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 increas-
ingly 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 Life-

long 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 x

Introduction 1

PART I
Endangering Words 9

1 Crisis 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 61
SPYROS  THEMELIS
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 157

PETER McLAREN
 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 222

Index 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 aca-
demic-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 mem-
ber 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 aca-
demic 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 sub-
jectivities, 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 phi-
losophy 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 organiza-
tions 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 mem-
ber 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 rad-
ical 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 crit-
ical 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 postcap-
italista (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 emancipa-
tion. 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 cam-
pus, 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 edu-
cation 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 uncer-
tainty (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 edi-
tor 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 inter-
ested 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 aca-
demic 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, child-
hood 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 labor-
power, 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 main-
tain and improve public goods and services and has an interest in how margin-
alized 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 ques-
tions 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), wid-
ening participation and social movements (with a focus on Higher Education move-
ments). 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 expe-
rience 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 devel-
opment team, he was one of nine teachers involved in the original Learning
without Limits project which explored teaching free from determinist assump-
tions 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 ideol-
ogy, a representation of real life in people’s imaginary, as well as a hegemonic
mode of socio-economic and political organization. The ubiquity of neoliber-
alism (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 organ-
izations, such as UNESCO, the World Bank, OECD enjoy widespread influ-
ence. 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 coun-
tries (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 mar-
kets 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 pub-
lic 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, main-
stream media and increasingly educational institutions who reinforce com-
modified 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 contem-
porary 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 exam-
ine 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 two-
fold 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 lim-
ited 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 con-
verted to more students, i.e. cash) capital. In other words, the student expe-
rience 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 compar-
ison 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 reorganiza-
tion 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 stu-
dent 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 axi-
ological 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 bat-
tlefield 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 strug-
gle. 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 depar-
ture from idealist conceptions of ideology that were popular hitherto and it
furnished social theory with tools with which to combat idealism. In contem-
porary neoliberal societies, a similar idealism is attempted through the indi-
vidualization 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 trans-
mitted 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 ubiq-
uitous 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 experi-
ence, 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 pro-
cess 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 creat-
ing a ­“consciousness that is understood to have the power to transform real-
ity” (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, disci-
plinarian inspections, regimes of accountability and performativity, and so on
(Ball, 2000, 2003). University rankings, for example, have become an obses-
sion around the world (Hazelkorn, 2015): “what started as an academic exercise
in the early 20th century in the United States became a commercial “infor-
mation” 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 gradu-
ates 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, espe-
cially 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 con-
ditions 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 inti-
mate utterances” (p. 18). This book’s hope is to extend this “uncovering” into
collective practices, ideologies and processes, and shed some light on the mech-
anisms 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 exam-
ple, 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 dan-
gerous about the selected terms? Keywords that appear in Part I, such as mar-
kets, 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 transform-
ative 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 embed-
ded 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 inten-
sified with the 2008 economic crisis. This new set of social relations resulted in
a renewed treatment of keywords (alienation, commodity), in the re-semantiza-
tion of others (commons, reflexivity) and the addition of new ones (employability).
With this book we want to historicise and politicize some key concepts com-
monly 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 onto-
logically 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 impor-
tant 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 ini-
tial 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, epistemo-
logically 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 edu-
cation. I earnestly hope that our efforts succeed in building academic, activ-
ist and intellectual bridges that can cross divides. The remarkable diversity
attested to by our different locations aims to promote an epistemological plu-
ralism 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 per-
formative 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 educa-
tion 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 neo-
liberalism 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 capi-
tal 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 contem-
porary 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 devel-
opment, 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 dis-
ease 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 develop-
ment, 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 struc-
tural 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, slack-
ing, avoiding work, messing with Facebook in work time, etc. – presents chal-
lenges to human representatives of capital charged with increasing the rate of
exploitation. When attempts to cajole, force, bribe and educate workers ade-
quately 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 expecta-
tions 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 restructur-
ing in post-compulsory education and training to contain rising youth unem-
ployment 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-year-
olds 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 accom-
pany 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 enter-
prises, 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 educa-
tion, training and the world of work – including new training pro-
grammes 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 restruc-
turing. 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 labor-
power 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 econ-
omy 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 retrench-
ments 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 increas-
ingly 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 unem-
ployment 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 con-
stituted 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 – labor-
power, and the “cell-from” (the class of commodities other than labor-power)
(Rikowski, 2017b) – in education to an unprecedented degree, bringing edu-
cational 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; educa-
tion 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 cell-
form, the commodity, and specifically educational commodification. This also
involves forestalling marketization, monetization, commercialization, com-
petition 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 par-
ticular, 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 pol-
icy reversals or inhibitions. Micro-turning points, in classrooms, lecture thea-
tres, 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-of-
finance-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-scheme-
for-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 speed-
ing 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 globaliza-
tion’s biggest successes.
Arguably the most hidden and at the same time invidious aspect of globaliza-
tion is the way in which it is represented (Friedman, 2000). As such, globaliza-
tion 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 globaliza-
tion as a fact (Kiely, 2005). Second, it occludes some of its discontents (Stiglitz,
2002). For example, globalization, if adequately historicized, becomes synon-
ymous 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 unfet-
tered 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 dispropor-
tionately 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 produc-
tion. 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 pro-
cess 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 accu-
mulation 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 prop-
osition, 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 prop-
erty 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 dev-
astation 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 wel-
fare 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 estab-
lished 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 includ-

