20th-century trades such as printers: not necessarily as the sources of mass recruitment but as forms of employment that enable a greater degree of political activism of various kinds. Some activists also found that traditional skills of public speaking, activist writing and basic organization helped them in the academic workplace. The downside, as in earlier artistic subcultures, is the tendency for processes of radical opinion-formation, agitation within the small confines of the university and critical analysis to far outstrip actual organizing and connections with the wider social world. Moreover, the connections to that wider world which are most readily available are those of publishing and speaking celebrity, in other words a form of capitalist marketplace which in the late 20th and early 21st century increasingly privileges a pure politics of opinion as a way to establish oneself within a specific niche market defined by particular identity markers (including white men from working-class backgrounds). This is not a problem in itself – movements always have to find their origins within the social world as it actually is if they are to develop – but it can be a problem if these issues are not recognized and if in-group polemics around minor differences in language (characteristic of the university environment) are seen as constituting “real politics” at the expense of practical engagement with wider social needs and struggles. This is just as true for organizing in working-class contexts as it is for organizing around race, gender, sexuality or disability: actual organizing work involves listening to people for long enough to hear the deeper needs and embryonic solutions they are struggling to articulate. In this sense, educationally based radicals have a particular responsibility to always try to make links beyond the boundaries of the institution and to avoid allowing the “small differences” naturally valued by both adolescents and intellectuals to become essentialized to the point of preventing effective alliance formation.

Reclaiming Social Movement One important antidote to allowing popular movements to be remade in the image of the university is to pay particular attention to movements’ own learning processes. As we have seen, much academic theorizing is “frozen” movement thought: the challenge is then to “reclaim, recycle and reuse” these for today’s movements (Cox & Nilsen, 2014). This is also true for the forms of thought and learning: if an older generation of radical pedagogy transcribes the practices of 1968, of Freire or of feminist consciousness-raising into the classroom, it is time again to pay attention to the new shapes which social movement learning, teaching and theorizing are taking (Cox, 2014). Rather than uncritically transcribe what have become institutional logics into our wider politics, in other words, dialogue between these older sediments of movement

156  Laurence Cox practice in educational politics and the new impulses of radical education outside the institution can help to find appropriate organizing languages to enable new alliances to be formed. This has certainly been the case in the global movement of movements against neoliberalism, not least in Latin American struggles from the Zapatistas on, in the many movements of 2011, decolonizing struggles today or the Rojava revolution. Despite the hard lessons of the past quarter-millennium of popular self-organization, long histories of institutionalization and incorporation, neoliberal fragmentation and political niche markets, new struggles keep springing up; movements keep making alliances across differences and reach toward a general transformation of society. Society is still in movement, and understanding this still matters (Cox, 2018). The phrase “social movements” still has real potential: in understanding that society is made and contested, not given, and in seeing what past struggles have achieved and how much is going on today (from micro-level resistance to moments of revolution). The plural is important: there are no automatic alliances (and few automatic conflicts). Struggles around class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality or ability can be connected as movements from below; and we need each other if we want to win.

References Avrich, P. (1980). The Modern School movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Barker, C. (2013). Class struggle and social movements. In C. Barker et al. (Eds.), Marxism and social movements (pp. 41–61). Leiden: Brill. Byrne, E. (1999). ThiGMOO. London: Earthlight. Cox, L. (2013). Eppur si muove. In Colin Barker et al. (Eds.), Marxism and social movements (pp. 125–146). Leiden: Brill. Cox, L. (2014). Movements making knowledge. Sociology, 48(5), 954–971. Cox, L. (2018). Why social movements matter. London: Rowman and Littlefield International. Cox, L., & Nilsen, A. (2014). We make our own history. London: Pluto. Cox, L., & Sirisena, M. (2016). Early western lay Buddhists in colonial Asia. Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions, 3, 108–139. Holloway, J. (2002). Change the world without taking power. London: Pluto. Mohandesi, S., Risager, B. and Cox, L. (eds.) (2018) Voices of 1968. London: Pluto. Raschke, J. (1988). Soziale Bewegungen. Frankfurt am Main: Campus. Rowbotham, S., & Weeks, J. (1977). Socialism and the new life. London: Pluto. Sen, J. (2007). The power of civility. Development Dialogue, (October), 51–67. Thompson, E. P. (1976). William Morris (2nd ed.). London: Merlin.

20 Revolutionary Pedagogy Peter McLaren

The Road to Critical Pedagogy At this most rancid moment in the political history of the United States, as we are being suffocated by such an unholy mixture of right-wing dreck that has infiltrated the common square and saturated the social media ecosystem, we are despairing of hope amidst the swindle of unreason. So much ideological chaff has been thrown into the media’s radar that even our most basic assumptions about the meaning of human life fail to comport with any reference to a commonality that individuals can be reasonably measured against. The turbulence of navigating through the debris of post-truth politics during a pandemic of unrivaled proportion (unless we wish to consider the Spanish Flu of 1918) civil rights protests against police violence and systemic racism under the banner of Black Lives Matter, and impending planetary disaster due to climate change, has persuaded many Anglo-Americans to surrender to an authoritarian politics characterized by white ethno-­nationalism and to choose white supremacist capitalist patriarchy over fostering reciprocal relations of respect, understanding and solidarity with people of color. This has made an understanding of revolutionary critical pedagogy across the mediascape that define our collective lives an urgent proposition, offering revolutionary praxis as informed by intersectionality as means of shifting the tectonic plates of our contemporary political landscape. Leading Marxist educational scholar Glenn Rikowski (2007) traced the historical legacy of critical pedagogy in the United Kingdom to the work of the Frankfurt School, Jürgen Habermas in particular, but also to Antonio Gramsci (1995). Rikowski (2007) described how a wider recognition and deeper philosophical understanding of critical pedagogy was achieved through the writings and teachings of Brazilian radical educator and activist Paulo Freire. He rightly claims that Freire’s (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed laid the foundations for what became the American Critical Pedagogy School of the 1970s and onwards. Furthermore, he concedes that critical pedagogy in North America failed to achieve mainstream status. Rikowski (2007)

158  Peter McLaren correctly attributes the scholarship of Paula Allman (1999, 2001) with helping critical pedagogy to attain “a firm foothold” in the field of educational scholarship, especially in the areas of adult education, higher education and teacher education. In the United States, interest in Freire had been building since the release of Pedagogy of the Oppressed in English in 1970 and had reached a crescendo in the 1980s and 1990s, assisted by the publication of Freire’s work in collaboration with three US educators, Ira Shor (Freire & Shor, 1987), Donaldo Macedo (Freire & Macedo, 1987) and Myles Horton (Horton & Freire, 1990). In the late 1990s and early this century, critical pedagogy continued to grow (see Antonia Darder (1991); Peter Mayo (2004); and McLaren (1986); McLaren & Leonard, (1993); McLaren & Lankshear (1994)).

From Critical Pedagogy to Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy Rikowski (2007) draws upon Shor’s (1992, p. 129) definition of critical pedagogy as follows: “Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal circumstances of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media or discourse.” Rikowski (2007) noted that this definition was too all-embracing, casting too wide a net, sharing too many similarities with the radical sociology of the late-1950s and early 1960s that was committed to a vague notion of social transformation, and to the equally vague notion of “empowering education” that stressed the development of personal attributes and behaviors over the collective transformation of the social totality. The latter was associated with a depoliticized form of critical thinking that stressed in hierarchical fashion various cognitive taxonomies. Rikowski (2007) raised the issue of the extent to which critical pedagogy is based upon a commitment to social emancipation that would entail rigorous theoretical developments in ideology critique that were directed at “uncovering underlying truths behind sometimes baffling and debilitating appearances and ideological smokescreens.” Rikowski’s (2007) concern about the imperative of uncovering “the ‘deep meaning’ of phenomena encountered in everyday life, including what goes on in schools, colleges and universities” reflects similar questions raised today by numerous critical educators, in particular Marxist and neo-Marxist educators, who believe critical pedagogy should first and foremost be about systemic changes in the capitalist system (as distinct from cyclical or structural changes). Otherwise it falls prey to what Rikowski (2007) calls “a ‘critical deficit’ and heralds an impoverished and

Revolutionary Pedagogy 159 stunted form of emancipation.” Mike Cole (2008), Dave Hill (2017, 2019) and McLaren (2005), and McLaren & Farahmandpur (2005) were quick to point out that many exponents of critical pedagogy who wrote about the low “socio-­economic status” of working-class students and their “economic disadvantages” when compared to more affluent students rested their arguments upon on a neo-­Weberian conception of class-as-status-group and suggests that remediation of this class inequality can be successfully addressed with the capitalist system itself. Hence, Marxist educators began to address the inadequacies of critical pedagogy as related to its left-liberal avoidance of any discussion of the abolition of class society. Shouldering civic responsibilities with one’s neighbors in the hardscrabble arena of realpolitik was always part of the mission of critical pedagogy, but not necessarily to the extent that the system of capitalism itself was challenged. That the depraved political agendas of the plutocratic class had been normalized and weaponized against the most vulnerable populations consisting of the poor and people of color was always a constant consideration of critical educators since the bourgeoisie’s attraction to inertia has been forcibly manufactured by the consensus-creating effects of the mainstream media. The bourgeoisie at times appear completely void of conscientização, so much so that they are unable to see their own reflection (except perhaps in a Coney Island funhouse mirror). As a result of this human inaction, and without a fungible concern for building socialism, any hope progressives had for reversing the ravages of neoliberalism capitalism and its omnicidal, ecocidal and epistemicidal attraction to militarized accumulation or accumulation by repression (Robinson, 2020) was left to be conjured by the victims themselves. Thus, the question was raised: when will critical pedagogy challenge the capitalist system and call for the creation of a viable socialism for our times? Debates over the viability of socialism are now percolating through the educational journals committed to social justice. At the same time, functionaries for the brazen propaganda machine of the transnational capitalist class, are being widely criticized for slathering a luxuriant coat of varnish on the most ill-favored accounts of the havoc of capitalism. Capitalism, they claim, may not be perfect but all other ways of organizing economic relations on a mass scale would be far would be far more disastrous, conjuring Thatcher’s infamous TINA claim (there is no alternative). This claim is usually made while referencing the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc economies – forgetting, of course, that the social relations of production that powered these economies could in no way be called communist in Marx’s sense of the term; rather they were state capitalist. Raya Dunayevskaya (1992) argued that the Soviet Union had become a “state capitalist” society, and that “state capitalism” represented at that time a new world stage (a view also adopted by theorists such as C. L. R. James, and later Tony Cliff).

160  Peter McLaren

Beyond Resource Distribution Clearly, the notion of socialism introduced to millions of US citizens by politician Bernie Sanders is a very pale reflection of socialism as understood by many revolutionaries. Socialism is more than socialized health care and a Keynesian economic response to today’s vast inequality. Progressives routinely call for mildly redistributive measures such as increased taxes on corporations and the rich, a more progressive income tax, the reintroduction of social welfare programs, and a “green capitalism.” But it is not the institutional organization of capitalism and redistributive policies that is the central problem with capitalism but rather it is the internal workings of capital that generates inequalities. Capital is a social relation mediated through commodities. Capital is the way we reproduce ourselves and our world – it is how we organize our everyday lives, our way of life. Marx teaches us the processes in which capital becomes reliant on the expenditure of our labor power to valorize itself. Capitalism requires the social production of cooperative labor. Every time we choose not to cooperate, capital restructures the production process and the division of labor in order to reassert its control over the masses, over the working-class. The story of capitalism is largely the story of the “recomposition” of the working class based on the new productive relations that were developed in response to earlier challenges from the working-class. Capitalism needs us, it needs the workers’ labor power, but we don’t need capitalism so long as we have socialism as a viable alternative. The solution to the crisis of capitalism cannot be more capitalism. Redistributing the wealth is a good first step in creating political change but we must move from these measures to creating a social universe outside of capital’s value form. And that means moving from a progressive reformism to a revolutionary praxis.

From Progressive Reformism to Revolutionary Praxis As progressive sounding as redistributing the wealth appears, especially in a US context, ultimately we must move from considering achieving an “equitable” distribution of wealth in favor of engaging in “revolutionary praxis” in order to replace the system of capitalism with a socialist alternative. This entails understanding the processes of capitalist accumulation by analyzing how relations of production are responsible for value production, that is, for the production of surplus value. State intervention to regulate the economy is necessary but ultimately insufficient to resolve the endless crises of capital. Many of the jobs created in the digital economy will be replaced by artificial intelligence and fourth industrial revolution technologies which boast that they can arrive at “laborless production” (Robinson, 2020). In other words, the labor force will not be required

Revolutionary Pedagogy 161 to create products in many digital-driven production lines. Digitalization and automation means a massive loss of jobs globally and greater economic insecurity for most of the workers around the world, forcing greater productivity out of fewer workers. Revolutionary pedagogy is a term that is often conflated with a similar term, “revolutionary critical pedagogy.” It is a term that follows from a growing disillusionment with the notion that the praxis of students in public school settings can become sufficiently protagonistic in bringing about substantive social change. In other words, the focus for change is too narrow to move capitalism from its substratum, to shake capitalism at its roots. Critical revolutionary praxis begins with ethical action, not with correct doctrine. The action is premised on a belief in the capacity for human goodness and begins with ethically grounded action. Marx reminds us that human beings revise their thinking given various changes in their circumstances, and that educators must themselves be willing to be educated. Revolutionary practice, or praxis, has to do with “the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change” (Marx, 1976; see Lebowitz, 2013). Protagonistic or revolutionary agents are not born, they are produced by circumstances. To revolutionize thought it is necessary to revolutionize society. All human development (including thought and speech) is a social activity and this has its roots in collective labor. I agree with the following quotation by Marx (1852): Begin Quotation Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. End Quotation The term “revolutionary critical pedagogy” that McLaren (2015) has used to describe his work was inspired by the work of Paula Allman, Glenn Rikowski, Dave Hill, Mike Cole, Michael Lebowitz and Peter Hudis and is meant to differentiate Marxist inspired critical pedagogies from neo-Weberian, left-liberal, and politically domesticated versions of critical pedagogy that are content with seeking educational reform within the confining and suffocating parameters of

162  Peter McLaren the capitalist state. What revolutionary critical acts of rebellion all share is the domain of criticality in which events that befall humanity can be hermeneutically unpacked and understood.

The Concept of Value in Capitalism Revolutionary critical pedagogy understands the importance of drawing attention to the concept of value as a mode of social life that constitutes a structuring feature of the social universe of capital. Value is a social relation that is historically specific and also transitory, and it constitutes the foundation of capitalist society, and since capitalist work produces value then it follows that critical pedagogy concerned with social domination and the often abstract and invisible social structures that constitute it should focus on a critique of work in contemporary society, including the labor of teachers. Thus, teachers’ work deserves a special status as an object of critical pedagogy. It is foundational to the concept of revolutionary pedagogy that we understand the processes by which the social production of labor power is achieved in order to more fully comprehend its value-creating power. Labor power resides within each person as the capacity to labor, and it is ultimately a social force that workers control, it resides within the precincts of their choice (McLaren & Rikowski 2006). This makes labor power the supreme commodity, the source of all value. Capital extracts from living labor all the unpaid hours of living labor (the value form of wealth that is historically specific to capitalism) that amounts to surplus value or profit. Yet we can refuse to sell our labor power for a wage. For Rikowski (2007), the main priority of critical pedagogy is to critique the ways in which human labor constitutes capitalist society (how we become dominated by our own creations) and produces its basic structuring features. Not only does critical revolutionary pedagogy need to critique the basic elements of capitalist society, but it also needs to analyze the inequalities produced by capitalism which would encompass a critical examination of class inequality, sexism, ageism, ableism, and homophobia. This would entail debates over what fairness and equality should look like. In addition to these two criteria, Rikowski (2007) argues that a third level of critique is necessary: a critique of all “known aspects” of capitalist social life, such as capitalist education (see also Rikowski, 2004, 2005, 2006). According to McLaren (2015), changes in consciousness are not simply idealistic musings but linked to concrete practices and struggles. And it is through struggle that ideas change, such that critical consciousness should not be conceived as a precondition of revolutionary praxis, but as an outcome of engaging in concrete struggle, struggle that was initially motivated by an ethical commitment – a “preferential option” as liberation theologians would put it – for those populations most vulnerable to the ravages of capital and other forms of oppression.

Revolutionary Pedagogy 163 Ideas change through struggle and those struggles need to be both strategic and tactical, in the Gramscian sense. Capitalism and racism are reciprocally generative. Revolutionary critical pedagogy serves not as an underlaborer to the struggle for socialism but sits firmly in the wheelhouse of anti-capitalist struggles for organizing society beyond the engine room of value augmentation. More than ardent proponents of critical thinking and consciousness raising, revolutionary critical educators serve as a rebuke to approaches to education that remain witheringly uncritical of capitalism and its fostering and perpetuation of racism and other antagonisms. Racism has shaped class relations throughout history and has fundamentally shaped the horror of colonialism. Because racial determinations have driven the augmentation of capital and divided the working class it is insufficient to undertake class analysis without considering the racial structuring of class in countries such as the United States. Revolutionary critical pedagogy is focused on creating a social universe that exhibits different possibilities for organizing our social and economic life, for creating different futures – devoid of racism, sexism, homophobia – where social labor is no longer an indirect part of the total social labor but a direct part of it, where a new mode of distribution can prevail not based on socially necessary labor time but on actual labor time. But in order to be able to struggle for such a world we need to create pedagogical sites where critical dialogues can take place, where practicing critical philosophy is encouraged as a way of life, where dialogue and debate replace the imposed willfulness of demagogues, where opinions are distinguished from arguments, where science and spirituality are respected but not entitled to devour each other during times of public crisis, such as a pandemic, where racism is seen as co-constitutive of capitalism, where developing a philosophy of revolution as a real, sensuous activity is championed. This is essentially the philosophy as praxis as initiated by Marx, and marshalled by Gramsci in order to help subalterns develop an autonomous worldview such that they become makers rather than the casualties of history (Gramsci, 1995, Book 11, p. 1375). In this sense, the aim of revolutionary praxis “is to make truth the foundation of vital actions and a crucial element of the coordination of intellectual and moral relations between humans, i.e. a uniquely new moral and intellectual bloc … characterised by individuals …. capable of coherently reflecting on their actual present and of overcoming the heterogeneity of theory and praxis by rationally organizing their coexistence based on a level of cooperation that encompasses every activity” (Demirović, 2018). Broadly examining the meaning and purpose of revolutionary critical pedagogy offers students various languages of critique and possibility through which they can understand in a more nuanced and granular way the relationship between their individual subjectivity and the larger society. Put another way, these “languages” or “discourses” potentially serve as dialectical relays through which students can, after Freire, “read the world” against the act of “reading the

164  Peter McLaren word”, that is, examine the world against one’s lived experiences, as those experiences are reflected in or refracted through various critical theories, such as various feminist theories, theories that connect gender, race and political economy, intersectional theories that offer explanatory frameworks that can help students make sense of their own experiences. The purpose of this everyday philosophical exercise is to create conditions of critical consciousness or critical self-reflexivity so that subjects can better fathom how various ideologies drive social life and to help subjects discern how systems of intelligibility or systems of mediation within the wider society (nature, the economic system, the state, the social system, cultural system, jurisprudence, schools, religion, etc.) are mutually constitutive of the self. The outcome of revolutionary praxis is liberation through a transformation of circumstances and new ideas and practices that result from such transformation. When we talk about transformation, we need to capture its dialectical character. Hence, transformation refers to self-and-­ social transformation, that is, to a dialectical relationship that drives the production of revolutionary subjects. It is imperative that we do not refer to self and social relations as though they were mutually exclusive categories, antiseptically distant from each other. They are not steel cast terms but rather bleed into each other. Praxis can therefore be described as the mutually constitutive interaction of theory and practice. Praxis begins with personal agency in and on the world guided by an ethical commitment to serving the most vulnerable populations who suffer needlessly under the most brutal regimes of capital. We begin, in other words, with practice (reading the world) and then enter into dialogue with significant others (reading the word) as we reflect dialectically upon our practice. This reflection on our practice, then, informs subsequent practice – and we call this process or mode of experiential learning revolutionary praxis, or self-reflective purposeful or protagonistic behavior, that is, exploring with others the relevance of philosophical ideas to the fault lines of everyday life and the necessity to transcend them. While critical consciousness is not the necessary condition for revolutionary praxis but the outcome of such practice, this does not mean that ideas do not matter. As Neary (2020) puts it, “Ideas matter. Not fixed or dogmatic ideas, but ideas worked on through a process of strong ideation. Critical practical reflexivity on the nature of things – including the conceptual ideas on which the process of reflexivity is based …” Revolutionary critical pedagogy is about the creation of critical citizenship in the service of a counterpublic sphere, of breaking the bunker mentality that you “cannot negotiate with authority” and as a result you remain ensepulchered in the crucible of consumer citizenship. Practicing revolutionary critical pedagogy requires that we ask the question, “creativity for whom?”, “who benefits?” and creativity “for what purpose?” We ask these questions in a dialogical space – this could be a K-12 classroom, a law school seminar room, or a church basement, or a community center. The purpose of the dialogue is to make the strange familiar and

Revolutionary Pedagogy 165 the familiar strange – it is a form of de-acculturation, of de-acclamation, of de-­ socialization, of questioning what we take for granted. But this is also an existential, phenomenological process that doesn’t follow prescribed steps. The intent is to build a psychosocial moratorium where the educator and the students abandon the hierarchy and the educator is willing to be educated by the students, and when this works it creates a liminal space, a “subjunctive moment” of “what if”. What if the world was like THIS and not like THAT? What if it were a place of joy, love, hope and solidarity, and not a place of precarity, fear, hatred and division? What has society made of me? What do I like about that, and what do I want to change? How do we go about re-socializing ourselves so we can build a world where, for instance, capital does not flow from the laboring classes to the rich? How can we remake ourselves; how can we create spaces where we negotiate what we find meaningful in life? For those of us who have chosen a life of self-reference in the midst of historical uncertainty, the birth of new systems of panoptical surveillance weaponized to crush the human will to resist, and a studied inattention to the perils of the marketing strategies designed to depoliticize us, we must continue to reflect upon the need to foreground the forces and relations of production as the medium of our most vital concerns if we are to break free from our shackles of alienation. Lest we unsuspectingly betray what Freire would describe as our ontological vocation of becoming more fully human. Our aptitude for and inspiration for becoming social justice educators must not be crushed, even during this world-altering time of ignorance. Inasmuch as revolutionary praxis brings about changes in everyday patterns and behavior, thought and feeling in order to achieve emancipation from the barbarity of capitalism, certain actors could use revolutionary praxis as a pretext to impose their own political agendas on subjects. Revolutionary critical pedagogy must therefore not subordinate ideas to praxis, weaponizing common sense in the interests of bourgeois regimes of truth, and thus rendering subjects incapable of challenging bourgeois notions of common sense. Revolutionary critical pedagogy must offer a viable means for developing individual autonomy, criticality, and critical self-reflexivity so that actors do not remain passive and incapable of challenging authoritarian practices. And this means using our vocation as educators to create the capacities of actors for becoming revolutionary subjects capable of creating a society unburdened by the capitalist law of value.