ing “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 world-
wide 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, deregu-
lation 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 reduc-
tion 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 eth-
ical 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 proscrip-
tion of public (state) interference with market forces” (Von Werlhof, 2009).

Feature Policy examples Implications

A 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)
B Privatization Selling of university student Private companies offering
debt to private companies key services to students;
encroachment of universities
by private capital
C Deregulation Abolition of Local Schools losing support; lack
Educational Authorities of coordination; reduction in
quality of services
D 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 sec-
tion discusses how they affect education. My focus is on HE and especially uni-
versities, 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 educa-
tion sectors. Consider, for example, the types of universities where new knowl-
edge 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 communica-
tion 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, data-
bases, 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, deregula-
tion, and so on) – and by implication, prescriptions about how to transform edu-
cation, 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 econ-
omy (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 conserva-
tive 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 govern-
ments 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 tui-
tion 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 gov-
ernments 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 achiev-
ing 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 pre-
scription to succeed in a globalized environment is through the adoption of the
assorted neoliberal practices of privatization (e.g. of assets and services for-
merly owned or provided by the university, such as preparatory courses), mar-
ketization (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 manage-
ment 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 exac-
erbated 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, multilat-
eral, and international organizations, is reflected in an educational agenda that
privileges, if not directly imposes, particular policies for evaluation, financ-
ing, 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 aca-
demic 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- globalisa-
tion. 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 perspec-
tive. 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-beyond-
school/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 char-
acterize 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 com-
modity, 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 com-
pete 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 con-
text, 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 competi-
tion (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 educa-
tional 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 incul-
cate 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 mar-
ket 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 equal-
ity) toward an individual model of social mobility (based on competitive con-
sumption 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 pre-
vailing 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 reor-
ganization, along the lines of market principles (fostering principles of com-
petition), 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 democ-
racy arguments.
This emphasis on social mobility, and the attendant insistence that con-
sumers 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 pub-
lic  spending? In this spirit, there are a proliferation of social economic pro-
cesses, 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 “busi-
nesses 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 neces-
sarily 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 eco-
nomic). 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 econo-
mistic 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 accumula-
tion. 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 admin-
istration 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 ine-
qualities across generations. In this context, we can characterize state provi-
sion 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 implementa-
tion of the NHS since 1948, year upon year, the UK state, through the provi-
sion 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, (back-
grounding 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 comfort-
ably 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 har-
ness profit becomes part of the job of provision, then the real danger emerges
whereby profit trumps provision, such that the emphasis swings from consid-
ering the maximum service we can provide is, to considering what is the mini-
mum 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, organ-
izations and interventions, by measuring the impact of an intervention upon
individual or community well-being, coupled to levels of social capital or envi-
ronmental 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 concep-
tions 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 educa-
tion 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-­value-
act-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.officeforstu-
dents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/student-information-and-data/national-student-­survey-
nss/ (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 per-

son 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, aliena-
tion 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 justi-
fies 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 ineffi-
cient 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, educa-
tion 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 work-
ing nor in school. Throughout Latin America and more broadly, they are often
labeled as “not in employment, education or training” (NEETs), and the rea-
sons 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 con-
textual factors also influence the decision to drop out of school: parental edu-
cation 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 trans-
fers, need-based and merit-based scholarships, achievement-based incentives
and school vouchers), information interventions and socio-emotional interven-
tions (cognitive-behavioral approaches) (ibid.).
The rationale for supporting these common-sense views behind youth aliena-
tion 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 indi-
vidual 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 socie-
ties, in which means of production (land, machines and technologies) are con-
centrated 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 trans-
formation 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, oper-

ating 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 colo-
nialism 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 extin-
guished 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 val-
ues 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, includ-
ing 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 oppor-
tunities 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 mat-
ters 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. Sixty-
three 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 min-
utes 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 think-
ing 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 individual-
ism 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 conclu-
sions. In 2013 Brazil, a new generation gathered millions of people in street
demonstrations against increases in cost of living, corruption and public spend-
ing 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 govern-
ment’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 sell-
ing 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 collec-
tive 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://observatori-
oescravo.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, par-

ticularly with: culture, common sense and class struggle. Hegemony is associ-
ated 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 develop-
ment 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’ upris-
ings did not sustain a revolution, and as a result, paved the way for a fascist
dominant hegemony to emerge. Gramsci sought to understand these transi-
tions 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 life-
styles” (Allman, McLaren, & Rikowski, 2003, p. 2), is that it absents cap-
italism 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 organ-
izes 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 identify-
ing 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 neolib-
eral 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 funda-
mental 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 strate-
gize to lay the possibility for a socialist future, and for this there was a neces-
sity 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 work-
ing class the agents of their own oppression was a trick that ruling class ideo-
logues 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, posi-
tions 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 mech-
anism 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 dom-
ination 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 giv-
ing 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 cul-
tural 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 pre-
determined, 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 conserv-
ative moment. In this way the idea of counter-hegemony is not about a sin-
gle 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 alterna-
tive (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 rul-
ing 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 normal-
izing 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 effec-
tive 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 chal-
lenge 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 stag-
gering inequality it creates, this would indeed create the possibility of resist-
ance. 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 condi-
tions 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 under-
standing of class relations and capitalism. Critical educators must acknowl-
edge 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 resist-
ance. 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 aca-
demic 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 impoverish-
ment, 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 restructur-
ing 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 lever-
age further investment, in order to avert crises of over-accumulation, overpro-
duction 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 expan-
sion, or the connection of datasets relating to student loans, educational out-
comes 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 strat-
egies and innovations like Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that com-
modify 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 pri-
vate 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 dispos-
sessed 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 produc-
tion 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 devel-
opment, 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 (produc-
tive) 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 educa-
tional 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 alien-
ated. 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 medi-

ation” (i.e. from capitalistically institutionalized second order media-
tion) 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 glo-
balized world, shaped by transnational competition and dominated by monop-
oly 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 over-
coming such an estrangement from what it means to be human. This is crucial,
given the precepts and possibilities of critical pedagogy for enabling individ-
uals 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 invest-
ment in capital infrastructure and buildings, the intolerance of dissenting posi-
tions on campuses, the revelation of a colonized educational life and so on. This
reveals the tensions between marketized, economized existence that is predi-
cated 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 particular-
ity 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 polit-
ical form of the emancipation of the workers” (Marx, 1844/2014).
As capital looks for new spaces in which to invest the surpluses it has accu-
mulated (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 perfor-
mance, 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 phys-
ical 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 knowl-
edge economy, the fragmented division of educational labor and the subsump-
tion 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 rein-
force 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 uni-
versal 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-it-
matters144 (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 ear-
lier 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, capital-
ism 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 commen-
surable (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 uni-
versal commodity of money), their labor power takes on the qualities of a com-
modity: 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 ana-
lyze 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 the-
ory 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 util-
ity) 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 com-
modity’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 use-
value (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 neces-
sity, 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 rec-
ognized 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 pro-
duce 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 aver-
age 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 commodi-
ties can be produced more cheaply, requiring producers to sell more and inno-
vate 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 cap-
italism 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 univer-
sities, 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 subse-
quently 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 main-
tain 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 indi-
vidual 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 indi-
vidual 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 teach-
ers 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 cap-
italist societies (Simon, 1960, 1965) and that there is an implicit contract or
expectation that an individual educated by the State will reciprocate by becom-
ing 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 his-
torically 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 com-
modity, 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 edu-
cation 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 con-
tracted 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 relation-
ship 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, jour-
nal articles, books, etc. It is the university campus, the lecture hall, the sem-
inar 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 mobil-
ity 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 mobil-
ity 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 inter-
ests. 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 soci-
ety 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 suc-
cess 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 arrange-
ments 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 mobil-
ity 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 capital-
ism “[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 possi-
ble 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 convinc-
ing: 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 accentu-
ated 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 aspi-
rations and choices, such as participation into higher education and a desire to
become upwardly mobile. However, they are more likely to experience social-
class 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 con-
tradictions 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 var-
ious 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 move-
ments (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 ine-
galitarian 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 opportu-
nity 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 alter-
native 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 pro-
cesses 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 individ-
uals, do not have to wait passively for capitalism to save them from itself with
some injection of social fluidity. Instead, participation in social movements com-
prises 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 move-
ments. For example, participants in one of the biggest social movements in the
world, namely the Landless People’s Movement (or MST), are trained to recog-
nize 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 con-
scientization (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 transforma-
tion 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 cele-
brated. 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 opportuni-
ties for social mobility, especially for the youth, might operate as capitalism’s
nemesis. The exploration of some salient contemporary social movements fur-
nished 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 opportu-
nities 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/sys-
tem/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-pedagogy-
in-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-shifts-
in-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 employa-
bility: 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.oecd-
ilibrary.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.world-
bank.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, gen-
erally 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 rep-
etition 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 struc-
tures 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 “con-
tribute 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 inte-
grate rather than to include reinforces the power relations at play by invit-
ing 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, includ-
ing ­“policies, actions and decisions” (Berryman & Eley, 2019, p. 989). Clarity
is essential when planning for inclusion, and planning for inclusion is essen-
tial 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 sup-
ports.” (Filia et al., 2018, p. 183). But the recognition that inclusion has wider
implications for society pre-dates current austerity. A conference for inclu-
sive 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 edu-
cational reform within a broader social agenda including health, social wel-
fare, and vocational training and employment, and emphasised the inclusion of
various stakeholders including parents and community organisations in eval-
uating 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 under-
standing 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 inclu-
sion 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,’ reli-
gion, 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 commu-
nities” (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 equal-
ity. 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 stu-
dents 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 main-
stream schools. Social services such as Sure-Start and Connexions were abol-
ished, 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, addi-
tional 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 ter-
rorism” (DfE, 2015, p. 4). Third, there is “a new expectation for schools to
celebrate cultural diversity and to facilitate equality of opportunity and tol-
erance [and to ensure] inclusivity [is] promoted at all levels of the school”
(Deuchar & Bhopal, 2013, p. 738). This refers to specific Citizenship educa-
tion, 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 ser-
vices 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 inclu-
sion gives the minimum-accepted outcome rather than providing an exem-
plar. 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 inclu-
sion. 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 situ-
ation 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 her-
itage 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, “inclu-
sion 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 reali-
ties 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 inclu-
sion 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 dis-
course, 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” demon-
strated in the “growth in inclusive education policies and pilot projects” (Lewis
et al., 2019, p. 722), “the essential issues underpinning their financing mecha-
nisms 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 longer-
term 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 inclu-
sive 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 inte-
gration, 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 inclu-
sions, 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 man-
aging 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 ver-
sion 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 writ-
ing 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 educa-
tional 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 home-
school 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 pol-
ishing the brass on the Titanic: Moving beyond “quick-and-dirty” teacher education for inclu-
sion, 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 transna-
tional 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 encourage-
ment of private investment and the preponderance of competition among edu-
cational 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 insti-
tutions 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 over-
haul of the European HE systems: (1) the intergovernmental agreements at
EU-wide level; and (2) the publication of benchmarking indices and compar-
ative 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 concen-