References Allman, P. (1999). Revolutionary social transformation: Democratic hopes, political possibilities and critical education. Westport, CT & London: Bergin & Garvey. Allman, P. (2001). Critical education against global capitalism: Karl Marx and revolutionary critical education. Westport, CT & London: Bergin & Garvey. Cole, M. (2008). Marxism and educational theory: Origins and issues. London & New York, NY: Routledge.

166  Peter McLaren Darder, A. (1991). Culture and power in the classroom. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Demirović, A. (2018). Marx’s theory and philosophy of praxis: Between academia and ideology. The Bullet. April 20. Retrieved from https://socialistproject.ca/2018/04/marxs-theory-andphilosophy-of-praxis/. Dunayevskaya, R. (1992). The Marxist-humanist theory of state-capitalism: Selected writings. Chicago: News & Letters. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Freire, P., & Donaldo Macedo. (1987). Literacy: Reading the word and the world. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Freire, I., & Shor, I. (1987). A pedagogy of liberation: Dialogues on transforming education. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey. Hill, D. (2017).The Role of Marxist Educators Against and Within Neoliberal Capitalism. Insurgent Scripts, January. New Delhi: Insurgent Scripts. Retrieved from http://insurgentscripts.org/ the-role-of-marxist-educators-against-and-within-neoliberal-capitalism/. Hill, D. (2019). Marxism and teacher education. In M. Peters (Ed.), Encyclopedia of teacher education, New York, NY: Springer. Horton, M., & Freire P. (1990). We make the road by walking. Conversations on education and social change. Brenda Bell, John Gaventa, & John Peters (Ed.). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Lebowitz, M. (2013). The Choice is Still Socialism or Barbarism. University of the Left. January 15. Retrieved from http://ouleft.sp-mesolite.tilted.net/?p=1217. Marx, K. (1852). The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852, online version, no page number. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm (Accessed 24 July 15, 2020). Marx, K. (1845, 1976). Theses on Feuerbach, in K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works (Vol. 5, p. 4). London: Lawrence and Wishart. Mayo, P. (2004). Liberating praxis: Paulo Freire’s legacy for radical education and politics. Westport, CT: Praeger. McLaren, P. (1986). Postmodernity and the death of politics: A Brazilian reprieve. Educational Theory, 36(4), 389–401. McLaren, P. (2005). Capitalist and conquerors: A critical pedagogy against empire. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. McLaren, P. (2015). Pedagogy of insurrection. From resurrection to revolution. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publications. McLaren, P., & Lankshear, C. (1994). Politics of liberation: Paths from Freire. London & New York, NY: Routledge. McLaren, P., & Leonard, P. (1993). Paulo Freire: A critical encounter. London & New York, NY: Routledge. McLaren, P., & Rikowski, G. (2006). Critical Pedagogy Reloaded: An Interview with Peter McLaren (interviewed by Glenn Rikowski), Information for Social Change, Issue No. 23 (Summer). Retrieved from http://libr.org/isc/issues/ISC23/C3%20Peter%20McLaren.pdf. Neary, M. (2020, May 30). Odyssean education plays the coronavirus: Ideation and the immune institution. Postdigital Science and Education. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/ article/10.1007/s42438-020-00136-1. Rikowski, G. (2004). Marx and the education of the future. Policy Futures in Education, 2(3 & 4), 565–577. Retrieved from http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/viewpdf.asp?j=pfie&vol=2&issue=3&year=2004&article=10_Rikowski_PFEO_2_3-4_web&id=195.93.21.71. Rikowski, G. (2005). In the Dentist’s Chair: A Response to Richard Hatcher’s Critique of Habituation of the Nation, 31st December, in three parts, at The Flow of Ideas. Retrieved from http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=In%20the%20Dentist[a]s%20Chair.

Revolutionary Pedagogy 167 Rikowski, G. (2006). Education and the politics of human resistance. Information for Social Change, Issue No.23 (Summer). Retrieved from http://libr.org/isc/issues/ISC23/B3%20Glenn%20 Rikowski.pdf. Rikowski, G. (2007). A paper prepared for the Migrating University: From Goldsmiths to Gatwick Conference, Panel 2, The Challenge of Critical Pedagogy, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 14 September 2007. Robinson, W. (2020, June 17). Post-COVID economy may have more robots, fewer jobs and intensified surveillance. Truthout. Retrieved from https://truthout.org/articles/post-covideconomy-may-have-more-robots-fewer-jobs-and-intensified-surveillance/. Shor, I. (1992). Empowering education: Critical teaching for social change. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.

21 Alternative Education Richard Hall

Alternative education raises questions about whether another world is possible. Alternatives ask educators and students to question the governance, regulation and resourcing of hegemonic, institutionalized forms of education, alongside their curricula, through prefigurative practices. The idea of an alternative questions the legitimacy of formalized spaces, often standing against both their forms and content, and as a result defining an educational undercommons (Harney & Moten, 2013). Such an undercommons is a space for solidarity and resistance, from where resources and relations can be drawn. It might exist inside formal education, as a sector of the economy or in its institutional forms. An undercommons forms an underground that enables subversion and new forms of organization, and which problematizes dominant narratives about education (for entrepreneurship, growth, sustainable development and so on). In this being inside-and-against the school or the university, alternative education takes the perspective of voices that are marginalized because they are racialized, gendered or rendered economically valueless or indebted, in order to re-imagine and re-produce new forms of educational life or sociability. The idea of an alternative also emerges beyond formalized spaces, in autonomous communities that exist beyond the school or university as it is repurposed as a factory (Cleaver, 2002; University of Utopia, The, n.d.). This idea of alternatives being in, against and beyond recognizes that hegemonic educational institutions have been subsumed within the circuits of capital. This means that the governance and forms of such institutions, and the work of academics, professional service staff and students, have been re-­ engineered by capital on a global terrain. Moreover, the labor that takes place inside these institutions is repurposed and re-produced in its relation to money capital, productive capital and commodity capital, in order to generate surplus value, surpluses, profits and so on. The domination of capitalist social relations over academic labor is driven by the abstracted power of money and the generation of surplus value. This opens up the possibility for alternative forms of education, both inside formal spaces and beyond the boundary of the formal, to become new sites of struggle in response to the on-going crisis of

Alternative Education 169 sociability. This crisis is signalled by the co-option of socially useful knowledge, or the general intellect, so that it can be valorized (Hall, 2018; Virno, 2004). Educational relationships have been productively intensified in order to facilitate the expansion of capital, rather than for the solution of global, socio-economic and socio-­environmental crises. Inside the school or the university, educational innovations are fetishized as emancipatory, whereas in working against and beyond these spaces, scholars in alternative educational spaces are working to abolish the relations of production that drive societies to ignore concrete emergencies (Hall & Smyth, 2016). From inside-and-against the hegemonic institution, alternatives articulate the limits of formal education, including its problematic nature as a public or private good (Marginson, 2012). Here, the idea of the school or university as a form of enclosure of knowledge and practice is refused through public intellectualism or educational activity that is conducted in public. Such activities widen debates over ideas and fields of study beyond the academy to the public, in that they refuse both the colonization of disciplinary spaces by academics and the delegitimation of certain voices. This public activity contains the germ of militancy (Neary, 2012; Thorburn, 2012) because it aims to do counter-­hegemony and be counter-hegemonic. As a form of workers’ enquiry, militancy in research or pedagogic practice points toward projects that produce knowledge useful for activist ends. This may take the form of open education or scholarship that refuses neoliberal recuperation (Eve, 2014) for the production of marketized outcomes like performance data, or new spaces for the generation of surpluses or profits. Such refusals question the societal value of business-as-usual models for public, higher education (Open Library of Humanities, 2020). However, experiments that are against hegemonic practices also offer the potential for radical experiment, alongside the re-imagining of education as a distributed, co-operative, democratic activity. Such experiments question education’s relationship to society. Prefigurative responses then emerge in the pedagogic practices of social movements rooted in pedagogy (Caldart & the Movement of Landless Workers, 2011), and through forms of resistance inside the university grounded in community and environmental justice (Pearce, 2012), resistance to gender-based violence, and trades union educational ­activity (Scandrett, 2014). This work situates the experience of the e­ ducator and student against that which emerges from within social movements, in order to address the possibilities for alternative forms of knowing and being. Here traditions of critical pedagogy are central to the ways in which critical knowing and being emerge to challenge the dominant framing of learning, teaching and scholarship as separate from society and everyday life (Amsler, 2015; Motta and Cole, 2016). Work that emerges beyond formal educational contexts is situated in practical, alternative initiatives that point toward alternative, societal re-imaginings

170  Richard Hall of education. Such re-imaginings are forms of autoethnography, framed by the idea of the student or educator as a co-operative activist, and as such operating collectively through organic intellectualism (People’s Political Economy, 2013; Social Science Centre, The, 2016). Such alternatives offer a means of using critical sociology and critical pedagogy to analyse concrete moments of crisis of specific communities, such as the politics of austerity and climate justice (Buxton & Hayes, 2015; Lockyer & Veteto, 2013). In particular, these alternatives are infused by comparative analyses with the pedagogic practices of indigenous communities and people of colour (Motta, 2016; Zibechi, 2012), for whom the crisis of sociability imposed by capitalism is on-going, historical and material. Such practices are affirmative in attempting to generate new cultural definitions and recognitions (Connell, 1987), as acts of becoming (Braidotti, 2011). Here, the white, male, heteronormative educational institution is the adversary of and antithetical to an ongoing process of becoming. In its deployment of organizational forms, technologies and institutional spaces, pedagogic practices and assessment regimes, it seeks to maintain the domination of the market. As such, in order to move beyond the market as the sole arbiter of crises, it becomes important to nurture alternative educational spaces that are affirmative of intersectional lines of flight away from our hegemonic anchoring points (Braidotti, 2011; Yuval-Davis, 2006). A key issue is whether those voices which catalysed or contributed to crisis, are the same voices who should dominate our responses. Such affirmative lines of flight develop analyses that specifically relate co-­ operative, inclusive educational practices of creating and legitimizing communities, and challenge the on-going colonization of knowing and being. They offer ways to refuse the dominant power relations of knowledge production inside contemporary capitalism, and instead speak of decolonization by feminized and racialized subjects on the margins. This enables those projects to establish unique analyses of educational possibility from within new, emancipatory horizons. These analyses recognize the desire for progressive and democratic forms of education: first, in terms of its governance and politics, and the social relations that circulate inside educational spaces; and second, in terms of enacting radical pedagogies grounded in the abolition of power relations in the classroom. Here a re-politicization of autonomy becomes central to a movement away from the internalization of capitalism’s value-set, which is rooted in ­productivity/intensity and where any alternative mode of life is seen as sinful. Tactical and affective autonomy reduces the acceptance of hierarchical discipline, and increases demands for the quality and content of work that is both necessary/in the sphere of heteronomy and free/in the sphere of autonomy (Gorz, 1982). What alternative education offers is less a masculine, engineered, corporate life driven by technique, and instead one rooted in humane

Alternative Education 171 values where individuals rather than capital are sovereign. Anything otherwise makes capital/exploitation/appropriation central to a productive life, and diminishes the space for a useful life. Marx (1894/1991) describes the sphere of freedom or autonomy beginning beyond the sphere of necessity or heteronomy. Freedom consists of being able to work with as much dignity and efficiency as possible (in the sphere of necessity) for as brief a time as possible. It is important that a heteronomous sphere is subordinate to the sphere of autonomy, with the maximum efficiency and the least expenditure of effort and resources. The key is to make it possible for individuals to move from heteronomous, wage-based social labor effected in the general interest and requiring little time or intense involvement, to autonomous activities which carry their end in themselves. This resonates with descriptions and discussions of self-actualization through the classroom, rooted in acts of teaching that “share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students” (bell hooks, 1994, p. 13). Moreover, it takes alternative educational spaces as pivots for reimagining the curriculum for two reasons. First, because by dismantling the curriculum, we are able to reveal flows of alienation at the intersections of: self/subject and other/object reflected in it; gender and race reproduced through it; and the disciplinary separations demanded by it. Second, we are able to re-describe the curriculum as a form of social wealth and a process of struggle (Ahmed, 2012; Olufemi, 2017). From this complex educational ecosystem, alternatives sit against the neoliberal enclosure of existing structures and forms, like the school and university. They stress: first, democratic activity, based upon a radical politics; second, militant research strategies, which see research as a tool for political action and for widening the field of struggle against the re-production of alienating forms of education; third, the re-definition of scholarship undertaken in public, as a revolutionary activity. In a politics of community engagement and cross-disciplinary activity, and in radical education collectives, these strategies form cycles of struggle that point toward possibilities for: detonating the school or university (Amsler & Neary, 2012); using prefigurative pedagogical practices that enable labor to become the crisis of capital, so that it might become for itself rather than being for capitalization or valorization (Holloway, 2002; Occupied California, 2010); and describing what society might become (School for Designing a Society, The, 2016). Alternative education is a reminder of how the sociability that was once understood as emerging from the fluidity of the classroom is increasingly lost to educators and students, as value (the determining purpose) now drives sociability. This is the world of financialization and marketization, which strip academics, professional services staff and students of their autonomy. Thus, educational lives are restructured as accumulated value, impact, excellence, student satisfaction and employability. It is here that alternative education offers

172  Richard Hall a way of disengaging from these normalized behaviors, in order to re-engage with problems of the global commons. The alternative is a form of collective, educational repair, rather than our response to crisis focusing upon becoming more efficiently unsustainable. By engaging with marginalized voices inside, against and beyond educational contexts, alternatives attempt to define safe spaces through which the collective work of dismantling can begin. This work of dismantling is rooted in revealing power structures and ways of building the world that are alienating, because they strip our work, our cultures, our relationships and ourselves from us, in order to valorize them or to silence them. This work of dismantling operates at the level of the institution and the classroom, but it also operates at the level of society (Hall & Smyth, 2016; Motta, 2016; Rhodes Must Fall, 2020). Thus alternative education establishes sociability as the critical, pedagogical project, grounded in actually existing examples of academics, activists and communities engaging with the work of dismantling our abstract experiences, and addressing their concrete impacts. As a result, it is possible to associate educational repair with wider societal repair, where it is framed by a re-focusing of life upon self-actualization as dynamic and fluid, and rooted in a different conception of what is to be done (bell hooks, 1994).

References Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Amsler, S., & Neary, M. (2012). Occupy: A new pedagogy of space and time? The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 10(2), 106–138. Amsler, S. (2015). The Education of Radical Democracy. London: Routledge. Braidotti, R. (2011). Nomadic theory: The portable Rosi Braidotti. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Buxton, N., & Hayes, B. (Eds.). (2015). The secure and the dispossessed. London: Pluto. Caldart, R.S., & the Movement of Landless Workers. (2011). Pedagogy of the landless, Brazil. In T. Wrigley, P. Thomson, & B. Lingard (Eds.), Changing schools: Alternative ways to make a world of difference (pp. 71–84). London & New York, NY: Routledge. Cleaver, H. (2002). Reading capital politically. Edinburgh: AK Press. Connell, R. (1987). Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Eve, M. (2014). Open access and the humanities: Contexts, controversies and the future. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gorz, A. (1982). Farewell to the working class. An essay on post-industrial socialism. London: Pluto Press. Hall, R. (2018). The alienated academic: The struggle for autonomy inside the university. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hall, R., & Smyth, K. (2016). Dismantling the curriculum in higher education. Open Library of the Humanities, 2(1), e11. doi: http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.66. Harney, S., & Moten, F. (2013). The undercommons: Fugitive planning & black study. New York, NY: Minor Compositions. Holloway, J. (2002). Change the world without taking power. London: Pluto Press.

Alternative Education 173 hooks, bell. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. London: Routledge. Lockyer, J., & Veteto, J. (Eds.). (2013). Environmental anthropology engaging Ecotopia: Permaculture, ecovillages and bioregionalism. Oxford: Berghahn. Marginson, S. (2012). The Problem of Public Good(s) in Higher Education. 41st Australian Conference of Economists. Retrieved from http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/people/­ marginson_docs/ACE2012_8-12%20July2012.pdf (Accessed 29 June 2020). Marx, K. (1894/1991). Capital, a critique of political economy: Volume 3. London: Penguin Books. Motta, S., & Cole, M. (2016). Constructing 21st century socialism in Latin America: The role of radical education. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Neary, M. (2012). Teaching politically: Policy, pedagogy and the new European University. The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 10(2), 233–257. Occupied California. (2010). After the Fall: Communiqués from Occupied California. Retrieved from http://libcom.org/files/afterthefall_communiques.pdf (Accessed 29 June 2020). Olufemi, L. (2017). Decolonising the English Faculty: An Open Letter. Retrieved from http:// bit.ly/2ubbZy7 (Accessed 29 June 2020). Open Library of Humanities. (2020). Retrieved from https://olh.openlibhums.org/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Pearce, J. (2012). Power in Community: A Research and Social Action Scoping Review. Retrieved from http://www/ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Pages/Connecte-Communities-ScopingStudies-and-Research Reviews.aspx (Accessed 29 June 2020). People’s Political Economy. (2013). 2013 Inaugural Report: From foundations to future. Retrieved from https://agentofhistory.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ppe-report-2013.pdf (Accessed 29 June 2020). Rhodes Must Fall. (2020). Rhodes Must Fall. Retrieved from http://rhodesmustfall.co.za/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Scandrett, E. (2014). Popular education methodology, activist academics and emergent social movements: Agents for environmental justice. Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements, 6(1), 327–334. School for Designing a Society, The. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.designingasociety.net/ (Accessed 29 June 2020). Social Science Centre, The. (2016). Retrieved from http://socialsciencecentre.org.uk (Accessed 29 June 2020). Thorburn, E. (2012). Actually existing autonomy and the brave new world of higher education. Occupied Studies. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/xzcPRO (Accessed 29 June 2020). University of Utopia,The. (n.d.). Anti-Curricula: A Course of Action. Retrieved from http://www. universityofutopia.org/sharing (Accessed 29 June 2020). Virno, P. (2004). A grammar of the multitude. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e). Yuval-Davis, N. (2006). Intersectionality and feminist politics. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13(3), 193–209. Zibechi, R. (2012). Territories in resistance: A cartography of Latin American social movements. Oakland, CA: AK Press.