trating 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, compatibil-
ity, comparability, new ways of funding and new management and/or gov-
ernance 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 inter-
national 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 ori-
ented Bachelor’s degree programs,” whereas in Italy, “the new higher tech-
nical 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 par-
ticularly 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 coor-
dination 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 stu-
dents’ 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 deci-
sively 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 intro-
duction 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 second-
ary 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 exclu-
sively 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 wel-
fare) (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 cru-
cial, 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 out-
performing 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 “com-
petitiveness” 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 dom-
inated 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 educa-
tional 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 cod-
ification of the academic labor process based on the use of comparable effi-
ciency 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 transfor-
mation, Rikowski (2012, p. 24) indicates that neoliberalism encourages free
market-based development in HE “through the development of choice, com-
petition, and [….] the buying and selling of goods and services.” This process
refers not only to the so-called “knowledge production” in universities (mod-
ules, lectures and research projects), which is increasingly commodified, but
also to the rise of antagonism between HE institutions (enterprises), staff (pro-
ducers) 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 simplisti-
cally 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 emula-
tion, by many European universities, of certain success models – the so-called
“Harvard” effect, that is the “identification and copying of certain institu-
tional 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 institu-
tions 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), departmen-
tal research laboratories (e.g. the HEPNET at the University of Patras, with
its regular report on the Greek HE institutions’ position in the world rank-
ings) 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,” “adapt-
ability 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 sur-
prisingly 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 (left-
wing-turned-social-democratic) Greek government to the demands of Troika
and the neoliberal experiment carried out according to its mandates (e.g. dis-
mantling of the post-War Welfare state, privatization of public assets, intro-
duction 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 Uni-
versity 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-­kosmo-
to-ekpa.html, https://www.ntua.gr/el/news/ntua-at-world/item/298-­mesa-sta-150-
prota-panepistimia-tou-kosmou-to-ethniko-metsovio-polytexneio, etc.