22 Youth Sandra Gadelha and Claudiana Alencar

Currently, “youth” has become a dangerous word. Youth’s ideas are susceptible to ideological control, no least from reactionary circles, hampering the possibilities for building a compassionate, equal and fair world, beyond capitalism. Furthermore, the consequences of the geopolitical failings of capital, which has been in crisis since 2008 (Mészáros, 2002), has intensified wars, harming entire countries and especially the most vulnerable groups within them, such as women, children and the youth. The lives of young people are constantly at risk because they are compelled to migrate to other places and, for men, to enter the army early in their lives. The increase in unemployment, privatization of public education, which hampers access to universities, the refugee crisis, sexism, unequal gender relations and homophobia make the young prey to drug trafficking and violence. As a society, what prospects can we offer to the youth nowadays? Is there hope in the future? What new horizons can we build? By which means? These are some of the questions that describe the challenges facing today’s youth. We restate that youth is a dangerous word because of the multiple threats they are constantly facing. For instance, the diverse ideas about what youth is makes it a contested category, both in theoretical-analytical and practical terms. For example, usually young people are not allowed to participate in the creation of public policies which affect them. The construction of youth as an analytical category, in social sciences dates from mid-20th century, when critical analyses produced reflections, research and publications, which culminated in the creation of youth as a sociological category (Bourdieu, 1984; Mannheim, 1952; Melucci, 1997). Before that, we can find the genesis of a universal and “biologizing” view of the youth, as for example discussed by Comte. Comte’s positivism (1978) elaborates a linear and mechanical conception of the succession from one generation to the next. In this vein, progress can be measured as a result of the continuity from the younger to the older generations. This “biologizing” approach of generations was questioned by the Hungarian thinker Karl Mannheim (1952), who considered that young people belong to the same generation as long as they

Youth 175 experience the same concrete historical processes. Without considering social classes and the political movements of the 20th century, Mannheim added the category “generation” to the examination of historical-social processes. In his “Generations Theory,” Mannheim (1952) discussed biographical and historical time to show that generations are also the result of historical breaks. In doing so, Mannheim challenged the positivist view of youth as a linear succession of generations and offered an alternative view of generations, which share the same historical experiences of change. In his opinion, it is not the date of birth that marks a common chronological point of reference among young people, since the “generational demarcation” is not something “only potential” (Mannheim, 1952), but rather it is “part of the historical process that indeed is shared by young people of the same age-class (the current generation)” (Feixa & Leccardi, 2010). In the same train of thought, the ideas of the Spanish philosopher José Ortega Y Gasset (1966) conceive youth as a word that reminds us of “overlap,” “match,” instead of “succession.” However, “Generation Theory” in youth studies was criticized by Marxist sociologists, who considered it conservative. Stimulated by the youth movements of the 1960s, Marxists emphasized the revolutionizing potential of the youth, hence considering them as a “new class” (Capmany, 1968). The youth revolutions of the early 20th century caught the attention of authors who used the word “youth” as a synonym with “cultural outrage of the young” (De Miguel, 1972). These authors were inspired by the fact that the young were the ones who were in the battlefront in May 1968 and led the movements against the dictatorships in Latin America. However, the semantics of youth are based on a sense of revolution, outrage and transformation. For example, in countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico as well as many other places around the world, the youth have led struggles for social transformation. In other words, youth evokes the sense of “conflict,” “rebellion” and consequently of a “problem” to be solved. However, the focus on such connotations also gives a negative meaning to the term “youth” and somehow it depoliticizes it, hence impeding its potential to strive for social transformation. On the other hand, there are those theories that highlight the transformative potential of the youth. Such theories go beyond traditional ones by conveying a positive meaning to the struggles and protests enacted by youth and they are known as “critical theories” (Groppo, 2015). Such theories take distance from the structural-functional ones (e.g. the theories developed by the Chicago School), wherein the dissident behaviors of juvenile gangs or in high schools are portrayed as a threat to the established order. In this context, Groppo conceives such theories as traditional. Without limiting themselves to the economism or culturalism, the critical theories about youth combine categories such as class, “race,” and generation

176  Sandra Gadelha and Claudiana Alencar within the study of juvenile cultural practices. These studies and the appropriation of meanings by the youth through the theories of reception (e.g. promoted by the Center of Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) of the University of Birmingham (Hall, 1980; Williams, 1997) contributed to the development of a critical theory about youth that opposes the stereotypes and monosemy of a single view of youth. In the 1970s, while in Western Europe the welfare state was being solidified, in “developing” countries there was a predominant universalizing understanding of the youth that went beyond the bounds of social classes and was associated with a culture of common interests, such as the use of the international music of the youth, rock’n’roll (Groppo, 2015, p. 20). However, the analysis and studies of CCCS opposed the notion of a universal youth. Their analyses focused on groups and collectivities of the English society, which were at the time despised and marginalized. Such studies focused on cultural practices and juvenile socialities that were presented in talk shows, motorcycle clubs, dining places and in groups like the London teddy boys, skinhead, mods and rockers. Groppo (2015, p. 20) maintains that “the work organized by Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, Resistance Through Rituals, originally published in 1976, is the cornerstone of the ‘class studies’ of the youth sociology and the cultural studies of Birmingham.” Although they highlight its paradoxical features since they use generational categories and age groups, they explain that such factors are related to the class conflict in society. Since then, the analyses of youth developed by Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology and Education have offered us diverse parameters, making the analysis more complex and generating polysemy. The critical theories contributed to the demystification of the notion of a universal youth, by relating them to the distinct possibilities of living according to class, ethnic group, gender, characteristics. At the same time, they helped denaturalize the biological elements that distinguish the different stages of life. Hence, they highlighted the ­importance of social institutions, such as school, family, and work in differentiating each one of these stages. The emphasis on multiple categories that relate to youth makes the pluralism in talking about them a necessity. Using this dangerous word, an uncountable noun, in the plural, not the singular (as it is commonly used), is not only supposed to cover the diverse ways of juvenile lives, but also the huge inequalities (class, regional, gender, ethnic-racial) they consist of. The critique against the homogenization of the youth, started with the English Cultural Studies and has led to an appreciation of diversity. Nonetheless, one of the dangers of the excessive emphasis on the juvenile heterogeneities is that it is only applied to some aspects of the youth, such as subjectivation and transience. Such aspects are incorporated to youth studies, mainly by post-­structuralist and post-modern theories. Regarding transience

Youth 177 and the boundaries that distinguish different groups of youth, Bauman states that boundaries that separate youth from other generations are not clearly defined, cannot stop being ambiguous and overlapped, and they cannot be ignored (Bauman, 2007, p. 373). In this sense, the idea of fluidity is expressed by the French sociologist Michel Maffesoli, who utilizes the metaphor “tribe” to question the concept of youth based on the sharing of affinities by the succession of generations. Based on the notion of “hosts” and “guests” (adults and the young), Maffesoli (2007, p. 378) discusses the simultaneity of coexistence and generations that live together. The post-structuralist theories questioned the essentializing definitions of youth, granting a positive evaluation for dissident events and multiplicity, the singularities and hybridism of the young bodies. However, Bourdieu, who believed that a demarcation of youth is always arbitrary, had already made the critique against a homogenizing and universalizing meaning of youth. In his text “Youth is just a word,” Bourdieu analysed the conflict of power around the word “youth,” denaturalizing the segregation institutions create against young people who cannot continue their studies. Through Bourdieu’s contribution we gained a critical perspective which allows us to revisit the dialectic of the juvenile condition. As stated by Groppo “it has not to do with the contradiction between the juvenile’s experiences and the institutions of socialization, as the former has the possibility of overcoming the latter” (Groppo, 2000). In this light, the Argentine sociologists Margulis and Urresti (1996) reviewed Bourdieu’s text and included a diversity of the realities of youth, without, however, mitigating the concreteness of its realities in contemporary societies. They suggested common principles that orientate those societies, such as (I) the social moratorium, either aspired or concrete; (II) the generational experience and (III) the vital moratorium. The social moratorium encompasses the right for a “period of experiences, for a more tolerant treatment in comparison to other age categories and the postponing of certain social obligations” (Groppo, 2015, p. 26), such as work and setting up family. The same authors added the generational experience as a second principle, which is understood as the possibility of a whole generation sharing historical and social experiences, stimulating thesharing a certain interpretation and way of feeling the world, distinct from the previous one, that is to say, a ­“generational unit.” Lastly, the third element, the vital moratorium, indicates a higher energy quantum, vigor and lifespan of the young in comparison to adults and the elderly. Thus, referring to the youth implies relating it to cultural, historical, economic and social processes as well as to future projects in a generational relationship which represents the continuity of the societal project of humanity. However, this idea of future that is so frequent in the concept of social

178  Sandra Gadelha and Claudiana Alencar moratorium and is expressed in the critical theories about youth, seem to attenuate the difficulties faced by the young and are affected by neoliberal policies in contemporary times. These threats to young people are identified in several investigations and in texts of both Latin-American (Abramo, 1994; Groppo, 2000, 2015,) and European authors (Calvo, 2005; Pais, 1993). In spite of the existence of a supposed demarcation of the end of youth such as leaving school, entering the job market, getting married, leaving the parents’ or guardians’ house, and becoming a father or a mother, youth is no longer certain of having future access to those experiences because of the capitalist crisis. Thus, the idea of future has been replaced by the present time, which is what they are left with (Groppo, 2015). Additionally, unemployment, social exclusion and the constant withdrawal of social rights has been promoted by neoliberal reforms. Pais (1993) presents some research results showing that diminished work makes youth as a prolonged phase in one’s life, which has multiple consequences. For instance, the author points to the riots of the so-called outraged youngsters, who suddenly appeared throughout Europe and other parts of the world in 2011. In many movements, youngsters held posters with the sayings “My crisis is precariousness”; “Precariousness is not a future”; “They want us poor, they will have rebels” (Pais, 2012, p. 269). However, Pais highlights the hope that seemsto hatch among young people’s frustrations and concerns about their living conditions: “from time to time it is necessary to live the dreams, especially when those dreams can change a lifetime.” (Pais, 2012, p. 269). Our research with young people in the suburbs of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, shows how the young invent new forms of resistance such as the “fighting” gathering, which are spaces of art and hope. In these events, they expose their reality, social complaints and dreams while listening to hip-hop music. In a leaflet distributed during a gathering in The Big Cross Square, in Serrinha neighborhood, it was stated: “We, poor and Black people from the suburbs, have to re-exist (resist). We do not agree with the proposals to overcome the crisis presented by these liars, We say NO to the labor and retirement reforms!!! We have rights for more cultural, educational and leisure spaces, rights for an efficient health system and even more, we have rights for the city, creating and reinventing, giving new meanings to the urban space through our steps and experiences.” Once they define themselves as the “suburb re-existence movement,” the young define what re-existence is: “in our opinion, it is disagreeing with neoliberal capitalism’s impositions, as well as believing in the strength of the suburbs, fighting for rights and proposing solutions to change the meaning of the urban spaces toward spaces of hope (Alencar, Maciel, Sousa, 2018; Harvey, 2000). In Brazilian rural areas, many youth often have been penalized with an absence of access to culture, health, sports and leisure rights as well as with multiple difficulties to continue their studies.

Youth 179 In rural areas, young people have been participating in the Landless People’s Movement (MST) which has been fighting for the right for land, labor and education, as well as opposing to the development of the capital in the countryside. In 2011, the movement initiated the campaign “Closing schools is a crime!” as a protest against the concentration of educational opportunities in urban centers. The headline of the Newspaper Brasil de Fato, on 9th February 2018, denounced the closing of 30,000 schools from 2002 to 2017, according to research produced by the University of São Carlos (UFSCar). In our research in the rural area of the Vale do Jaguaribe, we found that the process of closing of schools was associated with the development of capital in the countryside (Mendes et al., 2016). This can happen in two ways: First, as shrimp farming and agro – industrial multinational corporations as well as export-oriented fruit-farming plants expand, family farmers are expropriated and, occasionally, have their entire communities extinct. As a result, schools close. Second, once they close schools, children are forced to study in places more distant from their homes, promoting in this way the migration of their families and the occupation of those newly empty spaces by the agro-hydro business. In Brazil, the youth participate in social movements that resist and put pressure on the government to create educational policies for the rural people, with a curriculum tailored to their reality, based on Paulo Freire’s critical perspective. On a smaller scale, public schools are being closed in the urban outskirts, where the majority of low income people live. In 2017, the Brazilian youth led the “Movement of Occupation of Public Schools,” occupying more than two hundred schools in the main cities in the country. In the fight against the closings, the youth promoted discussions with public authorities, teachers and society, in an attempt to be heard and have their right for education respected. They also debated current school management and argued for a curriculum they desired. In conclusion, we highlight multiple possibilities of resistance through arts and collective public actions, either in urban or rural areas, by which the oppressed youth can change their place in history and build paths of re-­ existence, denouncing the neglect of social public policies and often confronting the power of capital.

References Abramo, H. W. (1994). Cenas juvenis: punks e darks no espetáculo urbano. São Paulo: Scritta. Alencar, C., Maciel, W., & Sousa, A. O. (2018). Entextualizações em Eventos de Letramentos de Arte e Reexistência das Juventudes: Ressignificar para Reexistir em Contextos Periféricos. Revista da Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores/as Negros/as (ABPN), 10, 651–676. Bauman, Z. (2007). Globalização: as consequências humanas. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar. Bourdieu, Pierre. (1984). La jeunesse n’est qu’un mot. Questions de sociologie. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.

180  Sandra Gadelha and Claudiana Alencar Calvo, E. G. (2005). El envejecimiento de la juventud. Revista de Estudios de Juventud, 71(1), 11–19. Capmany, M. A. (1968). La joventut és una nova classe? Barcelona: Barcelona Edicions. Comte, Auguste. (1978). Os pensadores. São Paulo: Abril Cultural. De Miguel, A. (1979). Los narcisos. El radicalism cultural de los jóvenes. Barcelona: Kairós. Feixa, C., & Leccardi, C. (2010). O conceito de geração nas teorias sobre juventude. Soc. Estado, 25(2), 185–204. Groppo, L. A. (2000). Juventude: ensaios sobre sociologia e história das juventudes modernas. Rio de Janeiro: Difel. Groppo, L. A. (2015). Teorias críticas da juventude: geração, moratória social e subculturas juvenis. Em Tese, Florianópolis, 12(1), jan/jul. Harvey, D. (2000). Spaces of hope. Berkeley: University of California Press. Maffesoli, M. (2007). O tempo das tribos: o declínio do individualismo nas sociedades de massa. Rio de Janeiro: Forense-Universitária. Mannheim, K. (1952). The problem of Generations. Em: Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge [introdução e organização: Paul Kecskemeti] (pp. 276–322). Londres: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Margulis, M., & Urresti, M (1996). La juventude es más que una palabra. In M. Margulis, (Org.). La juventude es más que una palabra. Buenos Aires: Biblos. Melucci, Alberto. (1997). Juventude, tempo e movimentos sociais. Revista Brasileira de Educação, São Paulo, (5/6), 5–14, set./dez. Mendes, J. E., Gadelha De Carvalho, S. M., & Silva, A. R. (2016). O processo de expansão das relações capitalistas de produção e o fechamento de escolas rurais no município de Jaguaruana – Ceará (2001–2014). In M. V. C. De Carvalho & J. L. P. Carvalhêdo (Eds.), Caminhos da PósGraduação em Educação no Nordeste do Brasil: Educação e Cidadania (Vol. 2, pp. 815–828). Teresina: EDU PI. Mészáros, István. (2002). Para além do capital. São Paulo: Boitempo Editora. Ortega Y Gasset, J. (1966). La idea de las generaciones. El tema de nuestro tempo, Obras completas (Vol. 3, pp. 145–156). Madri: Revista de Occidente. Pais, J. M. (1993). Culturas juvenis. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda. Pais, J. M. (2012). A construção sociológica da juventude – alguns contributos. Análise Social, 25(105–106), 139–165. Williams, Raymond. (1997). Culture and society. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

23 Educators Maria Chalari and Eleftheria Atta

Introduction The root word for the term educator is “educate,” which means to teach, to train or to supervise a practice by formal instruction in order to develop skills, a profession or a trade. Thus, an educator is a person who teaches people, or one who is an authority on methods or theories of teaching. Etymologically, the word “education” is derived from the Latin word ēducātiō (“a breeding, a bringing up, a rearing”), from ēducō (“I educate, I train”) – which is related to the homonym ēdūcō (“I lead forth, I take out; I raise up, I erect”) – and from ē- (“from, out of”) and dūcō (“I lead, I conduct”) (Education, 2020). Drawing on the etymology of the word “education,” the role of the educator is expected to focus on the social, emotional and cognitive development of their students. Today, however, this role has been reshaped and it contradicts the very etymology of the word “education” as described above. In this c­ hapter, we problematize the reshaped role of educators. We also highlight what is dangerous about education, aligning ourselves with the positive danger of education, that of the process of creating a consciousness that is understood to have the power to transform reality and cultivate new ways of disruptive thinking against neoliberalism (Giroux, 2011). This is the danger that we also see in the role of the educator. Through their work, educators can carry the seeds of hope, promise and possibility, and they can actively aim to transform social relations in some fundamental way. Their role can be both political and cultural. Educators can unravel and comprehend the relationship between schooling, the wider capitalist social relations that inform it, and the historically constructed needs and competencies that students bring to school. They can challenge longheld assumptions, ask new questions and identify future possibilities to remedy social wrongs, overcome obstacles and struggle toward building a new society. In this chapter, we first discuss the educational context and the multiple ­crises – such as neoliberal reforms, the reshaping of schools and educators’ subjectivities, the socio-economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic crisis – which challenge educators’ roles and work. Then, we explore the possibilities

182  Maria Chalari and Eleftheria Atta that emerge from the destruction caused by these crises: hope for the future of education and the potential role of “dangerous” educators in the transformation of school and society and in the struggle for meaning within, against and beyond the horizons of current neoliberal arrangements in education and society. Finally, we use the case of Greek educators as an example that points to alternative social relations to neoliberal capitalism. The Educational Context and the Multiple Crises The education sector is undergoing a crisis, stemming from the neoliberal reforms which have been introduced in late 1970s and 1980s, first to the West (in the USA, the UK, some European countries and a few African countries) and later to the rest of the world. This situation has resulted in the reshaping and restructuring of schools and the system at large, with substantive implications in particular for the main actors of education – educators themselves. Neoliberalism was introduced in an era characterized by a new political and economic global environment (Evans & Riley, 2014). According to Harvey (2005), neoliberalism is “a theory of political economic practices which proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating entrepreneurial freedoms and skills … characterized by … free markets, free trade” (p. 2). The ideology of neoliberalism encompasses the principle that everything functions as a business (Tarnoff, 2016). One of the central concepts introduced by neoliberalism concerns the disempowerment of the government’s interaction, acknowledging instead the importance of the market’s rationality. Neoliberalism has a social parameter which focuses on individuals, who are reshaped accordingly to be able to cope with the competition which emerges. According to Ball (2003), neoliberal performativity is “a technology, a culture and a mode of regulation that employs judgements, comparisons and displays as means of incentive, control, attrition and change based on rewards and sanctions (both material and symbolic)” (p. 216). Based on neoliberal performativity, the performance and output of individuals are measured, emphasizing efficiency and effectiveness and allowing individualism and competitiveness to flourish. Aside from the political and economic dimensions, neoliberalism also needs to be understood in relation to the social aspect, as it provides a new understanding of human existence (Evans & Riley, 2014). In other words, individuals draw on various neoliberal discourses to create new spaces for the construction of new neoliberal subjectivities. The notion of “Homo-Economicus” (Read, 2009, p. 28) emerges in which, according to Foucault, subjects become entrepreneurs and, at the same time, entrepreneurs of themselves, acting as autonomous and individualistic persons (Besley, 2019). The global economic crisis of 2008, as well as the more recent COVID-19 pandemic crisis, underscored the idea that education and educators are under

Educators 183 siege from neoliberal capitalism. The socio-economic crisis that began in 2008 was the product of deep flaws in the global governing philosophy that followed the crisis of the 1970s and underpinned the neoliberal hegemony of the past 30 years (Gamble, 2009). This crisis, due to globalization, influenced economies across the world; its impact since has been so strong that it has even superseded the Great Depression of the 1930s in terms of severity (ibid). In Europe, the financial crisis evolved into the eurozone crisis, a multi-year debt crisis that took place in several eurozone member states from the end of 2009. The countries hit by the crisis responded by borrowing under harsh terms, and by turning to austerity (Blyth, 2013; George, 2010). It is worth pointing out that the crisis that began in 2008 was not simply a financial crisis but a multiple and plural crisis. Beyond the concerns of finance, democracy was under siege and citizens were gradually being impoverished: inequality within and between countries and citizens reached unsustainable levels in both developed and developing countries, poverty spread and deepened, food and water scarcities worsened, conflicts thrived in increasingly stressed societies, and catastrophic climate change advanced much faster than experts predicted (George, 2010). The socio-economic crisis in Europe and the rest of the world shaped both the national and the global context within which educational change took place in the following years. In a short period of time, the crisis affected the educational domain in both direct and indirect ways. This was unavoidable, as the educational system is not exempt from the consequences of crisis; it is constrained and threatened by it (Chalari, 2020). The impact of the crisis was catalyzed or exacerbated by the same coherent ideology – that of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism strove to transform education into a commodity and contributed to a dramatic deterioration in quality and to a serious rise in educational inequalities. The aforementioned impact posed a serious threat to educators, students and their families. Specifically, in Europe, the crisis shaped the relationship between neoliberalism and educational practice by accelerating the processes of marketization and privatization. At the same time, it restricted educational resources and increased social inequalities, especially for those already at higher risk of social exclusion (Arriazu & Solari, 2015). Institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF, and the G7 used domestic debt in democratic countries to control the mechanisms for the implementation and monitoring of neoliberal economic policies (ibid). The “troika” of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund imposed structural reforms on the education systems of national states such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, France and Italy (Jones, 2010). The COVID-19 pandemic appeared in the aftermath of the socio-economic crisis, revealing not just health and medical deficiencies in many countries, but also the consequences of years of under-investment in the public sector due

184  Maria Chalari and Eleftheria Atta to the adoption of neoliberal policies: the lack of social services, and the fact that the new neoliberal agenda had, for example, exhausted all the reserves of resources that would otherwise have existed for cases of emergency. Moreover, this crisis brought to the forefront existing inequalities in wealth, income and power – and, of course, education. Education systems in many countries were already mired in a protracted crisis of lack of resources, infrastructure, human capital, and so on, before the appearance of COVID-19. This unprecedented health crisis and the prevention measures imposed in several countries around the world (such as social distancing, strict lockdowns, home isolation and the suspension of all educational institutions), undoubtedly reinforced existing issues, such as inequalities in schools, and further highlighted the diverse challenges that students, parents and educators face. The COVID-19 pandemic crisis intensified pre-existing invisible structures of inequality and injustice and revealed in particularly stark terms that the endemic issues in education, unmasked by the 2008 economic collapse, remain unaddressed (Kapola, Kouzelis, & Konstantas, 2020). The effect of these multiple crises has been a loss of identity for the education sector. This was signified in particular by neoliberal educational reforms such as the Global Educational Reform Movement, which forced educational restructuring (Sahlberg, 2011). Changes included implementing central control of subject material based on national curricula, performance management systems and audit mechanisms to monitor and control teachers, and testing regimes designed to evaluate the quality of teaching (Clarke, 2013). Under neoliberalism, schools are now expected to “produce” the future participants of neoliberal society, baptized in neoliberal thinking and equipped with the essential labor skills which will enable them to survive in the competitive ­market. The educational crisis has had an immediate effect on schools and educators, as they are now tasked with following and delivering a pre-determined curriculum, with no divergence. Due to the pressures of the education market, schools are now embroiled in a war of competition to improve performance (Chubb & Moe, 2011). This suggests that, rather than being motivated by core educational values, they are now financially driven. Educators have also been reshaped; the neoliberal notions of standardized testing and accountability testing have destroyed the pedagogical practices of teachers, who have now become deprofessionalized (Hursh, 2008; MacLellan, 2009; Nichols & Berliner, 2007). In response, educators focus on performance data rather than pedagogical practices (Furlong, 2013; Giroux, 2014; Lewis & Hardy, 2016). Educators are indirectly influenced to emphasize market-driven pedagogy, prioritizing the improvement of their performance as they are driven by the notion of neoliberal performativity (Ball, 2012). The implications of neoliberalism on educators signals an identity crisis, as teachers are forcefully required to reposition themselves and reconstruct

Educators 185 their identities based on neoliberal tenets. Consequently, they position themselves as highly “individualized” and “responsibilized subjects” (Davies & Bansel, 2007, p. 248), and they feel responsible for the test scores of their students – which in turn are used to evaluate their teaching. Additionally, the quality of their teaching is assessed through performance reviews, achievements, lesson observations, appraisal meetings and tools to promote the visibility and worth of teachers (Loh & Hu, 2019). The identity crisis is also evident through the fact that educators have become the instruments through which market-driven educational goals are achieved. Therefore, they position themselves as “knowledge workers” who are responsible for transferring to ­learners’ pre-determined knowledge – but not necessarily intelligence (Connell, 2009, p. 224). Educators’ Potential role in the Transformation of School and Society Undoubtedly, the multiple crises which have occurred point toward a central question regarding firstly the effectiveness but also the future of educators. The concept of an effective educator has been redefined by the neoliberal agenda, with negative implications for educators and their subjectivities. Are there any potentialities for the future of educators in an educational context framed by neoliberalism? Educators can still rise reborn from the ashes of the destruction caused by the crises. In other words, these crises can be approached from a positive angle, and could trigger educators to act as catalysts rather than opponents of neoliberalism. Thus, educators may adopt a critical stance toward educational policy and act strategically (Reeves, 2018) by opening up and expressing their plans for dealing with educational restructuring. Educators may also re-think and re-imagine their self-worth and success (Miller et al., 2017). A starting point for educators could be to reflect on the core values they possess and find ways to incorporate these in their school’s curriculum. Instead of being followers of neoliberal tactics, educators could play a role in creating spaces of possibilities in which they could practice their professional agency and approach education policies in a strategic way. The extreme events of the past several years should encourage us to carefully examine our own countries and to consider what would alter them for the better. There are both negative and positive possibilities. These multiple crises could give rise to fear, but could also be received positively, as openings toward rational solutions, providing the foundation for an alternative scenario, for remedies and for hope (George, 2010). The combination of an alternative scenario and hope could ripen into reality if popular forces were to begin to organize into alliances with political weight and clear purpose (ibid). An urgent question is whether the aforementioned crises will become the cause of deeper divisions, inequalities and racism, or of a radically different (radically

186  Maria Chalari and Eleftheria Atta democratic) formation of the world and the public space (Athanassiou, 2020). It is therefore possible that new ideologies and new and important narratives could be born through these crises. The COVID-19 pandemic crisis, for example, is a chance for us, as educators, to reconsider the way we think about ourselves and society, and to change the current socio-economic model. It is up to us to take advantage of this crisis as an opportunity for greater solidarity, collectivity, and a deepening of the social bond (Stylianou, 2020). Today, we live and work in a historic moment of intense and rapid social change, which offers many possibilities; a crisis is a historic moment of contestation, “in which the reordering of social arrangements becomes a possibility” (Jones, 2010, p. 793). Crises, apart from amplifying disorientation and increasing the sense of flux, force people into a bewildering array of new contexts that release creativity, energy and new possibilities (Bussey, 2012). Our challenge in this era is to re-imagine our role as educators and find ways to create opportunities for students to build meaningful understandings of the world. This era of multiple crises could become a time of reform and opportunity for individual countries and the education system as a whole (Chalari, 2020). In Greece, it was encouragingly optimistic that there were teachers who, during the recent crises, had the impetus to consider and implement possibilities for a different and better education system, despite the fact that they themselves were facing many difficulties, with implications in practical, economic and moral terms (Chalari, 2020). For example, during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, after an initial period of numbness, many teachers managed to adapt to the new reality and meet the challenges it posed (Koutsogiannis, 2020). Moreover, many teachers saw in this era new ­possibilities – such as the prospect of a new relationship between schools, educators and parents, and the opportunity to move forward to a more flexible and remote working arrangement for educators (Kapola et al., 2020). In these teachers’ practices and ideas, we can discern traces of critical thinking and autonomy that go against the forms of dehumanization that are inherent to the Greek education system. These traces could be described as an important space for discussions about critical work that aim to transform education and society in some fundamental way, and can be used as a fertile basis in a critical pedagogical intervention aimed at re-imagining and working toward a new path for future education. Each crisis creates new questions, and brings back old ones in a more compelling way, illuminated with a different light (Mavromatis, 2020). The responses of teachers suggest that, regardless of the severe distress the multiple crises have caused, something good may emerge. As George (2010) and Gamble (2009) argue, the crises could be considered openings toward alternative scenarios or remedies, and become major turning points which could lead to new institutions, new alignments, new policies, new initiatives and new ideologies.

Educators 187

Note

1. Greece is perhaps one of the few European countries that resisted compliance with neo-liberal European Union policies. The implementation of neo-liberal education policies in Greece was extensively opposed and, subsequently, delayed. This resistance, it can be argued, was more likely a result, at least in part, of the political and educational clientelism, one of the core mechanisms through which governments have taken and retained power since the establishment of the modern Greek state in the 1830s (Bratsis, 2010), rather than of a commitment to a common goal for education (Traianou, 2013).

References Arriazu, R., & Solari, M. (2015). The role of education in times of crisis: A critical analysis of the Europe 2020 Strategy. KEDI Journal of Education Policy, 12(2), 129–149. Athanassiou, A. (2020). For the sense of a present from/at a distance. In P. Kapola, G. Kouzelis, & O. Konstantas (Eds.). Imprints in times of danger. Athens: Nissos (in Greek). Ball, S. J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Educational Policy, 18: 215–228. Ball, S. (2012). Global education INC. New policy networks and the neoliberal imaginary. Canada: Routledge. Besley, T. (2019). Theorizing teacher responsibility in an age of neoliberal accountability. Beijing International Review of Education, 1, 179–195. Blyth, M. (2013). Austerity: The history of a dangerous idea. Oxford, USA: Oxford University Press. Bratsis, P. (2010). ‘Legitimation Crisis and the Greek Explosion’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(1), 190–196. Bussey, M. (2012). When no crisis is the real crisis! The endless Vertigo of capitalist education. In D. R. Cole (Ed.). Surviving economic crisis through education. New York, NY: Peter Lag. Chalari, M. (2020). Crisis, austerity and new frameworks for teaching and learning. A pedagogy of hope for contemporary Greek education. New York, NY: Routledge. Chubb, J. E., & Moe, T. M. (2011). Politics, markets, and America’s schools. Brookings Institution Press. Clarke, M. (2013). Terror/enjoyment: Performativity, resistance, and the teacher’s psyche. London Review of Education, 11(3): 229–238. Connell, R. (2009). Good teachers on dangerous ground: Towards a new view of teacher quality and professionalism. Critical Studies in Education, 50(3): 213–229. Davies, B., & Bansel, P. (2007). Neoliberalism and education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20, 247–259. Education. (2020). In Cambridge dictionary. Retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ dictionary/english/education. Evans, A., & Riley, S. (2014). Technologies of sexiness: Sex, identity, and consumer culture. Oxford University Press. Furlong, J. (2013). Globalisation, neoliberalism, and the reform of teacher education in England. The Educational Forum, 77(1), 28–50. Gamble, A. (2009). The spectre at the feast. London: Palgrave Macmillan. George, S. (2010). Converging crises: Reality, fear and hope. Globalisations, 7(1–2), 17–22. Giroux, H. A. (2011). On critical pedagogy. New York, NY: Continuum. Giroux, H. (2014). Neoliberalism’s war on Higher Education. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Hursh, D. (2008). High-stakes testing and the decline of teaching and learning. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield.

188  Maria Chalari and Eleftheria Atta Jones, K. (2010). Crisis, what crisis? Journal of Education policy, 25(6), 793–798. Kapola, P., Kouzelis, G., & Konstantas O. (2020). (Eds.). Imprints in times of danger. Athens: Nissos (in Greek). Koutsogiannis, D. (2020). The Greek school in the time of the Covid-19: From the technical to the political approach. In P. Kapola, G. Kouzelis, & O. Konstantas (Eds.). Imprints in times of danger. Athens: Nissos (in Greek). Lewis, S., & Hardy, I. (2016). Tracking the topological: The effects of standardised data upon teachers’ practice. British Journal of Educational Studies, 65(2), 1. Loh, J., & Hu, G. (2019). The impact of educational neoliberalism on teachers in Singapore. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education (pp. 1–24). MacLellan, D. (2009). Neoliberalism and Ontario teachers’ unions: A “not-so” common sense revolution. Socialist Studies: The Journal of the Society for Socialist Studies, 5, 51–74. Mavromatis, G. (2020). Saving knowledge in terms of tele-production or public education during quarantine. In P. Kapola, G. Kouzelis, & O. Konstantas (Eds.). Imprints in times of danger. Athens: Nissos (in Greek). Miller, E. R., Morgan, B., & Medina, A. L. (2017). Exploring language teacher identity work as ethical self-formation. The Modern Language Journal, 101(1), 91–105. Nichols, S. L., & Berliner, D. C. (2007). Collateral damage: How high-stakes testing corrupts America’s schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Read, J. (2009). A genealogy of homo-economicus: Neoliberalism and the production of subjectivity. Foucault Studies, 6, 25–36. Reeves, J. (2018). Teacher identity work in neoliberal schooling spaces. Teaching and Teacher Education, 72, 98–106. Sahlberg, P. (2011). Finnish lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland? New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Stylianou, A. (2020). The Corona virus and us. In P. Kapola, G. Kouzelis, & O. Konstantas (Eds.). Imprints in times of danger. Athens: Nissos (in Greek). Tarnoff, B. (2016). Neoliberalism turned our world into a business. And there are two big winners. Retrieved on 03 July, 2020 from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/13/ donald-trump-silicon-valley-leaders-neoliberalism-administration. Traianou, A. (2013). ‘Greek Education Reform: resistance and despair’. In K. Jones (Ed.), Education and Europe: the Politics of Austerity. London: Radicaledbooks.

24 School José Ernandi Mendes

School is a deliberately formative institution that is built historically. Hence, it is situated in time and space, and in the interaction between the set of relationships and social subjects, leading to the promotion of humans. Understanding school and its implications is related to the method as a view of the world within the social sciences (Löwy, 1995). Löwy defines the conservative and transforming role of the formal education practice, which can be dialectic and historical. Saviani (1985), a respected Brazilian thinker, classifies the relation of determination of school within society in two types of theories: non-critical and critical ones. In the first one, despite the different pedagogical perspectives of essentialist or existentialist features, there is an acceptance of the capitalist social relations as legitimate and natural; in the second one, education is conceived within the critique against this system, on a spectrum that ranges between determinist and historical-dialectic positions. School constitutes a dangerous word due to the political dispute of meanings that are imparted to it within the capitalist society. This conflict occurs on two levels: on one hand, the naturalization of its function in society and, on the other, the possibilities of structuring another society. The threat of the word “school” is further evident in the conceptions and practices that cross the borders of what is apparently “right” or “wrong.” Those who fight for equality and social justice are aware of the conservative threats enveloped in schooling and impair the rights to education stemming from non-historical conceptions about it. These conceptions appear to decouple the interests of the hegemonic social classes to the school’s purpose of conveying formal and systematized knowledge. There is a general view of schools as institutions in charge of imparting knowledge historically accumulated by humanity. This function makes people and communities defend the right to education (Young, 2009). Denying the right to education by means of absence of a secular/non-religious, free and public school, or offering a school for the poor, is a dangerous situation for the working classes, who already have other rights denied. This is not problematic by itself, since other universal rights, such as freedom, equal expression,

190  José Ernandi Mendes democracy and even institutions, such as the family, are undoubtedly necessary to human life. However, similarly to all these rights and institutions, the school must act historically, confronting the existing social relations. Specifically, the school consists of an institution that is not only necessary but also conveys homogenous knowledge to generations. There is a strong and unwavering belief that, independently of society, formal education promotes the human development of individuals. However, the idea of “promotion” of the individuals’ humanity is associated with the scientific development of the perspective of those who elaborate it. As such, it is necessary to examine the basis of the beliefs and conceptions of the representatives of this hegemonic ideology as well as the consciousness and actions of the individuals directly involved in the educational practice. In a society consisting of social classes, there is an urge to situate phenomena and concepts historically. Hence, the school must be situated in the set of social relations by which it is influenced and characterized. Schooling in capitalist societies does not lead to a fulfilment of human development. Hence, in contrast with the dehumanizing capitalist logic, it is necessary for social subjects to build social and educational projects that go beyond capital’s logic (Mészáros, 2008). Hence, for those who work to live and fight for better living conditions, the abstract and generic conception of school does not include the social experiences of students and teachers, which are very important to their formative processes. As stated by Arroyo (2013, p. 122) “Social, political, economic and cultural interests come into play from the production, validation, selection, teaching and evaluation. Knowing this complex game of interests is a right of the one who teaches and the one who learns, and it is evaluated.” From a historical point of view, the school is conceived as a depository and vehicle of knowledge appreciated by the hegemonic powers. This function underpins the fundamental role of the school, which is based on a positivist and Eurocentric conception of education, conveying the historically accumulated and systematized knowledge. The importance of this kind of knowledge is supposed to contribute to the economic growth and maintenance of the social structure, thus facilitating hegemonic sociability. However, the concepts of history and humanity are class-specific and, as such, associated with a particular vision of power (Lander, 2005). School, as well as formal education, consists of social relations and practices, reflecting the relationship between State and Society. In capitalist society, it figures as an institution that is part of the State, being an expression of the division of social classes. Methodologically, it is impossible to conceive the school without historically relating it to the capital-labor social relations. The bourgeoisie says that education is for the masses and considers the school as an institution entrusted with eradicating illiteracy and globalizing teaching, socializing systematized knowledge, which go beyond the metaphysical

School 191 explanations of its hegemonic mission up to then. Furthermore, in order to increase its power, the bourgeoisie makes many promises to consolidate its hegemony, without always keeping them. Once it is in a powerful position through a historical process, the bourgeoisie singlehandedly defines the actions that will maintain its power, with the State supporting the market through production. Over the 20th century, along with wars, capital crises, revolutions and workers’ struggles, there were multiple ideological conflicts of ideology and practices, denials and acceptances of key concepts. What is more, during the so-called golden age of capitalism that followed the Second World War, in European countries and in the United States, such processes contributed to the consolidation of the belief in the system’s capacity to meet the population’s needs. In this context, the school also experienced an enthusiastic belief in its potential to promote social justice. In capitalist countries, school expansion approached its complete realization. By contrast, in poor countries, the advances were modest, in spite of the constant fight of the working class for education. With the great system crisis in the 1970s, which led to changes in labor processes and job structure, restructuring of national states in line with the financial markets, the national systems of education and the school suffered a big blow. In this context, Sousa Júnior (2014) highlights the school crisis, characterized by the impossibility of the bourgeoisie in keeping its liberal-­democratic promises. This impracticability is due to the implementation of the logic of a minimal state, which threatens the material basis of social rights associated with schooling. In the current context, under the auspices of neoliberalism and globalization, the promise of democracy, once so inherent in the system, disintegrates. Ideas about freedom are essentially only limited to the economic field, deliberately emptying the political citizenship dimension. In addition, there is a global spread of conservative and fundamentalist ideas, with which the systemin-­crisis interacts to coexist and survive, proposing laws that fit such conservative and fundamentalist interests and harm workers’ rights. The impact of these developments on education is realized through various reforms that meet the market interests and set schools back in their historical-critical formation, giving place to a very pragmatic-scientific rationality as well as to a fundamentalist set of values supported by religious groups. In this context, the school becomes once more a place of conflict between educators, market forces and conservative and/or religious groups. School aims and curricula are also defined by the discussions about the role of science in the society. The hegemonic rationality bestows the scientific conception of Comte’s, Durkheim’s and Herbert Spencer’s positivism, transposing knowledge, methodologies, and the vision of the world to the organization of

192  José Ernandi Mendes school, as well as suggesting political and ideological conformity regarding the social structure. The pedagogical thinking and ideas about school vary and are expressions of capitalist development in relation to its different stages and crises. Initially, in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, especially in poor countries, the traditional school perspective did not conflict with the socioeconomic dynamics. After this period, the criticism against the lack of instrumentality demanded it to align itself with the market, techniques, technologies and ideological demands of the relations of production. The school is facing pedagogical changes without questioning the social structure and political character of contributing to the system preservation in which it is based. Over the 20th century, positivism was present in the ideology and in the sciences that demarcate the practice and organization of school. Beyond in school, this perspective strongly guarantees an unequal social structure that forms acquiescent people with a common sense suitable for the ­system maintenance. In the last four decades of neoliberalism, the replacement of full jobs by employability incentivizes values of social dismantling, such as individualism, competition between workers who fight for low paid positions and so on. As an expression of the 2008 capitalist crisis, the economic, social and cultural achievements, conquered in long historical processes, and the workers’ rights are under constant attacks. On one hand, there is an acceptance of minimal resources allocated to social projects, while, on the other hand, democratic and critical spaces are reduced, since democracy is not imperative in the market’s logic. As an expression of the capital structural crisis, financial markets thrive on public resources, taking advantage of the historical a-politicization of society, educators and the youth. As a consequence, there is an onslaught of the economic elites and conservative forces against workers’ rights and public education in many countries. In addition, these elites have imposed laws that inhibit public investment in health and education over decades. This development is evident in Brazil, where the media outlets are concentrated in a few hands and television companies evoke aversion to politics, and criminalize social movements and supporters of the Left. Projects, such as “School without parties,” police critical teachers’ actions, making them sound as part of a violent organization. In order to consolidate their ideology, such media and their owners, they associate politics with political parties, which are related to corruption and are not trusted by the people. In addition, they maintain that the school must not confront to conservative religious and family values and it must incentivise the act of denouncing teachers who are opposed to such plans. This is a strategy to intimidate educators and eliminate their autonomy to become critical citizens. At the same time, it constitutes a revival of

School 193 old tactics evident in the educational reforms during the years of the Military Dictatorship (1964–1984) and were based on an ideology of so-called “neutral knowledge,” “non-critical” and “traditional patriotism” and family values, and they focused on order and progress. In the context of negation of the right to education, the word “school” becomes dangerous because it is part of a project that is managed by the hegemonic classes and it shapes the formation of youth, it incentivizes individualism, consumerism and subordination, and it compromises people’s consciousness by promoting hatred speech, even neo-Nazi political practices. In face of this hegemonic project, organized social movements, workers and particular educators have created ways of resisting the school model proposed by the markets. New pedagogies are developed through collective fighting and  resistance (Freire, 2005). Citizens, educators and students involved in these movements, denaturalize the dominant and single-minded idea of education and schooling, confront the contents and hegemonic dynamics and they expose their own life to experiences which have been historically forgotten and devalued. In opposition to the growth of conservative groups with neo-Nazi or fascist ideas, the democratic school’s aim are re-built and re-developed. These ideas support knowledge of political, philosophical, historical and practical nature that are necessary to the emancipatory formation of schooling, which is in interaction with labor. Hence, the stability of the hegemonic project of schooling that seems uniform, must give space to the challenge of building a collective project that meets the needs of workers and oppressed groups aiming to another sociability. This is the only way to invert the harmful manipulation of the education of the working classes, endangering the dominant class who have made school an oppressive practice, a misleading idea and a dangerous word.