References
Aamodt, P.O., Hovdhaugen, E. & Bielfeldt, U. (2010). Serving the Society? Historical and
Modern Interpretations of Employability. Higher Education 23(2): 271–294.
Alphatv.gr. (2017). Top positions for Greek universities in global rankings (7.8.2017). Retrieved
on November 2, 2017, from: http://www.alphatv.gr/news/society/ypsiles-theseis-­
kataktoyn-ta-ellinika-panepistimia-se-pagkosmia-katataxi-axiologisis. (in Greek)
Auld, E., & Morris, P. (2014). Comparative education, the “New Paradigm” and policy borrow-
ing: Constructing knowledge for educational reform. Comparative Education, 50(2), 129–155.
doi: 10.1080/03050068.2013.826497.
Ball, S. J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy,
18(2), 215–228.
Ball, S. J. (2007). Education plc: Understanding private sector participation in public sector education.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Ball, S. J., & Youdell, D. (2007). Hidden privatisation in public education. Education International 5th
World Congress Preliminary Report. July 2017. London: Institute of Education, University of
London. Retrieved on November 25, 2011, from http://pages.ei-ie.org/­quadrennialreport/2007/
upload/content_trsl_images/630/Hidden_privatisation-EN.pdf.
Bell, D. (1976). The Coming of Post-industrial society: A venture in social forecasting. New York, NY:
Basic Books.
Castells, M. (1996). The information age – economy, society and culture.Vol. I: The rise of the network
society. Oxford: Blackwell.
Centre for the Development of Educational Policy of the General Confederation of Workers’
Unions of Greece (CDEP-GCWUG). (2015). Basic figures for education 2015. Greek primary
and secondary education – Part A:The European and the International Context (2002–2013). Athens:
CDEP-GCWUG. (in Greek)
Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS). (2010). The Bologna Process Independent
Assessment – The first decade of working on the European Higher Education Area (Executive Summary,
Overview and Conclusions). A Report contracted out by the European Commission and the Bologna
Follow-Up Group (BFUG), and carried out by the CHEPS, in collaboration with INHER-
KASSEL and ECOTEC (e-version). Retrieved on May 14, 2011, from http://ec.europa.eu/
education/higher-education/doc1290_en.htm.
 Markets 85
Commission of the European Communities (CEC). (2003). The role of the universities in the Europe
of knowledge. Commission Communication [COM (2003) 58 final/15.02.2003]. Luxembourg:
Office for Official Publications of the European Communities (e-version). Retrieved on
January 12, 2006, from http://europa.eu.int.
CEC. (2004). Proposal for a Recommendation of the Council and of the European Parliament on further
European Cooperation in Quality Assurance in Higher Education. Brussels 12.10.2004 (e-version).
Retrieved on March 18, 2006, from http://europa.eu.int.
CEC. (2005). Mobilizing the brainpower of Europe: Enabling universities to make their full contribution
to the Lisbon Strategy [COM (2005) 152 final/20.04.2005]. Luxembourg: Office for Official
Publications of the European Communities (e-version). Retrieved on March 18, 2006, from
http://europa.eu.int.
CEC. (2011). Supporting growth and jobs – an agenda for the modernisation of Europe’s Higher Education
systems. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the
European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. [COM (2011)
567 final, 20.9.2011]. Retrieved on November 2, 2017, from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/
legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52011DC0567&from=GA.
CEC. (2012). Annual Growth Survey 2013. Communication from the Commission. COM
(2012) 750 final. [pdf] Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Retrieved
on May 29, 2014, from http://europa.eu.int.http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/pdf/
ags2013_en.pdf.
CEC/EACEA/Eurydice. (2013). Education and Training in Europe 2020: Responses from the EU Member
States – Eurydice Report. Brussels: Eurydice. Retrieved on May 29, 2014, from http://eacea.
ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice.
Commission for National and Social Dialogue on Education (CNSDE). (2016). Report of the Greek
National Commission for National & Social Dialogue on Education – May 2016. Working Paper.
Retrieved on November 5, 2016, from http://www.esos.gr/. (in Greek)
Corbett, A. (2012). Principles, problems, politics. What does the historical record of EU
Cooperation in Higher Education Tell the EHEA Generation? In A. Curaj, P. Scott, L.Vlasceanu,
& L. Wilson (Eds.), European Higher Education at the crossroads: Between the Bologna Process and
national reforms (pp. 39–57). Dordrecht: Springer Science + Business Media.
Erkkilä, T., & Piironen, O. (2014). Shifting fundaments of European Higher Education gov-
ernance: Competition, ranking, autonomy and accountability. Comparative Education, 50(2),
177–191. doi: 10.1080/03050068.2013.807643.
Federkeil, G. (2008). Rankings and quality assurance in Higher Education. Higher Education in
Europe, 33(2/3), 219–231.
Frølich, N., Coate, K., Mignot-Gerard, S., & Knill, C. (2010). Einheit von Forschung und Lehre:
Implications for State Funding of Universities. Higher Education Policy, 23(2), 195–211.
General Accounting Office of the Ministry of Economics of the Hellenic Republic (GAOMEHR).
(2014). Reply to the representative of the Synod of the Rectors of Hellenic Universities (12.09.2014).
Athens: Ministry of Economics of the Hellenic Republic. (in Greek)
Giesecke, H.S. (2006). Legitimacy Seeking among New Private Institutions of Higher Education
in Central and Eastern Europe. Higher Education in Europe, 31(1), 11–24.
Gouvias, D. (2007a). The response of the Greek State to Global Trends of Educational Policy-
making. European Educational Research Journal, 6(1), 25–38.
Gouvias, D. (2007b). The “Regulatory” State and the use of “Independent” agencies as legiti­
mizing mechanisms of educational reform. Research in Comparative and International Education,
2(4), 297–312.
Gouvias, D. (2011). E.U. funding and issues of “Marketisation” of Higher Education in Greece.
European Educational Research Journal, 10(3), 393–406.
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 inter-
nationalization 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 uni-
versities: 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/lifeinthehighersau-
sagefactory.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 assur-
ance 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 communica-
tion 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 periodi-
cally 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 facil-
itating 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 tra-
jectory 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 disci-
plining the institution through performance indicators such as targets and
tables, to bring home to individuals the reality of the new form of account-
ability within which they have been positioned. This new context is under-
stood 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 redun-
dant. 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, stu-
dents are entered for qualifications which may not be educationally appropri-
ate, 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 high-
stakes 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 dis-
honest, 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 author-
ity (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 mar-
ketization, 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 responsi-
bility 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 them-
selves 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 instrumental-
ist, compliant and dependent for professional validation on external author-
ities (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 educa-
tion is to be valued. League tables appear fair, easy to understand and help-
ful 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 com-
piled need not be made clear. Individual histories, circumstances and expe-
riences 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, compli-
catedly context-bound, and better approached through observation and eval-
uation. 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 stul-
tify the educational process.
(Simon, 1965, pp. 115–116)