References Arroyo, M. G. (2013). Curriculum, territory in dispute. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes. Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra. Lander, E. (2005). Social sciences: Colonial and Eurocentric knowledge. In E. Lander (Org.). The coloniality of knowledge: Eurocentrism and social sciences – Latin American perspectives. Buenos Aires: Coleccion Sur Sur, CLASCO. Löwy, M. (1995) Ideologies and social science: Elements of a Marxist analysis. São Paulo: Cortez. Mészáros, I. (2008). Education beyond capital. São Paulo: Boitempo. Saviani, D. (1985). School and democracy. São Paulo: Cortez. Sousa Júnior, J. (2014). The crisis in school. Fortaleza: Imprensa Universitária. Young, M. (2009).What are schools made for. In M. Z. C. Pereira & M. E. P. de Carvalho (Orgs.), Globalization, interculturalism and the school curriculum. Campinas, SP: Alínea.

25 Post-Critical Education Juan Ramón Rodríguez Fernández

How can greater social justice be achieved through education? This is a key question which is usually approached from two different perspectives: on one hand, through “critical educational discourse” and, on the other hand, through the prism of “post-critical educational discourse.” Each takes a different view of key concepts, such as ideology, power, hegemony and social emancipation.

Critical Educational Discourse According to critical thought, ideology is a false consciousness that can be debunked by true knowledge and scientific fact, thus attaining the truth concealed behind the distorting veils of the dominant ideology (Habermas, 1968). In line with the modern bases of critical thought, education plays a central role in this task, for two main reasons. First, critical education is key in promoting socially and politically relevant knowledge that can challenge the hegemonic ideology. In other words, if critical education is to be truly critical and emancipatory, it must include counter-hegemonic content, otherwise it merely serves to reinforce dominant schemas and contribute to the reproduction and legitimation of an unjust dominant social order (Althusser, 1972). Second, critical education should ensure the conditions necessary for the practice of reasonable dialog in education that allows full development of the rational capacities of the human subject, in this case the learner. From this perspective, education research and teaching practice should seek to develop participatory instructional strategies (e.g. participative action research, seminars for debate and teamwork strategies) aimed at raising the subjects’ awareness of the mechanisms that generate social inequalities and injustices. In other words, the aim should be to highlight as problems the various aspects hegemonic thought presents as natural and which are considered a matter of common sense (Gramsci, 1971). Following Apple (2004, 2006, 2012, 2013), it dawns on us that in this awareness-raising process, educators assume an ethical, politically committed position with respect to oppressed sectors; thus, they occupy a position of social commitment and are in no way neutral agents.

Post-Critical Education 195 According to Edgar Morin (1994), this critical role of education is related to a programmatic conception of educational intervention. According to this approach, the purpose of traditional critical and emancipatory education is somehow pre-established and simply requires the design and planning of a curriculum that includes counter-hegemonic contents and activities with the potential to reveal the dominant ideology. Thus, the various elements of an educational curriculum should be designed and planned on the basis of an initial truth, the one offered through ideological criticism. In this process, critical educators play a major role when selecting content, activities and methods that will have greater potential to expose the flaws, injustices and problems of the dominant thought and thereby lay the foundations for the social emancipation of their learners (Giroux, 1983). Ideological Criticism: Critical Discourse Studies Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) represent one example of the approaches I have generically termed “critical educational discourse.” Below, I explore how CDS follow in the footsteps of critical educational thought. First, CDS have their origins in the Frankfurt School and in the development of critical social psychology. Owing to their roots, one of the most important goals of CDS is to address important social issues, especially those arising from situations of oppression and injustice. Thus, according to Teun Van Dijk (2009), CDS should conduct a (critical) study of social issues and problems, such as social inequality, domination and related phenomena in general, and in particular, the function of discourse, use of language and communication in these phenomena. Consequently, CDS focus on the study of power and its reproduction through the public discourse of elites and dominant groups, and more specifically on the abuse and illegitimate use of power, for example, in the case of domination (racism, sexism), political manipulation,1 concealment of information and lies. In this type of discourse analysis, power is viewed as control exercised by some groups or actors over other, dominated ones. Since the analysis of power focuses on the abuse of power and domination, a crucial issue in CDS is the means by which discourse is controlled by the most powerful groups. This can be through: Control of access (who can speak) and control of the discourse itself (what can be said). In this case, it is important to know who controls the major media outlets, for example who owns school textbook publishing companies and the printed press. For instance, in the last years there has been a significant increase in financial and economic contents in Spanish school textbooks, which is directly related to the growing participation of banks in the ownership of the textbooks publishing businesses. (Díez Gutiérrez, 2019)

196  Juan Ramón Rodríguez Fernández Control of the mind through cognitive structures to generate consensus and opinion. At this level, CDS focus on analysing the mechanisms whereby dominant groups impose their hegemonic values and interests without resorting to violence or physical coercion, for example by using communication strategies aimed at generating social consensus which operate at a cognitive level.2 One of the tasks of CDS is to denounce the mechanisms and actions through which groups and actors in power illegitimately perpetuate and reproduce a social order to their advantage. Consequently, CDS provide a counter-hegemonic criticism that helps elucidate the processes and strategies of domination that the elites deploy through various kinds of public discourse. Lastly, CDS view discourse mainly as language production (the spoken or written word) and social communication, considered in its extended form as a complex communicative event or more narrowly as a conversation or text (Van Dijk, 2006). In turn, the linguistic dimension is highly influenced by non-linguistic aspects, such as power structures and social institutions. This predominant conception in CDS is often removed from the performative effects of language on reality and thought. Thus, in contrast to post-modern approaches that broaden and maximize the notion of discourse (e.g. Foucault, 1968; Laclau & Mouffe, 1987), the concept of discourse and the objectives in CDS are more easily located within the horizons of action of traditional modern thought with critical roots.

Post-critical Educational Discourse As with the critical tradition, post-critical thought is based on the notion of a counter-hegemonic struggle for social emancipation. However, although both approaches start from the same premise – a commitment to the fight for social justice – the paths they take are different. One of the distinguishing features between critical and post-critical educational discourse is the role that each endows to the concept of ideology. In line with Marxist authors, such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1968) as well as Louis Althusser (1972), from the standpoint of critical thought, ideology is viewed fundamentally as a distortion of reality that the hegemonic powers use to their own advantage in order to conceal the truth and impose a series of ideas and values on the dominated social classes. From the perspective of post-critical thought, on the other hand, ideology has a different meaning and function. Specifically, it is viewed as a system of signification that is necessary to understand and read the current situation. Accepting this conception of ideology implies recognizing that our vision of reality is partial and limited, and that while ideology allows us to “see” some facets of reality, it simultaneously prevents us from “seeing” others.

Post-Critical Education 197 Thus, in post-critical discourse, ideology is not viewed as an impediment, but rather as a prerequisite for endowing reality with meaning, a screen (Zizek, 1992) on which the subject reads reality. Ideology as suture (Laclau & Mouffe, 1987), therefore, occurs when the subject is unaware of the origins and limits of his or her own discourse and tries to fill the open and incomplete nature of reality with his or her ideology/ideologies. Hence, the subject unconsciously and temporarily “sutures” the open spaces and failings in reality using the vision offered by hegemonic ideological thought. From this perspective, ideology does not acquire a total, definitive and monolithic nature, but is instead fragile, sometimes contradictory, open to new connections and lacking perfect internal consistency: ideology is a system of containment and negotiation in constant motion: meanings and values are stolen, transformed, appropriated across the boundaries between different groups and classes, abandoned, reappropriated and reworked (Eagleton, 2004). The notion of ideology as a system of signification of reality offers the possibility of studying the complex socio-cognitive processes involved in the subject’s “acquisition” of ideology, whereas in the traditional view of ideology, the passive subject is interpellated by ideology, absorbing ideological ideas and beliefs like a kind of sponge. By contrast, perspectives that view ideology as a requirement for access to reality place emphasis on the role of socio-cognitive processes and the strategies deployed by social agents in the production, reproduction and transformation of ideology. In the end, ideologies are not finished products – they are not like software programmes installed in people’s minds – but, instead, they undergo constant construction and reconstruction by the subjects themselves in natural social contexts and given cultural and historical periods. This vision of ideology as suture or screen of signification is much more complex than the deterministic vision offered by the theory of ideology as false consciousness, since it emphasises a subject’s deliberative processes and contradictions when endowing meaning to reality. As Therborn (2004) has ironically asked, what happens to those who are blindly compelled to become and remain salaried workers or salaried sociology professors? What do they know, what do they feel, what do they want, what do they have, what do they think enjoyable, what do they consider possible or impossible? Or do they have no belief at all? If ideology as suture asserts the impossibility of a single truth, due to the open and discursive nature of reality which is under constant construction, then a major goal in the world of education should be to analyse the multiple processes of dialog, interaction and connection between the various discourses in the social and educational sphere. An emphasis on dialog and connection between different discourses not only eschews sectarian visions that arrogate possession of the single truth to themselves, but also eschews any uncritical celebration of diversity (Mouffe, 1998) by recognizing the existence of antagonistic and sometimes intolerant relations

198  Juan Ramón Rodríguez Fernández between discourses. In other words, from the standpoint of ideology as suture, the political dimension predominates, not in order to attain the ultimate truth – as the counter-hegemonic fight against false consciousness appears to do – but to evaluate the effects and political possibilities that the various discourses and the connections between them may have in a particular context and socio-historical moment. The importance of the political dimension and the recognition that it is impossible to attain any kind of immutable or underlying truth forces us to assume an attitude of suspicion, of constant critical vigilance. We can no longer stand by placidly as theoretical or technological advances proliferate, as if their steady accumulation would bring us ever closer to truth and freedom, as if a constant stream of such advances would eventually cause the cup of truth to overflow and be shared with by everyone. From a post-modern perspective, all kinds of knowledge, social organization and technology are the result of particular power relations and are no more natural or artificial than any other kind of knowledge that they intend to replace. Similarly, all of them involve some potential structures of domination (albeit also of autonomy and freedom), even those that spring from the most critical and counter-hegemonic discourses. This temporary, contingent and uncertain foundation on which post-critical thought rests has prompted the recognition that universal absolutes do not exist and that there is a need to reflect on our own achievements, knowledge acquired and objectives evaluated. Thus, from a post-critical standpoint, participatory methodologies in education are not in themselves more emancipatory than any other type of methodology and most certainly do not ensure the free production of discourse nor the free participation of subjects. Exponents of post-critical thought question the naivety of assuming – as more traditional critical thought does – that participatory methodologies will enable the subjects themselves to speak, or that these are masters of their discourses (Vorraber Costa, 1997). Hence, from the standpoint of post-critical thought, education performs a different role to that envisaged from the critical perspective. Education is no longer located at the heart of a modern emancipatory programme as a key institution responsible for uncovering and illuminating reality and disrupting the dynamics of ideological reproduction, but it now merely occupies one of many positions within society together with other institutions, organizations and political actions. According to post-critical thought, educational practice should embrace diversity and the complexity of reality, and through critical deconstruction should promote dialog between the various discourses that constitute reality (their relations, possibilities, consequences, etc.), seeking differences but also possible connections. Education cannot therefore be the privileged centre of knowledge, the ivory tower responsible for transmitting right and wrong; instead, based on the uncertainty and fluidity of reality it should “… teach what we do not know and illuminate what we cannot even imagine. The goal is to reconstruct the discourses that constitute

Post-Critical Education 199 us in order to locate their connection with those that are different, and embracing difference, to organize the society that we all want, without anyone concealing their personal interests behind pre-existing truths” (Cascante Fernández, 2007, p. 13). From this standpoint, educational action tends to relate to strategic approaches (Morin, 1994), unlike critical educational thought that tends to relate to programmatic approaches. According to post-modern educational thought, there is no fundamental knowledge that in itself is emancipatory and liberating, nor is there an essential human nature that must be freed from the alienating effects of the dominant ideology. Otherwise, each of the different discourses, with their diverse discursive horizons and conceptions, would need to be evaluated according to their political effects. Hence the work of the educator is not so much to design an emancipatory curriculum that denounces the falsehoods of the dominant ideology, but rather to introduce into classes and workshops the different educational discourses and, like an anthropologist, attempt to assess and reconstruct them according to the opportunities they present for achieving a more just and free society. Thus, there is no ahistorical and immutable truth or emancipatory knowledge on which to base the design and construction of education; rather, we must embrace the plurality of discourses and ways of seeing the world – each of them partial, historical and contingent – and seek to establish the necessary conditions for dialog and connection between discourses in order to address social issues and problems and strive for a more just and egalitarian society. Political Discourse Analysis as a P ­ ost-critical Educational Strategy One educational approach that adopts the path indicated by post-critical thought is political discourse analysis (PDA) applied to education. As an anti-essentialist, anti-foundational analytical strategy, PDA can be useful to critically analyze and study the contingent and arbitrary nature of – and connections between – the various discourses that through a complex process form the basis of society, and more specifically of the various elements and dimensions of education. In particular, three political objectives can be identified for PDA applied to education (Buenfil Burgos, 2000): To indicate the ambiguous nature, internal contradictions and constructed nature of any hegemonic educational discourse. In other words, to identify the marks or scars that hegemonic ideologies leave as they suture, constructing reality through their discourses. To identify the power relations stemming from hegemonic, antagonistic and decadent discourses, together with the various connections with other discourses and political operations that impose specific values within the hegemonic discourse.

200  Juan Ramón Rodríguez Fernández To underline the historicity of all discourses and show that discourses crystallise as the result of inclusion-exclusion, repression, the invisibilization of alternatives and the prioritization of some possibilities over others. PDA can be applied to various subjects of study in the social sphere. Initially, PDA was applied to the study of political theory, for example post-Marxism and radical democracy (Laclau & Mouffe, 1987), transformation in social welfare States (Torfing, 1998), apartheid in South Africa (Norval, 1998), the relations between universal human rights and political pluralism (Mouffe, 1998), the formation of new political identities, the emergence and structure of new social movements, and political discourse and the media (Fairclough, 1992). Subsequently, PDA was applied to a wider range of subjects, expanding into other areas in the social sciences and penetrating disciplines such as anthropology, feminism, social psychology or cultural studies. The expanding horizons of PDA have generated numerous theoretical studies on education. Among others, these include studies by Stephen J. Ball (2012) on the discursive construction of education as a philanthropic business venture in developing countries; comparative studies by Thomas S. Popkewitz (2008) on school reform and the concept of infant in the educational plans of Western countries; cultural studies by Henry Giroux (1999) on the film industry; contributions on curriculum theory, cultural studies and post-structuralist education research from Alfredo Veiga Neto (1997), Marisa Vorraber (1997) and Tomaz Tadeu da Silva, etc. in the Monday afternoon seminar at the University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil; research on the neoliberalization of university education systems (Glynos & Howarth, 2008); and the output of the Seminar on political discourse analysis applied to education at the National Autonomous University of México led by Rosa Buenfil. All these contributions have been heavily influenced by post-modern thought and specifically by Michel Foucault, employing some of the associated analytical tools such as discourse, power, genealogy, archaeology and governmentality.

Conclusions Any education professional with a minimum of social commitment in his or her work will have asked him or herself the following question at some point: How can I contribute to a more just and free society through my work? This paper has tried to sketch two ways to fight for social justice in education. One way follows in the footsteps of critical thinking whereas the other follows post-modern thinking. While each one has its distinctive characteristics, if we want to struggle for a fairer society, education still has enormous strides to make.

Post-Critical Education 201

Notes

1 For an example, many commentators consider as political manipulation the strategies utilized by political leaders, such as Tony Blair and José María Aznar, in order to legitimize military intervention in Iraq (Van Dijk, 2006). 2 An excellent example of this type of analysis is Henry Giroux’s cultural studies on Disney films The mouse that roared: Disney and the end of innocence (1999).

References Althusser, L. (1972). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. In: B. R. Cosin (Ed.), Education – structure and society. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Apple, M. (2004). Ideology and curriculum. New Y   ork, NY: Routledge. Apple, M. (2006). Educating the “right” way: markets, standards God and inequality. New York, NY: Routledge. Apple, M. (2012). Education and power. New York, NY: Routledge. Apple, M. (2013). Can education change society? New York, NY: Routledge. Buenfil Burgos, R. N. (2000). Globalization, education and discourse political analysis: ambiguity and accountability in research. Qualitative Studies in Education, 13(1), 1–24. Cascante Fernández, C. (2007). La formación del profesorado como reflexión en la práctica y sobre la práctica informada social y políticamente. In: J. Romero Morante (Ed.), La formación del profesorado a la luz de una profesionalidad democrática. Santander: Consejería de Educación de Cantabria. Eagleton, T. (2004). Ideology. An introduction. London: Verso. Díez Gutiérrez, E. J. (2019). La revuelta educativa neocon. Gijón: Trea. Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Foucault, M. (1968). El orden del discurso. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Giroux, H. (1983). Theory and resistance in education. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey Press. Giroux, H. (1999). The mouse that roared: Disney and the end of innocence. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Glynos, J. & Howarth, D. (2008). Logics of critical explanation in social and political theory. New Y   ork, NY: Routledge. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. New Y   ork, NY: International Publishers. Habermas, J. (1968). Technology and science as ideology. Boston, MA: Beacon. Harvey, D. (2014). Seventeen contradictions and the end of capitalism. London: Profile Books. Laclau, E. & Mouffe, C. (1987). Hegemony and socialist strategy. Towards a radical democratic politics. London: Verso. Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1968). The German ideology. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Morin, E. (1994). Introducción al pensamiento complejo. Madrid: Gedisa. Mouffe, C. (1998). La política democrática hoy en día. In: R. Buenfil Burgos (Coord.), Debates políticos contemporáneos. En los márgenes de la modernidad. Madrid: Plaza y Valdés. Norval, A. (1998). South Africa in transition: New theoretical perspectives. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. Cambridge: Belknap Press. Popkewitz, T. (2008). El cosmopolitismo y la era de la reforma escolar. Madrid: Morata. Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press. Therborn, G. (2004). Las nuevas cuestiones de la subjetividad. In: Zizek, S. (Comp.), Ideología. Un mapa de la cuestión. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Torfing, J. (1998). New theories of discourse. Laclau, Mouffe and Zizek. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Van Dijk,T. (2009). Discurso y poder. Contribuciones a los Estudios Críticos del Discurso. Madrid: Gedisa.

202  Juan Ramón Rodríguez Fernández Van Dijk, T. (2006). Discourse and manipulation. Discourse and Society, 17(3), 359–383. Veiga Neto, A. (1997). Crítica pos-estructuralista y educación. Barcelona: Laertes. Vorraber Costa, M. (1997). Elementos para una crítica de las metodologías participativas de investigación. In: A. Veiga Neto (Coord.), Crítica pos-estructuralista y educación. Barcelona: Laertes. Zizek, S. (1992). The sublime object of ideology. London: Verso.

26 Educational Commons Yannis Pechtelidis

Introducing the Commons in Education The global financial, environmental and health crisis has dislocated the social, political and productive institutions, especially in Southern Europe, but it also gave rise to the formation of various affinity groups and local movements (Feixa, Leccardi, & Nilan, 2016; Kioupkiolis & Katsabekis, 2014; Pechtelidis, 2016; Pickard & Bessant, 2017) seeking to manage collective resources with some independence from the state and the markets, promoting civic self-organization and community across differences (Kioupkiolis & Pechtelidis, 2017). The dislocative power of the current crisis may be linked to alternative political options and ethics as collective responses to social exclusion, unemployment and underemployment, state violence, the crisis of formal politics and representative democracy, the destruction of the environment and the disorganization of public health systems. In this context, a significant shift is observed from a private and public to the common ownership of social resources in our days (Bollier & Helfrich, 2012). Commons are living and dynamic social systems that develop around the values of collective ownership and equal management of resources or goods established by different communities to ensure the survival and prosperity of each of their members. These common goods or resources are not only material, such as land, energy and water, but also immaterial, such as education and knowledge. People who have accepted the logic of the commons, that is the commoners, seek to create a social network of cooperation, solidarity, dialogue, sharing and interdependence that connects all members of a community equally. In order to transform a social system into a commons, three basic interrelated elements are required: (a) common resources (e.g. education), (b) institutions (i.e. communing practices and rules) and (c) the commoners who are involved in the production and reproduction of commons (Bollier & Helfrich, 2015, p. 3). According to Hess and Ostrom (2011, p. 10): “The analysis of any type of commons must involve the rules, decisions, and behaviors people make in groups in relation to their shared resource.” In this sense, the commons are not unlimited or unrestricted. They have certain rules, social norms and sanctions decided by the commoners.

204  Yannis Pechtelidis Commons or “common-pool resources” (Ostrom, 1990, pp. 30, 90) or “commons-based peer production” (Benkler & Nissenbaum, 2006, p. 395) consist of goods and resources that are collectively used and produced. However, it is important to clarify that the commons are not one or more goods, but a collective social activity that establishes the common goods and a new collective subject that does not precede this commoning activity (Kioupkiolis, 2019). According to Dardot and Laval (2014, pp. 20, 48–49, 155, 234), the commons are a collective act of enactment, a collective activity of co-decision and co-obligation, a political principle that should rearrange all social relationships. Despite the fact that education is a core institution of late modern societies and is pivotal to social reproduction and change, research on educational commons is rather scant compared to other forms of commons, such as the environmental commons, digital commons or the urban commons. Introducing the emergent paradigm of the “commons” as an alternative value and action system (Bollier, 2014; Bollier & Helfrich, 2019; Dardot & Laval, 2014; Hardt & Negri, 2012; Ostrom, 1990) in the field of education, we can critically draw out the implications of the commons for refiguring education, and social change in general (De Lissovoy, 2011). From the commons’ point of view, it could be claimed that not only the teachers (and the parents), but also the pupils and the students are considered as commoners, because they play a part in determining the communing practices and rules, through their involvement in the assembly or the council of their school, and the workings of community’s everyday life. Also, they apply to these rules and are subjected to the sanctions of the community they belong, such as being excluded from some activity or play, or to undertake an additional job. Although the processes of commoning education are initiated mainly by the adults (teachers and parents), the pupils and students have an active role in this process, which they conceptualize and enrich within their own experiences and views. Moreover, adults’ mentoring and support can take many different forms. For instance, they try not to get involved too much and give space for children to express themselves freely and to shape the process in their own terms (Pechtelidis, 2018; Pechtelidis & Kioupkiolis, 2020). The process of commoning education is built intergenerationally and it is therefore contingent. However, further research based on children’s views is needed, because adults’ perspective (teachers, parents, researchers and policy makers) usually dominates in the studies about education and commons. Commoning the Educational Process and Governance Considering education, the “commons” is perceived more as a practice of “commoning” education, which emphasizes the making and managing of the collective good of education in a manner of openness, equality, co-activity, plurality

Educational Commons 205 and sustainability. It is not a static reality, but an alternative pedagogical and micro-political process that continually evolves beyond the dominant neoliberal order and the logics of top-down state power into directions we cannot fully predict. The commoning process unfolds at two different but interconnected levels: (a) the educational process, which consists of the educational activity itself, and the community built through this activity and (b) the kind of governing (Pechtelidis & Kioupkiolis, 2020). There are several “schools” and communities (Means, Ford, & Slater, 2017; Pechtelidis, 2018; Pechtelidis & Kioupkiolis, 2020) where a process of “commoning education” has been developed, constructing alternative spaces for learning and participation, promoting democracy, movement and experimentation. The commoning activity promotes new possibilities of subjectivity in the educational field. There seems to be a growing of a specific set of subjective dispositions, or a habitus of the commons (Pechtelidis, 2018), such as: (a) direct involvement in public and collective life, (b) autonomy, (c) self-reliance and (d) experimentation. We could consider educational commons as heterotopias, namely as physical, social and symbolic spaces of otherness (Foucault, 1986; Pechtelidis, 2016). The participants (adults and children) are engaged in alternative social relations, and experiment with new ways of thinking and acting, of subjectification and “citizenship.” In other words, they develop a different relationship with themselves, others and more generally with the reality that surrounds them. Educational commons assign an essential institutional role to the people who are involved in the field of education. Decision-making process, as well as administration, become a common cause and practice which are equally co-managed by all members (adults and children). In this way “schools of commons,” mainly through their assemblies, contest the institutional foundations of the hegemonic liberal regime of representative democracy, which separates people from their representatives. Subordination to leaders and uniformity are put into question. This unprecedented experience cannot be reduced to predefined meanings of political participation, citizenship, education, childhood, adulthood, and so on; hence, it becomes apparent how important it is to maintain and further promote the openness of concepts like “commoner,” “child,” “student,” “pupil,” “teacher,” “parent,” “adult,” “curriculum,” and so forth inside any given discourse. Such concepts are created in the context of everyday life and thus are never final and fixed. For example, the process of commoning “curriculum” produces a model of “rhizomatic learning” (Bazzul & Tolbert, 2017). Particularly, the “curriculum” is developed and adapted by the commoners in a dynamic way in response to the circumstances that surround them. Interconnectedness of learning is promoted and there are no pre-set limits or pre-determined outcomes of knowledge (Gillies, 2017). Applying the

206  Yannis Pechtelidis post-structural thought of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1987) to education (Bazzul & Tolbert, 2017; Olsson, 2009), rhizomatic learning contributes to a net-enabled common education where “the community is the curriculum” (Cormier, 2008) challenging traditional notions of instructional design where objectives pre-exist students’ and pupils’ involvement (Kaustuv, 2003). Under the prism of a horizontal theory of peer to peer learning, learning is projected as most effective when it allows participants to react to circumstances, preserving “lines of flight” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) that enable a fluid and continually evolving redefinition of the work in progress. In this sense, rhizomatic learning lies at the heart of educational commons. It is important to consider that the process of commoning education and rhizomatic learning could not be immediately applied to all contexts and scales. Educational commons can take many different forms. For example, there are typical or classic forms of small-scale independent commons, such as two libertarian pedagogical communities for preschoolers (Sprogs and Little Tree) in Greece (Pechtelidis, 2018; Pechtelidis & Kioupkiolis, 2020), run by their members (parents, teachers and children). The children, their parents, and the pedagogues co-build a social setting according to their specific needs and interests. There are no official (state or private) standards about space and time, the learning content and the learning pathways to knowledge. Therefore, the participants organize their learning and social environment on their own terms. Particularly, they follow their own time and space routines, even though there are some common standards or rules regulating the everyday life of the community. On the other hand, the commons’ logic can be developed inside public schools despite the strict requirements of the specific official curriculums and the typical rules regulating schools’ everyday life, the architecture, and the arrangement of space and time, that are imposed by the state (Pechtelidis, 2018). The preschools of the municipality of the Italian city of Reggio Emilia and a network of public schools in Sweden that inspired by the pedagogy Reggio Emilia are excellent examples of commoning the public educational system. Educational Commons and Alter Pedagogies It is understood that there are affinities among the educational commons, experiments in “Utopian Pedagogy” (Cote, Day, & Peuter, 2007) and ­ radical/critical pedagogy’s projects. However, there are also significant differences among them. An important difference between education of the commons and other alternative theories of education is that a commons-based education does not follow a specific pedagogical theory or a single pedagogical doctrine for the organization of the educational process. There are only different types of educational democratic experimentation or collective experimental practices organized

Educational Commons 207 from below. There is no single theory or doctrine about the proper form of social organization, including education, but this does not mean that there are no principles or ethics such as the one (commons) presented briefly above. This is a significant difference from other alternative pedagogical practices, such as Célestin Freinet’s pedagogy, for example, which is very important and dynamically promotes, to some extent, the logic of the commons, but faithfully follows a specific pedagogical model as formulated by Freinet, as a result of which the possibility of experimenting and the development of the community in directions that have not been foreseen is limited. Moreover, theorists, educators and activists, of utopian and critical pedagogical projects while they are interested in the processes of the construction of alternative pedagogical spaces and subjectivities “here” and “now,” similar to educational commons, focus their analyses more on challenging and possibly overturning neo-liberalism through these different educational realities. Although criticism against neoliberalism is crucial, representatives of Utopian Pedagogy’s projects diminish the possibility the alternative educational communities focus primarily on self-determination, self-sufficiency and self-regulation, or on the constitution of community life. In this theoretical context, there is also no particular emphasis on challenging other power relations around age for example by these alternative communities. Korsgaard (2018) argues that critical and left discourses unwittingly tend to downplay education as a common learning space or as a common space of study where we make things together. Indeed, there is a risk that education becomes subordinated to political and ideological agendas, even when it comes to the most radical anti-capitalist movements (Korsgaard, 2018). Also, the emancipatory interest of critical pedagogies (Freire, 2003; Giroux, 1997; McLaren & Lankshear, 1994) focuses on the study of the oppressive structures of capitalism and the ideological operations of neoliberalism. Critical educators argue that there could be no individual emancipation without wider transformations of society. They tend to focus on reflection and action upon the world in order to unmask domination and transform it. Teachers can help pupils and students to gain a deep insight into the power relations that constitute both social institutions like education and their existence. In this sense, “­demystification” lies at the heart of critical pedagogies (Biesta, 2010). For Freire (2003) all participants in radical pedagogical spaces are “simultaneously teachers and students” for a “revolution” growing out of dialogue, which under certain conditions fosters a “process of permanent liberation.” In this context, the aim of education is the emancipation of students from oppressive practices and structures in the name of social justice, equality and freedom. Hence, in the critical pedagogy tradition, an explanation of the workings of power to children is needed. Only when one understands how power operates it becomes possible to challenge its influence, and in a sense liberate from it. Moreover, within the

208  Yannis Pechtelidis critical tradition, emancipation can only be brought from a position, which is not influenced by the workings of power (Biesta, 2010). This line of thought echoes the Marxist notions of “ideology” and “false consciousness,” and Bourdieu’s notion of ­“misrecognition” (Rancière, 2003, pp. 165–202). According to Rancière, this logic of emancipation leads to strengthening rather than weakening of the dependency upon the “truth” revealed to the ones to be emancipated by the emancipator. As he puts it: “where one searches for the hidden beneath the apparent, a position of mastery is established” (Rancière, 2004, p. 49). Furthermore, in The Ignorant Schoolmaster Rancière (1991) argues in great detail that the educational practices based on this explanatory logic of emancipation result in stultification rather than emancipation (Pechtelidis & Kioupkiolis, 2020). On the contrary, in rhizomatic learning (Olsson, 2009) of the educational commons, students and pupils are not dependent on teachers who explain to them the reality. Specifically, the main aim is self-reliance and collective autonomy and experimentation, and consequently the emancipation of children from the adults (teachers and parents) in the “here” and “now.” Hence, the goal of this particular hetero-pedagogical approach is the constant verification both of the principle under which all people are equal, and the belief that there is no natural hierarchy of intellectual capabilities (Rancière, 2010, p. 6). The pupil is being encouraged to see, think and act, in order to realize that he/she is not dependent upon others who claim that they can see, think and act on his or her behalf (Rancière, 1991, 2010). In this context, pupils and students’ trajectory toward learning and knowing is also a trajectory to emancipation, where the mind learns to obey only to itself. However, that does not mean the teacher’s role is canceled. Instead, the teacher is someone who escorts and demands the effort and devotion from her/his pupils and students; and also, to verify that this process is carefully accomplished by them (Rancière, 1991, 2010).

Limitations and Potentialities It is true that the commoning activity of education is subject to numerous practical constraints. For instance, governments and state bureaucracies often are cautious or unwilling to support the educational commons. According to Bollier (2014), governments prefer to manage their resources through predetermined conventional and strict hierarchical control systems. Moreover, conventional education tends to be disciplinary and in the service of private capital accumulation insofar as it promotes competition and individualism. Under the neoliberal hegemony, education is constructed as a private good and a commodity (Baldacchino, 2019), and a means of constructing docile, indebted and “­entrepreneurial” subjects. Neoliberalism enclosures contemporary education in two ways: (a) human capitalization, which prepares young people for a precarious labor market and (b) ­privatization of educational institutions which turns them

Educational Commons 209 into sources of profit by introducing fees, student debts etc. (Means et al., 2017, pp. 3, 5; Pechtelidis & Kioupkiolis, 2020). Therefore, the state governments tend to view the process of commoning education as chaotic and unreliable, threatening their certainties and their allies in the marketplace (Pechtelidis, 2018). Regarding the autonomous libertarian small-scale commons, a basic constraint is funding. There are cases where the commoners cannot afford the cost (ibid). Several commoners claim that the state should support the commons on both an economic and legal level. They argue that the majority of governments provide legal privileges and subsidies to support new businesses to develop and thrive. From this angle, it is argued that the best model for the backing of the educational commons is a commons’ friendly state policy, which not only provides money, resources and legal protection, but also supervises them. However, the state should not be heavily involved in the commons’ control, because there is a risk of limiting the commoner’s desirability to manage things by themselves (Bollier, 2014). We can rethink the relationship between the state and the educational commons based on the new constitutional process of the commons, proposed by Hardt and Negri (2012). Drawing from the experience of a contemporary Latin American model of governance, Hardt and Negri argue for a new constitutional paradigm that brings together progressive governments with grassroots social movements, which are against neoliberalism and in favor of the equal management of the common resources. Progressive governments are struggling against poverty, social exclusion, racism and sexism together with autonomously self-organized local communities, hard-working farmers, unemployed people etc. However, social movements remain independent of governments, exerting an external control over them and pushing them to dismantle the dominant power to make it an open workshop of consensual interventions and multiple legislation (Hardt & Negri, 2012, p. 82). This results in the decentralization of governance and the dispersion of the points of entry into power, which may collide with each other, but maintain a political consistency of the governmental process (ibid). Hardt and Negri (2012, p. 83) argue that this model paves the way for increasing the democratic participation and developing a new constitutional process of the commons. Under this scope, we could possibly think of (a) the ability of the educational commons, as part of the progressive and radical social movements, to influence formal policy in order to enable them to develop autonomously and under the economic and legal protection of a commons’ friendly state; (b) the possibility of commoning public education, that is the unfolding of the logic and ethics of the commons in the formal educational system. According to this logic and ethics, education can be organized as an institution of the commons, which means that knowledge is a common resource and education is based on the open access to knowledge, ideas and information. Education is a common good and a field of struggle

210  Yannis Pechtelidis (Biesta, 2011), which can be refashioned to promote progressive and emancipatory objectives (Korsgaard, 2018). Public education is both a resource and a threat for capital, like the commons themselves (Bourassa, 2017, p. 85). A more empirically grounded research into educational commons and developments, which explore alternative ways of learning and crafting diverse communities and subjectivities within both formal and non-formal education under the critical circumstances of the present, is needed. What is necessary are more descriptions of the rituals, practices and mentalities produced within the educational settings of the commons to show how alternative subjectivities are created; moreover, how the commoners build democratic spaces up for being and becoming in the here and now. To sum up, commons are considered here as a key (hetero-) pedagogical and (hetero-) political concept. Education and educational processes, both formal, non-formal and informal, are central to enacting commons within the current social and historical formation (Means et al., 2017). Therefore, it is important to investigate how educational commons function in direct relation to a particular material and symbolic reality, which consists of everyday issues, problems and contradictions.

References Baldacchino, J. (2019). A brief critical historical analysis of neoliberalism in education. In S. Chitpin & J. P. Portelli (Eds.), Confronting educational policy in neoliberal times. International perspectives. New Y   ork, NY & London: Routledge. Bazzul, J., & Tolbert, S. E. (2017). Reassembling the natural and social commons. In A. Means, D. R. Ford & G. Slater (Eds.), Educational Commons in Theory and Practice: Global Pedagogy and Politics (pp. 55–73). NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Benkler, Y., & Nissenbaum, H. (2006). Commons-based peer production and virtue. Journal of Political Philosophy, 14(4), 394–419. Bessant, J. & Picard, S. (Eds.). (2017). Re-Generating Politics:Young People and New Forms of Politics in Times of Crises. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Biesta, G. (2010). A new logic of emancipation. In C. Bingham & Gert Biesta (Eds.), Jacques Ranciere. Education, truth, emancipation (pp. 25–48). London/New Y   ork, NY: Continuum. Biesta, G. (2011). The ignorant citizen: Mouffe, Rancière, and the subject of democratic education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 30(2), 141–153. Bollier, D. (2014). Think like a commoner, a short introduction to the life of the commons. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers. Bollier, D., & Helfrich, S. (Eds.). (2012). The wealth of the commons: A world beyond market & state. Amherst: Levellers Press. Bollier, D., & Helfrich, S. (Eds.). (2015). Patterns of Commoning. Amherst: Levellers Press. Bollier, D., & Helfrich, S. (2019). Free, fair and alive: The insurgent power of the commons. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers. Bourassa, G. N. (2017). Towards an elaboration of the pedagogical common. In A. Means, D. R. Ford, & G. Slater (Eds.), Educational commons in theory and practice (pp. 75–93). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Cormier, D. (2008). Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum. Innovate: Journal of Online Education, 4(5).

Educational Commons 211 Cote, M., Day, R., & Peuter, G. (2007). Utopian pedagogy: Radical experiments against neoliberal globalization. Toronto Buffalo London: University of  Toronto Press. Dardot, P., & Laval, C. (2014). Commun. Paris: La Découverte. De Lissovoy, N. (2011). Pedagogy in common: Democratic education in the global era. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 43(10), 1119–1134. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Continuum. Feixa, C., Leccardi, C., & Nilan, P. (Eds.) (2016). Spaces and times of youth cultures in the global city. The Hague & New Y   ork, NY: Brill. Foucault, M. (1986). Of Other Spaces. Diacritics, 16(1), 22–27. Freire, P. (2003). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New Y   ork, NY: Continuum. Gillies, D. Rhizomatic learning – a brief critical dictionary of education. Retrieved November 11, 2017 from www.dictionaryofeducation.co.uk. Giroux, H. (1997). Pedagogy and the politics of hope:  Theory, culture, and schooling, a critical reader. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2012). Declaration. New Y   ork, NY: Argos. Hess, C., & Ostrom, E. (Eds.) (2011). Understanding knowledge as a commons from theory to practice. London: The MIT press. Kaustuv, R. (2003). Teachers in nomadic spaces: Deleuze and curriculum. Peter Lang. Kioupkiolis, A. (2019). The common and counter-hegemonic politics: Re-thinking social change. Edinburgh University Press. Kioupkiolis, A., & Katsabekis, G. (2014). Radical democracy and collective movements today: Responding to the challenges of Kairos. In A. Kioupkiolis & G. Katsabekis (Eds.), Radical democracy and collective movements today: The biopolitics of the multitude versus the hegemony of the people (pp. 1–15). Gower Lund Humphries: Ashgate. Kioupkiolis, A., & Pechtelidis, Y. (2017). Youth heteropolitics in crisis-ridden Greece. In S. Pickard & J. Bessant (Eds.), Young people and new forms politics in times of crises: Re-Generating politics (pp. 273–293). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Korsgaard, M. T. (2018). Education and the concept of commons. A pedagogical reinterpretation. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50. McLaren, P., & Lankshear, C. (Eds.). (1994). Politics of liberation: Paths from Freire. New York, NY: Routledge. Means, J. A., Ford, R. D., & Slater, B. G. (Eds.). (2017). Educational commons in theory and practice. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan. Olsson, L. M. (2009). Movement and experimentation in young children’s learning. Deleuze and Guattari in early childhood education. New Y   ork, NY & London: Routledge. Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pechtelidis, Y. (2016). Youth heterotopias in precarious times. The students autonomous collectivity. Young, 24(1), 1–16. Pechtelidis, Y. (2018). Heteropolitical pedagogies. Citizenship and childhood. Commoning education in contemporary Greece. In C. Baraldi & T. Cockburn (Eds.), Theorising childhood: citizenship, rights, and participation (p. xx). Palgrave Macmillan. Pechtelidis, Y., & Kioupkiolis, A. (2020). Education as commons, children as commoners. The case study of the Little Tree community. Democracy & Education, 28(1), Article 5. Retrieved from https://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol28/iss1/5, 2020. Rancière, J. (1991). The ignorant schoolmaster. Five lessons in intellectual emancipation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rancière, J. (2003). The philosopher and his poor. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Rancière, J. (2004). The Politics of Aesthetics. London: Continuum. Rancière, J. (2010). On ignorant schoolmasters. In C. Bingham & G. Biesta (Eds.),  Jacques Rancière. Education, truth, emancipation (pp. 1–24). London & New York, NY: Continuum.

27 Socialism Dave Hill

There are many versions of socialism (and, accordingly, many versions of “socialist education”). Just like there are many versions of Conservatism, Liberalism, Christianity or Islam and education philosophies and policies associated with these ideologies. Accordingly, there are many versions of socialist education in terms of ideology, policy and praxis. Socialists are perturbed or horrified by the obvious inequalities between rich and poor, between bosses and workers, between capitalists on the one hand – the purchasers of labor power and workers, those who sell their labor power on the other. Socialists are also discomfited, or horrified, by the obvious economic and material and educational inequalities between not only “the super-rich,” “the 0.1%,” the ruling class and the rest, but also between the better off strata of the working class (often called “the middle class”), and the poorer strata of those who sell their labor power, often just called “the working class,” or the unskilled and semi-skilled, the precarious workers, (the poorest) strata of the working class1. Socialists seek, in particular, more equality for the working class. For some socialists this means more “equal opportunities” to climb up the ladder of educational success and occupational/economic success into an unequal society/ economy. That is, a more meritocratic system. Other socialists wish to go further, and have more or far more equal outcomes, in for example, a socialist or a communist society, and to have more equal distribution of power. Within the education system, more equal opportunities, or more equal outcomes would comprize qualifications, entry to university, access to “the good things” in education such as a wide curriculum that includes the arts, literature, drama, music, art for example in addition to preparation for more equal opportunities, or more equal outcomes in the labor market-jobs. In this chapter I differentiate between the political and the education analyses and projects of three broad types of socialist. Firstly, social democrat, secondly, democratic socialist (Left social democrat), and thirdly, Revolutionary Marxist.