The struggle against that stultifying system, although long and hard, was success-
ful. Those struggling against its contemporary version know that better ways to
understand educational quality, and individual progress, have been put into prac-
tice 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-performance-
tables-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 increas-

ingly corporate educational institutions. It rests on a belief that tradi-
tional, ­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 man-
agement, 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 performa-
tivity, or the incorporation of hegemonic practices and beliefs (Ball, 2003;
Butler, 2015). Across educational domains, managerialism reshapes the cur-
riculum around commodity-valuation rooted in the measurement of teacher/
student performance, like income generation, research outputs, employabil-
ity 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 out-
side the classroom.
In theorizing these processes, Ball (2012) writes of three stages of neolib-
eralism, 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 manag-
ing 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 expe-
rienced 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 neolib-
eral 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 intel-
lectual 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 cor-
porate 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 stu-
dents 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 aca-
demic 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 exer-
cises; and arranging tactics. Disciplinary managerialism enables a qualitative
shift in the types of outcomes accumulated, whether they are framed as stu-
dent satisfaction, research impact, institutional surpluses, teaching excellence
and so on.
A critical moment in the generation of managerialism across higher educa-
tion 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 emo-
tional 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 com-
petitive 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 indi-
vidual worker and reproduces capitalist social relations. These social rela-
tions, 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 institu-
tions are caught up in these cycles of competition, reinforced through manage-
rialism, 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 insti-
tutions, 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 pro-
duces 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 intel-
lectual 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 addi-
tional means of production, for instance, through Massive Open Online
Courses.
• The accumulation of surpluses that can be invested in estates and infra-
structure projects; and
• The drive to centralize and monopolize the production, circulation and
accumulation of academic value through comparative national and inter-
national league tables.

However, in these sets of interconnected processes, it is important to high-

light 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 hegem-
onic cultural definitions and recognitions (Connell, 1987), which are forms of
enclosing alternative narratives (Braidotti, 2011). Thus, in particular, manage-
rialism 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 organi-
zational 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 man-
agerial 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 con-
struction 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-mobility-
and-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 edu-
cation. 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 pre-
vailed 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 lev-
els of training and productivity (for the early elaboration of this, see Schultz,
1961). The promise of an economic return to individuals reinforces key mes-
sages 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 meaning-
ful 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 gener-
ally, and in education policy and practice in particular, albeit with locally spe-
cific variations shaped by local histories and conditions. To develop a sense of
“employability” we consider it first in terms of the Soviet and capitalist per-
spectives 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 produc-
tion 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 pro-
vided 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 indus-
trial modernisation and social development, at the same time that millions
more gained access to new professional careers and other vocational oppor-
tunities” (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 tran-
sition” 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 organ-
ization 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 uni-
versity 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 sci-
ence 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 agricul-
ture 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 educa-