Socialism 213

Three Types of Socialists and Marxists Social Democrats Going from Right to Left, from “moderate centrist/center-left” social democrats, to “left” democratic socialists, to “hard left” Revolutionary Marxists, the most moderate group of people influenced by socialism – are social democrats. These seek a society that is a bit more equal than the current one. They seek a meritocracy, where people can “get on,” succeed, on the basis of merit (effort plus ability) rather than social class background, gender or ethnicity. A society, which, however, remains unequal and capitalist. In recent decades this has mean an acceptance of neoliberalism while attempting to mitigate its excesses. Many Labor and Social Democratic governments in Western and Northern Europe carried out important reforms after the Second World War, such as free universal health care and medicines, and increasing welfare benefits and trade union rights. In education, social democratic policies included free secondary schooling for all, free school meals, financial support – a grant for children from poor working class families to stay on at school after the age of 15/6, and living grants for university students from poor backgrounds. In the earlier 20th and late 19th centuries social democrats also worked ­successfully toward establishing old age pensions, workers’ rights, trade union rights. These more politically moderate socialists, social democrats, split, originally, from more radical socialists, Marxists or Communists in the late 19th century2 and were/are called by Marxists, “revisionists” or “­reformists.” This split was replicated in most socialist movements in countries across the world, with the “revisionists” (now termed social democrats) looking only for what Lenin (1902/2008) called “trade union demands,” that is, economic demands such as defending or improving wages and conditions of work. Unlike the Marxists such as Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg or Trotsky, social democrats, reformists, laid no emphasis on class war. Lenin (and subsequent Marxists) called for wider political demands and for recognition that capitalism is class war, and for revolutionary education to develop class consciousness, as a means to overcome the capitalist rulers and capitalist economic system based, fundamentally, on the exploitation of the labor power of workers by the capitalist class. Social democrats disagree with more radical socialists and Marxists on the degree of equality and equalization in society, on the wage and the social wage (social, welfare benefits and provisions) – such as pay levels. They want a bit more fairness, such as establishing or improving the national minimum wage or a “Living Wage,” and, at a social level, having good quality public health services, libraries, education services such as schools and vocational/“further education” colleges, and other public services. The Nordic states have been long regarded as successful models of social democracies in action.

214  Dave Hill Democratic Socialists Some, more radical socialists, often calling themselves democratic socialists, have fought for a far more equal society, one where workers (whether they be blue collar or white collar) not only have a meritocratic society in which effort and ability are rewarded, but where education results, incomes, wealth, standards of living, and life expectancy are far more equal than at present. A far more equal society (but not a communist one). Democratic socialists believe that significant parts of the economy – but not all of it – should be collectively controlled – by the state, or the local state, or by workers/employees, for example – instead of being owned and controlled for the economic benefit of the owners or senior management such as CEOs (Chief Executive Officers, who are part of the capitalist class, owning, via salary, shares, share options, ownership of substantial parts of the corporation). The Corbyn and Bernie Sanders Projects and movements in the UK and the Unites States can be seen as a left social democrat, that is, a democratic socialist project, an attempt to make the country far more equal, but within a mixed economy.3 Revolutionary Marxists and Communists4 Other socialists, more left-wing, Revolutionary Marxists, wish to see an end to Capitalism, and work for, and look forward to a society where there are no capitalists exploiting and profiting from the labor-power (the skills, attitudes, work) of workers, a society and economy where the employer is collective. Where capitalism and capitalist education are dissolved through socialist struggle, and become history as post-capitalist social forms take root (Rikowski, 2021). Revolutionary Marxists look to works such as The Communist Manifesto, as amazingly prescient about the development of capitalism, monopoly capitalism, imperialism, globalization, capitalism’s inbuilt tendency to constantly expand, exploitation and super-exploitation, (Marx & Engels, 1848/2010). Whereas social democrats and democratic socialists want to manage capitalism “more fairly,” Revolutionary Marxists – such as those following in the traditions of Lenin, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Gramsci, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro – want to replace capitalism, firstly by what they call Socialism, the social/collective ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and then, subsequently, the ultimate stage of history, by Communism “from each according to her/his ability, and to each according to her/his need” as called for in The Communist Manifesto, (Marx & Engels, 1848/2010).5 I write from a “Scientific Socialist” perspective, from in theoretical terms, a “Classical Marxist” position. Open Marxism, Autonomist Marxism, Humanist Marxism are among other Marxist perspectives. In political terms, Revolutionary Marxists-go along very much with Marx’s vision of an eventual communist society, where capitalism is replaced, supplanted, by Communism. Revolutionary Marxists differ over the

Socialism 215 question of “socialism from above”/state socialism on the one hand and “socialism from below,” with less emphasis on the state, party organization, party programme, relationships with other Left forces and political analysis. Education Policies In my own writing, from a Revolutionary Marxist perspective, I argue for a Marxist education policy (e.g. Edwards, Hill, & Boxley, 2018; Hill, 2010, 2019). Conservatives want an education for conformity, social democrats want to reform education (to make it a bit fairer, more meritocratic, with some positive discrimination), democratic socialists want to reform education to make education much fairer, with pronounced positive discrimination to help “under-achieving groups,” Revolutionary Marxists want an education for social, political and economic transformation. Social Democrats and Democratic Socialists and Education Social democrats have advanced policies intended to make the system more “meritocratic.” With academic and scholastic advancement and future positions in the labor market resulting from “effort plus ability,” that is, merit. However sociologists of education such as Stephen Ball (2003) and Marxist reproduction theorists such as early Soviet writers Bukharin and Preobrazensky (1922/1969) and more recently as Jean Anyon (2011) and Dave Hill (e.g. 2018) drawing to an extent on Bowles and Gintis, Bourdieu, Althusser, Rikowski, have for many decades pointed out that the education system is rigged in favor of the elite capitalist class and that within the working class, the “middle class” strata secure “positional advantage” – the “better schools and universities” (better grades/ exam results), compared to the “working class,” the less advantaged, poorer strata of the working class, within which particular racialized ethnic and gendered groups achieve less than others and are subjected to far greater levels of oppression – racism, sexism, homophobia – than other groups. So, traditional social democratic education systems such as those in Sweden and Finland, and the reforms of the Wilson Labor government in the UK in the 1960s and 70s, widely established comprehensive/common schooling, and grants to help children from poorer families stay on at school and grants (“Maintenance Grants”) to go to university, in an attempt at “Compensatory Education.” Policies such as smaller class sizes for the lower attainers, and residential education centers, and “cultural trips” were widespread. At the postschool level, free adult education was ubiquitous for leisure as well as vocational “further education,” and the Open University was set up whereby people from working class backgrounds who had left school at the minimum school-leaving age, or at the age of 18/19 could study for a degree (primarily by distance learning) while still at work.

216  Dave Hill And at various stages in various countries all types of socialist attempted to make the schooling curriculum more inclusive, and “relevant” to different communities and classes. And to make schools more central to local communities, by developing Community Schools – to “lessen the distance” between schools and their working class communities. This is true, in particular, of very many Critical Pedagogues, such as Henry Giroux, and also of “Marxian’ educators” such as Michael W. Apple, Ken Saltman, who are not Marxist, but can be considered to be democratic socialist, wishing teachers to be “transformative intellectuals” seeking a fairer society. They want substantial reform (of the wider economic, penal, political, welfare systems and in education, more equal chances (provision, funding, attainment). What they do not want is Marxist revolution, the replacement of Capitalism and Capitalist education by socialism. Marxist Education Revolutionary Marxists want an education system that is not only “free” from early childhood through life, but is a system with well-trained/educated teachers who are well-paid and valued in society, with a Marxist school and higher/ university education curriculum that exposes capitalism and inequalities, argues for socialism, values solidaristic as opposed to competitive individualistic school activities. In a Marxist education system, all schools and universities, including private ones, would be brought under local accountable democratic control. In contrast to the writing of many Critical Pedagogues, Revolutionary Critical Pedagogues, such as Peter McLaren, Glenn Rikowski, Mike Cole, Paula Allman, Deborah Kelsh, Dave Hill, Ravi Kumar, Ramin Farahmandpur, Grant Banfield, Derek Ford, Curry Malott are Marxist, and do want to see not simply a fairer society, but to go beyond capitalism into socialism. In schools, colleges, universities, many radical and Marxist critical educators try, in addition to dramatic increases in funding, to affect four aspects of learning and teaching, asking questions about (at least) four aspects. These relate to: (i) Pedagogy, (ii) Curriculum, (iii) Organization of the Education System and of Students and (iv) Ownership and Control of Schools, Colleges and Universities. These questions are common to many types of radical educator, from liberals to social democrats and democratic socialists, not simply Marxists. Below, therefore, I add what is specifically Marxist about these four aspects of education policy and praxis (see Hill, 2019). Pedagogy Many Revolutionary Marxist (and other critical) educators question the overwhelming teacher-centered pedagogy, the pattern of teaching and learning relationships and interaction, what Freire termed “the banking model” of

Socialism 217 education. Instead, using Freirean perspectives and praxis they try to use democratic participative pedagogy which can break down, to some extent, patterns of domination and submission, and is a pedagogy that listens to children’s, students’ and local communities’ voices. This is a pedagogy that bases teaching and learning on the concerns and issues in everyday life. Furthermore, it is a collaboration between teachers and students, teachers and pupils. Here, learning is collaborative, not individualistic and competitive. It is a pedagogic system – pattern of learning and teaching relationships – that is collective, collaborative and mutually supportive. In addition to ‘democratic participative collaborative pedagogy’, Critical Marxist educators use different types of pedagogy in teaching, to engage in non-hierarchical, democratic, participative, teaching and research. Vygotsky, as a Marxist, was inspired by Marx’s dialectic in that it rejects top-down and bottom-up accounts of the learning process – these unidirectional models originate in class-based societal relations, which Marxists reject. Of course, critiques of over-dominant teacher-centered pedagogy are not restricted to Marxist educators. They are also made by liberal-progressive, child/ student-centered educators, anarchist educators, and by some conservative educators, concerned about teaching effectiveness and preparation for the workplace. In addition, following Gramsci, Marxist teachers, by virtue of their social and ideological role in actually teaching, in actually carrying out the role of teacher, should maintain an authoritative stance where appropriate. There is room for class teaching and lectures as well as dialogic and discussion-based learning. Marxist educators differ between themselves, of course (as do conservative educators) on the degree to which education is or should be proselytizing, for example praising “the revolution,” and the degree to which it is/should be “critical” (including “auto-critique”) criticizing/critiquing not just capitalism and inequality, but also the current and alternative ideologies, policies and praxis. There is a spectrum across different times and places from authoritarian to democratic pedagogy, from some Communist states to some insurgent movements. My own Revolutionary Marxist analysis and praxis attempts a synthesis of Vygotskyan, Freirean and Gramscian pedagogy. Curriculum A second question Marxist and other critical educators ask is what should be in the curriculum? Should the curriculum be a curriculum for conformity – to create conformist and dutiful workers and citizens, devoid of “deep critique” (of existing society for example). Should it be “a white, male, middle class curriculum”? Or, as Marxists propose and practice, should it be a curriculum for reform and revolution, where curriculum areas/subjects (or cross-disciplinary projects/themes) focus on inequalities, resistance, transformation, the collective

218  Dave Hill good, not individualistic consumerism, environmentalism not capitalist ecocide. Thus, geography would include a focus on social geography, science on the social implications of science, and history and literature and the arts would encompass (white/black, male/female) working class history and novels/plays exposing (“race,” gender, social class, for example) injustice and promoting socialism and communism. The curriculum would be decolonized and revolutionized. It would be anti-racist, anti-sexist, environmentalist, Marxist. Marxist educators, indeed critical educators in general, can, with students, look at the curriculum and ask, “What do you/we think should be in the curriculum that is currently absent?” “Who do you think benefits and who loses from this curriculum?” “Is there a different version or view of the past, the present, or the future?” What “messages” come from this curriculum, about, for example, power, protest, individualism, collectivity/collectivism, Black Lives Matter, Generation X and environmentalism, sexism and misogyny, sexuality, and class oppression and exploitation. Where Marxists and Revolutionary Critical Educators (McLaren, 2010, 2013; McCrine et al., 2010) differ from more social democratic, democratic socialist and liberal critical educators is in the emphasis placed on resistance, activism and socialist transformation and on social class analysis. Organization of Students and of the Education System A third question in education that critical and Marxist educators can and should ask is about organization of the students. How should children of different social classes, gender, and ethnic backgrounds be organized within classrooms, within institutions such as schools and universities, and within national education systems? Marxists prefer and work for what in Britain is called “comprehensive schools” and in India “the common school” Socialists of various types argue that school should be a microcosm of society, that each school should contain a mixture of children/students from the different social classes and social class strata, and a mix of attainment levels. That is, children/students should not be divided by selection into “high achievers” and “low achievers,” or by social class. They should not be divided by wealth/income – so there should be no private schools or universities, as noted below. Ownership, Control and Management of Schools and Colleges and Universities A fourth question Revolutionary Marxists pose is `who should own, control and govern schools, further education (vocational) colleges and universities? “the people’? Local councils/municipalities? Speculators and Hedge Funds? Churches and Mosques?” Revolutionary Marxist educators (and others, of course) believe that schools, colleges and universities should be run democratically, with education workers and students, as well as elected representatives of local communities, having

Socialism 219 powers in and over those education institutions, within a secular, democratic national framework. There should be no private control of schools, colleges or universities, either by private companies/shareholders, religious organizations or private individuals. Commodification and marketization in education must end (Rikowski, 2019). Thus, there should be no “Academies” in England, no “Charter Schools,” whether “not-for-profit” or “for profit” in the United States. (For attempts to address these various aspects of education, in developing a socialist policy for education, see, Edwards, et al., 2018; Ford, 2016; Hill, 2010, 2015, 2018; 2019). What is Specifically Marxist about these Policy Proposals? What defines Marxists is firstly, the belief that reforms are not sustainable under capitalism, they are stripped away when there are the (recurrent and systemic) crises of capital, such as the 1930s, 1970s and currently, post 2008, and as they are likely to be post-Covid-19 (for example with pay cuts, union rights, social budgets under renewed threat) The second point of difference between Marxist and non-Marxist socialists is that in order to replace capitalism, Marxists have to actually work to organize for that movement, for that action. Thus a duty as a Revolutionary Marxist teacher is as an activist, and a recognition that political organization, programme development, intervention are necessary. What is needed is a revolution to replace, to get rid of, the capitalist economic system. The third difference is an understanding of the salience of class as compared with other forms of structural oppression and discrimination and inequality. Marxists go further than criticizing (and acting against) social discrimination, oppressions, for example of sexism, homophobia, racism, into economic rights, and into the recognition that full economic rights cannot be achieved under a capitalist economic system, but only under a socialist or communist system. Formal and informal curricula should teach Marxist analysis of society, its class-based nature- in theoretical terms, the Labor–Capital Relation. The aim is to develop class consciousness, or, as Marx put it, the working class as a “class for itself,” not simply a “class in itself” (Marx, 1852/1999). What Gramsci called “good sense,” as opposed to “common sense” (Gramsci, 1971). These are three points of difference between Marxists and other socialists, between what is Marxist and what is not.6

Notes

1. One tragic example is the Grenfell Tower Disaster of June 2017 in which a tower block of diverse, largely but not completely minority ethnic and immigrant workers – poor council (social housing) tenants in West London – burned down, killing many, because of cheaper, non-fire resistant “cladding” fixed to the outside of the tower. The cladding was affixed so the block would be less unsightly for the rich residents of neighboring, private, tower blocks.

220  Dave Hill







2. For example, and most notably in Germany, under Eduard Bernstein in the 1890s. The split was formalized following the Russian Revolution of 1917, when, in 1919, Lenin set up the Third International of communist parties. Social democratic and Labor parties remained in the Second International, more Marxist elements, primarily communists, split off to join the Third International. 3. Current and recent (2020) political leaders and parties in this category are Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, Jean-Luc Melenchon and “France Insoumise” in France, Bernie Sanders in the USA, and “Broad Parties of the Left” such as Podemos, led by Pablo Iglesias in Spain, Die Linke in Germany. 4. There are many different types of Marxist, going under various names – whether they are Trotskyist or Maoist or Autonomist Revolutionary Marxists for example, or Stalinist Communist Parties, which seek the overthrow of capitalism, or Communist Parties that are reformist and carry out neoliberal policies. They have different education programmes and policies. 5. Also in Marx, 1875/1978. 6. See Hill, 2019; Edwards, et al., 2018.

References Anyon, J. (2011). Marx and education. London: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2003). Class strategies and the educational market: The middle classes and social advantage. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Bukharin, N., & Preobrazhensky,Y. (1922/1969). The ABC of communism. London: Penguin Books. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc. Edwards, G., Hill, D., & Boxley, S. (2018). Critical teacher education for economic, environmental and social justice. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 16(3). Retrieved from http:// www.jceps.com/archives/49021. Ford, D. (2016). Communist study: Education for the commons. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Gramsci, A. (1971/2000). Selections from the prison notebooks. New York: International Publishers Co. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/prison_notebooks/selections.htm. Hill, D. (2010). A socialist manifesto for education. Brighton: Institute for Education Policy Studies. Retrieved from http://www.ieps.org.uk/media/1003/socialistmanifestofored.pdf. Hill, D. (2015). A Socialist Education Policy. Forum for promoting 3–19 comprehensive education. Retrieved from http://www.wwwords.co.uk/rss/abstract. asp?j=forum&aid=6224. Hill, D. (2018). Education and social class: A Marxist response. In R. Simmons & J. Smyth (Eds.), Education and working class youth. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Retrieved from http://www. ieps.org.uk/media/1140/hill-2018-education-and-social-class-in-r-simmons-and-j-smytheducation-and-working-class-youth-pre-publication-proofs.pdf. Hill, D. (2019). Marxist Education and Teacher Education Against Capitalism in NeoLiberal/ NeoConservative/ NeoFascist/Times. Cadernos do GPOSSHE On-line, Universidade Estadual do Ceará Fortaleza, Brazil (Grupo de Pesquisa Ontologia do Ser Social, História, Educação e Emancipação Humana). Retrieved from https://revistas.uece.br/index.php/ CadernosdoGPOSSHE/article/view/1524/1275?fbclid=IwAR349OKt6lL5HRD1SiJK-6Iv7EwlQLoJpbNlVQqrjvH-LW89JHT5fAeXdFA. Lenin, V. I. (1902/2008). What is to be done? Burning questions of our movement. Marxist Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/. Macrine, S., McLaren, P., & Hill, D. (Eds.) (2010). Revolutionizing pedagogy: Education for social justice within and beyond global neo-liberalism. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Socialism 221 Marx, K. (1852/1999). The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Online at: https://www.marxists. org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ Marx, K. (1875/1978). Critique of the Gotha Programme. Retrieved from https://www.marxists. org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848/2010). The Communist manifesto. Marxist Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf. McLaren, P. (2010). Revolutionary critical pedagogy. Interactions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 6(2). Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7qj2b570. McLaren, P. (2013). Critical pedagogy against capitalist education – a socialist alternative. Global Education Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.globaleducationmagazine.com/ critical-pedagogy-againstcapitalist-schooling-socialist-alternative-interview-peter-mclaren/. Rikowski, G. (2019). Education crises as crises for capital. Theory in Action 12(3), July, 128–172. doi:10.3798/tia.1937-0237.1924. Rikowski, G. (2021). The Psychology of Capital. Forthcoming in the Institute of Political Studies (Ed.), New understandings of capital in the twenty-first century. Belgrade: The Institute of Political Studies of Belgrade.

Conclusion: Stammering Mike Neary

Words are torture in my mouth. Words are weapons when we shout “Ya basta!” (Ecoversity un-conference, August 2015) What words will make revolution speak? How can we articulate the poetry of the future? (Marx, 2016). Not by over-elaboration where “the phrase surpasses the substance,” but speaking so “the substance surpasses the phrase” (Marx, 2016, p. 4). In other words, “Language has nothing to say about the future. The future cannot be said …. Its content is exorbitant to its phrasing” (Taylor, 2012). This is saying more than actions speak louder than words, or that meaning is lost in translation; rather, there is a disarticulation between the revolutionary world we are creating and how that world is spoken, as language and lyrics and poetry and prose. We can describe this disarticulation as social stammering. Social stammering is enraptured by the word “Dada”: a staccato speech sound on the verge of exploding into a meaningful gush of rounded breath. Dada struggles to free itself from the language of anti-art and the slang of kitsch metropolitanism. Dada was made to disarm the rat-tat-rattle of the automatic weapons used in the First Machine War (1914–1918) and the killing capitalist labor process out of which they were produced. Dada remade readymade art, against patented forms of capitalist death, as montage and performance, including sound poems composed of verses without words. Adorno picked up on the relationship between Dada and stammering’s revolutionary vibe, sounding it out it as the basis for substantive thought: “the whole of philosophy is actually nothing else than an infinitely extended and elevated stammer [Stammeln]; it is actually always, just like stammering, Dada, the attempt to say what one actually cannot say” (Adorno quoted in Foster 2008, p. 55). Not as an exemplary method of speech therapy but as the phrasing for a negative dialectics. Holloway knows what we are talking about. He reports that revolution starts with a howl of protest: “In the beginning is the scream. We Scream” (2005, p. 1), but understands the need for learning “a new language for a new struggle” (2010, p. 10). This new way of speaking is formed when we “stutter

Conclusion: Stammering 223 and mumble incoherently” as a way of participating in the abolition of a cracked capitalism (2010, p. 12). We might think of capitalist language as “order-words” (Deleuze and Guattari 1996), where “Language is not made to be believed but to be obeyed, and to compel obedience” (p. 75). This order of order-words can be challenged by “creative stammering” (Deleuze and Guattari (p. 98), a writerly technique where authors carve out “a non-preexistent foreign language within … [their] own language … [making] … the language itself scream, stutter, stammer or murmur” (Deleuze, 1997, pp. 109–110). And so, in this way, “makes stuttering the poetic or linguistic power par excellence” (p. 111). Writing becomes something “that explodes like a scream” (p. 112); what might be taken as “inarticulate words, blocks of a single breath” (p. 112), is actually where a “deviant syntax … reaches the destination of its own tensions in these breaths or pure intensities that mark a limit of language” (p. 112). So writing is poised “at the very edge of the seeable and the sayable, situated between sense and non-sense” (O’Sullivan & Zepke 2008, p. 9), as a new common-sense. Rancière (2004) speaks of “the speaking being who is without qualification and political capacity” (p. 22) and, therefore, without a voice doomed to “the night of silence or the animal noise of voices expressing pleasure or pain” (p. 22). This is not a demand to be heard, but what comes before recognition as “speaking beings.” Rancière has many words to define this condition: “subjectification”: “a series of actions of a body and capacity for enunciation not previously identifiable within a given field of experience, whose identification is thus part of the reconfiguration of the field of experience” (p. 35); “disidentification” (p. 36): “a multiplicity of fractured speech events” from people without a voice (p. 37), as the “part of those who have no-part” (Rancière 2001): a surplus population that goes unaccounted for and is unrecognized. Rancière says it is in this space of not-speaking that politics occurs (2004). This is the space we can call social stammering. Marx wants to bring us down to earth. He asks the question: how would it be if inanimate objects could speak in a world dominated by capitalist commodity production? He does not let his commodities speak but, like a ventriloquist, speaks for them, as if they are responding to his prompt: Could commodities themselves speak, they would say: Our use value may be a thing that interests men. It is no part of us as objects. What, however, does belong to us as objects, is our value. Our natural intercourse as commodities proves it. In the eyes of each other we are nothing but exchange values. (Marx, 1990, pp. 176–177) Marx is trying to articulate the way in which the intrinsic nature of things is overwhelmed by the domineering logic of capitalist exchange value, so much

224  Mike Neary so that exchange value itself appears to be part of our “natural intercourse.” There is nothing natural about the social world; rather, the social world is abstracted from the process of capitalist production to appear in the form of real abstractions, which, in the world of capitalist intercourse, are dominated by money and language. Capitalist language is recognized only to the extent that it validates a society based on the logic of exchange. In capitalist civilization money really does talk; it is the only language that everybody is forced to understand. But we may be guilty of over-elaboration. How can we express this condition in a more visceral voice, as a precondition of our speaking being? Hugo Ball, author of the Dada Manifesto, put it like this, as a sound poem intoned at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916 (Ball, 1997, p. 137): Karawane jolifanto bambla o falli bambla großiga m’pfa habla horem egiga goramen higo bloiko russula huju hollaka hollala anlogo bung blago bung blago bung bosso fataka ü üü ü schampa wulla wussa olobo hej tatta gorem eschige zunbada wulubu ssubudu uluwu ssubudu –umf kusa gauma ba–umf Stammering is Dada. Antonin Artaud, dramatist, poet and actor, looks for a response beyond “mere stammerings” (Artaud, 1988, p. 218), in The Theatre and Its Double (1931–1936) to include not only human voices but the whole mise en scene: “everything that occupies the stage” (p. 231). As Pantomime (p. 233) and Pandemonium. The affect is to overcome the “impotences of speech” (p. 230), by including “everything that defies expression in speech” (p. 231) and “everything that is not contained in dialogue” (p. 231) in the form of “a new physical language based on signs rather than words” (p. 215). Artaud’s theatre of sound must have “the evocative power of a rhythm… [and]… the musical quality of physical movement” (p. 216) as “a poetry of the senses”

Conclusion: Stammering 225 (p. 231) as much as “a poetry of language” (p. 231). For Artaud, there is no poetry of the future, only “a revolt against poetry” (Artaud, 1965, p. 100). The performance must recover the sense of danger that comes with the idea that “the present state of society is unjust and should be destroyed” (Artaud, 1988, p. 235). Stripped bare, the starting point is not speaking or even screaming, but breathing. Artaud says “for every feeling, every movement of the mind, every leap of human emotion, there is a breath that is attached to it” (Artaud, 1988, p. 260). These “rhythms of breath” (p. 260) merge with the plastic and physical theatrical event to create a “fluid materiality” (p. 261). This concept of fluid materiality is a double for Marx’s real abstractions, which Artaud calls “metaphysics in action” (p. 237) or the “real metaphysical” (p. 243). If the substance of Marx’s real abstraction is capitalist value: as the principal form of social power, Artaud’s abstractions are filled up by a “universal magnetism” (p. 271) which he calls the soul (p. 261): “unleashing an unpredictable flow of searing energy” (Sontag, 1988, p. xxiv). Artaud’s abstractions are something that must be confronted in order “to transgress the ordinary limits of art and speech, in order to realize actively …, in real terms, a total creation in which man[sic] can only resume his place between dreams and events” (Artaud, 1988, p. 245). That is enough. For now. We are almost out of breath, struggling for ecstatic transcendence (Holloway, 2010, p. 99). The moment of danger, recovered, beyond the danger of words. Let us take a deep breath. Breathing. Slowly. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

References Artaud, A. (1965). Revolt against poetry. In Jack Hirschman (Ed.), Antonin Artaud anthology (pp. 100–101). San Francisco: City Lights Books [1944]. Artaud, A. (1988). For the theatre and its double. In Susan Sontag (Ed.), Antonin Artaud; selected writings. Introduction (pp 215–278). University of California Press. Ball, H. (1997). Blago Bung Blago Bung Bosso Fataka – first texts of German Dada, Atlas Press. Deleuze, G. (1997). He stuttered. Giles Deleuze: Essays critical and clinical (pp 107–114). London and New Y   ork, NY: Verso. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1996). One thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Athlone Press. Foster, R. (2008). Adorno – The recovery of experience. SUNY. Holloway, J. (2005). Change the world without taking power: The meaning of revolution today. London & New Y   ork, NY: Pluto Press. Holloway, J. (2010). Crack capitalism. London & New Y   ork, NY: Verso. Marx, K. (1990). Capital: A critique of political economy (Vol. 1). London & New Y   ork, NY: Penguin Classics. Marx, K. (2016). The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform. O’Sullivan, S., & Zepke, S. (2008). Deleuze and Guattari and the production of the new. London & New Y   ork, NY: Continuum.

226  Mike Neary Rancière, J. (2004). Disagreements: Politics and philosophy. University of Minnesota Press. Rancière, J. (2001). Ten theses on politics. Theory & Event, 5(3) [no pagination]. Sontag, S. (Ed.). (1988). Antonin Artaud; selected writings. Introduction (pp xvii–lviii). University of California Press. Taylor, C. (2012). Stuttering Toward the Future. Retrieved from http://clrjames.blogspot. com/2012/01/stuttering-toward-future.html (Accessed 23 July 2020).

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to figures or tables. ability 35, 51, 55, 61–62, 107–110, 154, 213, 215; fixed 107–110; labelling 107–109; mixed 109 academic(s) 47–49, 51, 52, 78, 81–83, 94–96, 126, 128–130, 151, 215 Adam, Smith 21, 22 Africa 37, 75 Alain, Badiou 65, 140 alienation 35–39, 47, 49–52, 95, 165 Althusser, Louis 121, 196 austerity 23, 31, 33, 64, 70, 103, 105, 183 autonomy 48–52, 71, 81, 95, 170–1, 186, 205, 208 Bourdieu, Pierre 41, 127, 128 capital 3, 11–13, 15–18, 21, 23, 47, 50, 51, 62–64, 94, 95, 97, 100, 101, 103, 117, 140, 142, 160, 162, 168, 171, 179, 190–192, 208, 219; accumulation 14, 21, 32, 4–78, 94, 96–7, 103–4, 159–60, 198, 208; relation 9, 13, 17, 219; subsumption 48 capitalism 13, 17, 21–23, 37, 41, 42, 45, 48, 54, 57, 59, 61–63, 65–66, 104, 113, 117, 138, 141, 159–163, 165, 170, 191, 213, 214, 216, 219 capitalist system 42, 43, 61, 64, 66, 67, 141, 158, 159 choice 12, 23–5, 31, 36, 41, 64, 75, 82, 88, 90, 103, 130, 151, 162; consumer 25, 89; school 23–24, 88 class(–es) 3, 12, 13, 25, 32, 43–47, 64, 65, 105, 109, 138, 159, 175, 176, 213, 215, 217–21; capitalist 45, 47, 48, 159, 213–215; middle 39, 45, 130, 152, 212, 215, 217; oppressed 218; ruling 42, 43,

45, 61, 212; working 32, 39, 42, 44, 45, 64, 101, 138, 149–155, 159, 160, 191, 212, 213, 215, 216, 218, 219 colonialism 37, 97, 151, 154 commodity/–ties 5, 17, 28, 36, 49–52, 54–60, 95, 117, 160, 162, 183, 208, 223; form 16, 55–57, 59, 60 Communism 43, 101, 150, 214, 218 competition 1, 4, 16, 17, 23, 47–50, 63, 78, 81, 82, 90, 95–97, 182, 192, 208 consciousness 3, 4, 42, 44, 45, 52, 146, 147, 155, 162, 163, 181, 190, 193, 194, 197, 198, 213, 219; critical 36, 66, 105, 116, 140, 144, 145, 147, 162, 164 consumption 14, 28, 35, 41, 59, 95, 96, 104, 141 crisis/crises 11–18, 22, 33, 65, 104, 137, 141, 142, 161, 163, 168–170, 172, 174, 178, 181–186, 191, 203; capital and 18, 191; capitalist 11, 13–15, 83, 137, 178, 192; Classical Theory of Education 13–16; critique and 12; economic 11, 13–15, 63, 64, 181–183; education and 11, 13–17, 184; vicious 17 Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) 195, 196 culture 4, 5, 24, 37, 41–43, 45, 70, 74, 150, 176, 178, 182 curriculum 16, 25, 26, 38, 39, 47, 48, 70, 90, 93, 97, 98, 105, 132, 152, 171, 179, 184, 185, 195, 199, 205, 206, 216–218; national 16, 45, 88 Dada 222, 224 democracy 16, 30, 43, 71, 115, 149, 150,154, 183, 190–192, 200, 205; values 1, 2 democratic socialists 213–216 dialectic(s) 43, 137, 163, 164, 189, 217 diversity 69–71, 79, 118, 132, 176, 177, 197, 198 Durkheim, Emile 65, 191

228  Index education 1–7, 9, 11–17, 20, 23–26, 28–33, 35, 37–39, 45, 47–52, 57–60, 63, 64, 70–75, 78–83, 88–91, 93–98, 100–105, 107–110, 116, 117, 122, 123, 126, 128, 131–133, 137, 140–142, 145, 146, 152–156, 158–163, 168–172, 178–186, 189–195, 197–200, 203–210, 212–216, 218, 219; alternative 17, 97, 113, 153, 168–172, 207; and social mobility 28–30, 61, 63, 103–105; as an agent of positive transformation 2, 122; as public good 28–30; for profit 2, 38, 209; higher 1, 23, 28, 29, 31, 48, 58, 59, 61, 63, 64, 78–82, 93–95, 101, 127, 129, 130, 132, 158, 169; Marxist 119, 215, 216; post–critical 113, 194, 196, 199 educational commons 7, 203–210 educators 45, 51, 97, 98, 105, 117, 118, 140, 145, 158, 159, 161, 163, 165, 181–186, 192–195, 207, 216–218 emancipation 51, 115, 123, 148, 158, 165, 194–196, 207, 208 employability 9, 47–51, 79, 93, 95, 100, 102–105, 192 epistemology 116, 118, 120, 130 essence 3, 115–117, 119–123 European Union (EU) 25, 78–84 Facebook 13, 20 feminism 129, 151, 154, 200 Foucault, Michel 94, 119, 182, 196, 200, 205 freedom 22, 50–52, 91, 95, 115, 117, 144, 146, 149, 171, 191, 198, 207 Freire, Paulo 66, 116, 117–9, 122–3, 141, 146, 154, 157, 163, 179, 207 Friedman, Milton 20, 22 gender 15, 25, 32, 126–132, 153, 155, 156, 164, 166, 169, 171, 174, 176, 213, 215, 218 Global Educational Reform Movement 184 globalization 1, 20, 21, 24–26, 64, 65, 183, 191, 214; of capital 21; as colonization 21; as interconnectedness 20, 21 GLTBQI 152 Gramsci, Antonio 41–46, 66, 157, 163, 194, 214, 217, 219 habitus 126, 205 Hayek, Friedrich Von 22 Harvey, David 1, 21, 78, 82 hegemony 41–46, 147, 169, 183, 191, 194, 208

hope 90, 93, 110, 121, 144, 148, 157, 159, 165, 178, 181, 182, 185 humanization 36, 117, 148 Hume, David 120 ideology 1–4, 9, 24, 45, 61, 63, 73, 75, 78, 80, 109, 113, 120, 158, 182, 183, 190–199, 208, 212; as suture 197, 198 immiseration 47–52 inclusion 69–75, 90, 200; educational 72, 74, 75; politics of 69, 72, 73; social 69, 70, 75 individualism 23, 35, 39, 40, 182, 190, 193, 208, 218 inequalities 21, 23–25, 31, 32, 44, 45, 62, 64, 90, 105, 109, 138, 142, 145, 150, 160, 162, 176, 184, 185, 194, 212, 216, 217, 219; educational 183, 212; social 28, 32, 62, 64, 65, 109, 183, 194, 195 innovation 25, 30, 48, 49, 51, 79, 96 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 25, 38, 183 Kant, Immanuel 120 Keynes, John Maynard 22 Keynesianism 22 knowledge 5, 24, 25, 36, 37, 39, 49, 51, 52, 56–60, 63, 71, 82, 96, 102, 104, 116, 117, 119, 120, 122, 129–131, 137, 144, 146, 152–154, 169, 170, 185, 189–191, 193, 194, 198, 199, 205, 206, 209, 210 labor 2, 5, 9, 11, 13–17, 25, 32, 36–40, 47–52, 54–60, 62, 65, 79, 80, 82, 83, 94, 97, 100, 102, 104, 109, 137, 151, 160, 163, 168, 171, 178, 179, 184, 191, 222; abstract 17, 51, 56; ­d ivision of 49–52, 160; power 15–17, 47, 49, 54–60, 160, 162, 212–214, 219 language 2–6, 24, 39, 100, 102, 142, 153, 155, 195, 196, 222–225; ideology and 2; social relations and 3, 5 Latin America 35, 37, 39, 63, 150, 175 leadership 22, 43–45, 93, 97 league tables 4, 6, 9, 29, 47, 72, 88–90, 96 learning 39, 45, 59, 72, 79, 81, 93, 94, 96, 108–110, 115, 129, 1255, 164, 169, 205, 206, 208, 210, 216, 217; rhizomatic 205, 206, 208 liberalism 21, 22, 207, 212

Index 229 managerialism 4, 93–98 market(s) 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 16, 22–24, 28–30, 33, 35, 36, 48–51, 54, 61, 63, 72, 78, 80, 83, 88, 93, 94, 95, 97, 136, 155, 156, 170, 178, 184, 185, 191–193, 203; free 1, 21, 63, 78, 80, 82, 182; labor 4, 5, 32, 36, 48, 79, 83, 209, 212, 215 Marx, Karl 55, 116, 196 merit 36, 213, 215 meritocracy 44, 45, 213 Modernity 127, 128 MOOCs 48 Neoliberalism 1–6, 9, 11, 16, 20–24, 44, 45, 78, 82, 93, 113, 130, 151, 152, 156, 159, 181–185, 191, 192, 207–209, 213; Chicago boys 22; Chile 22, 23, 131, 142; deregulation 23, 24; marketization 16, 23–25, 89, 130, 171, 183; new managerialism and 4; privatization 23, 25, 83, 89, 93, 130, 132, 183, 209; reduction in public expenditure 23 OECD 1, 25, 63, 64, 78 ontology 116–123 Pedagogy of the Oppressed 157, 158 pedagogy/pedagogies 2, 3, 47, 74, 107, 110, 120, 123, 142, 155, 169, 184, 193, 206, 207, 216, 217; alter (pedagogies) 206; critical 50, 105, 116–120, 122, 140, 146, 157–159, 161–165, 169, 170, 207; new public 2, 3; radical 155, 170; revolutionary 157, 161, 162; revolutionary critical 119, 157, 158, 161–165 Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) 199, 200 Popper, Karl 120 post–modernism 119, 122, 176, 196, 198–9, 200 poverty 38, 51, 105, 115, 183, 209 power 2–4, 9, 23, 25, 36, 41–45, 48, 50, 57, 60, 69, 73, 81, 96, 97, 109, 110, 115, 119, 121, 122, 130, 147, 150, 151–154, 168, 170, 172, 177, 179, 181, 184, 190, 191, 194–196, 198–200, 203, 205, 207–209, 212, 218, 223–225; praxis 52, 66, 123, 161, 163–165, 217; revolutionary 157, 160–165 production 3, 4, 14–17, 21, 36, 48–52, 54–57, 59, 60, 82, 83, 94–97, 100, 101, 104, 105, 117, 129, 141, 159–162, 164, 165, 169–171, 190–192, 196–198, 203, 204, 214, 223, 224

ranking(s) 4, 23, 78, 81–83, 90 reflexivity 119, 126–133, 164, 165 resistance 4, 15, 42–45, 80, 83, 117, 149, 151, 168, 169, 176, 178, 179, 193, 217, 218 revolution(s) 41, 45, 138, 139, 147, 149, 151, 156, 160, 163, 175, 191, 207, 216, 217, 219, 222 school(s) 15, 16, 23, 24, 25, 28, 30, 35, 39, 44, 45, 57, 70–72, 81, 88–91, 100, 103, 107–109, 137, 152, 153, 157, 161, 164, 168, 169, 171, 175, 176, 179, 181, 182, 184–186, 189–193, 195, 200, 204–206, 213, 215, 216, 218, 219 sense 11, 35, 44, 80, 91, 137, 141, 155, 159, 163, 164, 175, 177, 186, 207, 223; common 35, 36, 39, 41–45, 55, 10, 107, 116, 165, 192, 194, 219, 223; good 45, 219 social democrats 42, 44, 212–216 social movements 6, 7, 39, 61, 64–67, 113, 141, 149, 152, 154, 156, 169, 179, 192, 193, 209; Landless People’s Movement (or MST) 66, 169, 179; new 150, 200; Occupy 65, 142, 194 socialism 7, 43, 45, 100–102, 105, 113, 138, 140–142, 159, 160, 163, 212–216, 218 society 3, 5–7, 9, 11, 13, 17, 23, 36, 39, 41, 42, 51, 52, 54–59, 62, 70, 71, 73, 75, 96, 101, 102, 113, 132, 137, 138, 141, 145, 147, 149, 150, 152, 154, 156, 159, 161–165, 169, 171, 172, 176, 181, 182, 184, 186, 189, 190–192, 196, 199, 200, 207, 212–219, 224, 225 stammering 222–224 state(s) 4, 14, 15, 17, 22–26, 31–33, 38, 45, 51, 56–58, 60, 62, 64, 70, 71, 78–81, 83, 88, 91, 93, 94, 101–103, 107, 108, 121, 136, 139, 146, 149–154, 159, 160, 162, 164, 176, 177, 183, 190, 191, 200, 203, 205, 206, 208, 209, 213–215, 217, 225; rollback 93, 94; rollout 93, 94 student(s) 3, 4, 15, 23, 30, 31, 35, 39, 45–51, 57–60, 64, 71–74, 80–82, 89–98, 101, 103, 105, 109, 126, 129, 131, 132, 137, 140–142, 145, 150, 154, 159, 161, 163, 165, 168–171, 181, 183–186, 190, 193, 204–209, 213, 216–218; as consumers 2, 58; experience 3, 4 targets 25, 81, 88–90, 95 truth 50, 120–122, 157, 163, 165, 194–199, 208

230  Index UNESCO 1, 70 university/universities 4, 22–25, 28, 29, 31, 33, 39, 45, 47–49, 51, 58–60, 64, 79–82, 94, 101, 126, 128–130, 132, 152, 154, 155, 168, 169, 171, 174, 200, 215, 216, 218 utopia 7, 113, 136–138, 140–142, 145

109, 127, 130, 137, 155, 160, 162, 163, 165, 168–171, 184, 185, 191–193, 196, 197, 199, 203, 204, 216, 223–225; social 28–34, 55 Williams, Raymond 5, 6 The World Bank 1, 25, 36, 38, 78, 102, 183

value 30, 31, 33, 34, 47, 49, 50, 51, 54–60, 65, 70, 71, 73, 89, 90, 93–97, 100, 104,

youth 7, 14–16, 35–40, 64, 66, 72, 104, 150, 154, 174–179, 192, 193