tion 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 fea-
ture of economic recovery, Vally and Spreen’s (2012) insight into how “educa-
tion 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 “developmen-
talist” 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 unem-
ployment 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 condi-
tions 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 edu-
cation 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 path-
way 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 indi-
viduals 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 overarch-
ing 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 marginaliza-
tion. 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 discur-
sive 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 atten-
tion 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 roman-
ticized past in which the developmentalist logic delivered on its promises of
generating national economic growth, and jobs, such that upward social mobil-
ity 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 frame-
work used here, we make no claim to a detailed prescription of how this alter-
native 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 prepar-
ing 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 con-
temporary 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 sci-
ence 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 liber-
alism (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 endow-
ment 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 cur-
riculum 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 mean-
ing-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 exam-
ple: “Snails,” “Hedgehogs,” “Zebras,” “Snow Leopards”) will convey many asso-
ciations, 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 bot-
tom 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 con-
sequences 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, well-
known (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 edu-
cation 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” group-
ing, 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 segrega-
tion in school by varieties of ability-based grouping, generates a stratified pop-
ulation 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 ine-
qualities 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 education-
ally 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 condi-
tions 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 quan-
tum 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). Fixed-
ability 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 cir-
cumstances 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 inclu-
sive 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 neolib-
eral 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 neo-
liberalism 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 simultane-
ously 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 fun-
damentally 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 devel-
opment 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 crit-
ical consciousness is the marker that differentiates the purpose of true edu-
cation 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 mag-
num 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 con-
ceived 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 the-
ory 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 decon-
struction (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 ten-
sions around theory and practice in the human sciences and applied fields like
education have their origins in confusions in and around ontology and epis-
temology (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 mod-
est approach to what can be known. More particularly, he insists that crit-
ical 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 invi-
tation 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 subjec-
tivity 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 analy-
sis 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 epistemol-
ogy. 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 meta-
physical “totalising ideology.”
The earliest post-positivist move against empiricism came from the “tran-
scendental 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 epistemol-
ogy of perspective.
The contemporary post-positivist suspicion of ontology is probably best cap-
tured 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 uni-
versal 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 con-
ventions. 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 sta-
sis. Readily associated with political conservatism, such ontological and episte-
mological 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 reduc-
tionism, 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 sci-

ence, it is a concern to counter the characterization of people, practices,
institutions and other phenomena as having fixed identities that determin-
istically 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 cate-
gorizations” (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 nur-
tures 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 philos-
ophy 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 pro-
claimed 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 post-
1968 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 sur-

face 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 reduc-
tionist ones.
(Banfield, 2016, p. 117)

Contemporary Essentialism
The “contemporary” essentialist (Orderberg, 2007) does not hold to a corre-
spondence 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 straight-
forward 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 falli-
bility of human knowledge. The capacity to assess the relative explanatory pow-
ers 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 ped-
agogy but any education worthy of the name. As Freire knew well, the founda-
tions 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)

References
Adkins, T. (2014). Critical pedagogy. In D. Coghlan & M. Brydon-Miller (Eds.), The SAGE encyclo-
pedia of action research (pp. 212–215). London: SAGE Publications.
Allman, P. (1999). Revolutionary social transformation – democratic hopes, political possibilities and crit-
ical education. Westport: Bergin & Garvey.
Althusser, L. (1972). Politics and history – Montesqieu, Rousseau, Hegel and Marx. London: New Left
Books.
Aronowitz, S. (1990). The crisis in historical materialism – class politics and culture in Marxist theory.
London: Macmillan.
Aronowitz, S. (2013). Introduction – Paulo Freire’s pedagogy: Not mainly a teaching method. In
R. Lake & T. Kress (Eds.), Paulo Freire’s intellectual roots – towards historicity in praxis (pp. 1–10).
London: Bloomsbury.
Au, W. (2007). Epistemology of the oppressed: The dialectics of Paulo Freire’s theory of knowl-
edge. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 4(2), 175–196.
Banfield, G. (2010). Marxism, critical realism and class – implications for a socialist pedagogy.
In D. Kelsh, D. Hill, & S. Macrine (Eds.), Class in education – knowledge, pedagogy, subjectivity.
London: Routledge.
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 criti-
cal 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 engage-
ments: 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 teach-
ing 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 prac-
tice 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, particu-
larly 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 implica-
tions of reflexive voids in the university.

Unpacking the Concept of Reflexivity

When writing about reflexivity in education, a line of epistemological ques-
tions emerge which need to be considered. The main challenge of research-
ing 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 exam-
ined 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 conceptual-
izations 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 condi-
tion 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 prem-
ise 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 quantita-
tive 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 emer-
gence 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 prac-
tice (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 uni-
versities (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 devel-
ops, 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 struc-
ture 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 uni-
versities 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 intrin-
sic 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 fem-
inist 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 reflex-
ive in their research can be made accountable in academic practice (Simbürger,
2014). When speaking to academics about their identities and about their aca-
demic 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 stud-
ies 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 pres-
entations 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 fem-
inists 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 gen-
der 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 sin-
gle 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 uni-
versal validity (Hill Collins, 1986). As I have demonstrated in an analysis of
interviews on sociologists’ relationship to their discipline in theory and prac-
tice, many interviewees brought forward their pressing concerns about soci-
ology’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’ persis-
tent 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 inte-
gration 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 imple-
mented neoliberal measures in the 1980s and had severe effects on public edu-
cation, health and work (Taylor, 2002). From 2006 and in particular from
2011 onwards, the Chilean students’ movement demanded “non-profit uni-
versities” 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 pub-
lic goods (Berroéta & Sandoval, 2014; Guzmán-Valenzuela, 2017) and in the
development of a higher education reform promising free education for stu-
dents 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 neolib-
eral discourse in higher education (Simbürger & Donoso, 2018).
Gouldner’s dynamic understanding of reflexivity in the university, con-
stantly 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 them-
selves 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 pro-
cedures 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 dis-
ciplines. 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 educa-
tion 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 bor-
ing concept or, in an ideal case, it can live up to its critical promise in theory
and practice in educational spaces.

References
Abbott, P.,Wallace, C., & Tyler, M. (2005). An introduction to sociology. Feminist perspectives. London:
Routledge.
Aguirre, F., & García, O. (2014). Más allá del malestar. Una hipótesis sociológica sobre el sig-
nificado político del movimiento estudiantil chileno. Revista de Sociología e Política, 23(53),
147–162.
Alonso, D., Rosenbluth, M., & Cantuarias, J. C. (2017). Reforma de Educación Superior:
‘obiernización’ y (des)autonomía Universitaria. [Higher Education Reform: ‘Obiernization’
and (des) University autonomy.] El Mostrador, published on 23 May, 2017. Retrieved from
http://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/opinion/2017/05/23/reforma-de-educacion-superior-
gobiernizacion-y-desautonomiauniversitaria/.
Alvesson, M., & Skoeldberg, K. (2000). Reflexive methodology. New vistas for qualitative research.
London: Sage.
Archer, M. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Archer, M. (2007). Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Beck, U., Giddens, A., & Lash, S. (1994). Reflexive modernization. Politics, tradition and aesthetics in
the modern social order. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Berger, B. M. (Ed.) (1990). Authors of their own lives. Intellectual autobiographies by twenty American
sociologists. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Berroéta, H., & Sandoval, J. (2014). Protestas, participación y educación pública: discursos sobre
lo público en las movilizaciones estudiantiles en Chile. Educar em Revista, (53), 19–38.
Bondi, L. (2009). Teaching reflexivity: Undoing or reinscribing habits of gender?. Journal of
Geography in Higher Education, 33(3), 327–337.
Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo academicus. London: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1993). Sociology in question. London: Routledge.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. University of Chicago:
Polity Press.
Bryman, A. (2008). Social research methods (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burawoy, M. (2005). 2004 American Sociological Association Presidential Address: For public
sociology. The British Journal of Sociology, 56(2), 259–294.
Caetano, A. (2015a). Personal reflexivity and biography: Methodological challenges and strate-
gies. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 18(2), 227–242.
Caetano, A. (2015b). Defining personal reflexivity: A critical reading of Archer’s approach.
European Journal of Social Theory, 18(1), 60–75.
Collyer, F. (2015). Practices of conformity and resistance in the marketisation of the acad-
emy: Bourdieu, professionalism and academic capitalism. Critical Studies in Education, 56(3),
315–331.
Cosslett, T., Lury, C., & Summerfield, P. (Eds.). (2000). Feminism and autobiography: Texts, t­ heories,
methods. London: Routledge.
Davies, C. A. (2008). Reflexive ethnography: A guide to researching selves and others. London: Routledge.
134  Elisabeth Simbürger
Davies, B., & Bansel, P. (2007). Neoliberalism and education. International Journal of Qualitative
Studies in Education, 20(3), 247–259.
Dench, S., Iphofen, R., & Huws, U. (2004). An EU Code of Ethics for socio-economic research.
Brighton: Institute for Employment Studies.
Diego A., Rosenbluth, M., & Cantuarias, J. C. (2017). Reforma de Educación Superior:
“Gobiernización” y (des)autonomía Universitaria. El Mostrador, published on 23rd May, 2017.
Retrieved on June 13, 2017 from http://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/opinion/2017/05/23/
reforma-de-educacion-superior-gobiernizacion-y-desautonomia-universitaria/.
Do Mar Pereira, Maria (2015). Higher Education cutbacks and the reshaping of epistemic hierar-
chies: An ethnography of the case of feminist scholarship. Sociology, 49(2), 287–304.
Do Mar Pereira, M. (2017). Power, knowledge and feminist scholarship: An ethnography of Academia.
Routledge.
Doherty, C. (2015). Tracking the neoliberal juggernaut: A virtual edition. Critical Studies in
Education, 56(3), 395–401.
Dressel, G., & Langreiter, N. (2003). When “We Ourselves” become our own field of research.
Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 4(2), 32 paragraphs. Online. Retrieved from http://www.
qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-03/2-03dresselangreiter-e.htm (Accessed 30 May 2005).
Follegati Montenegro, L. (2018). “El feminismo se ha vuelto una necesidad: movimiento estudi-
antil y organización feminista.” (2000–2017). Anales de la Universidad de Chile, (14), 261–291.
doi:10.5354/0717-8883.2018.51156.
Giddens, A. 1990. The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Goldblatt, H., & Band-Winterstein, T. (2016). From understanding to insight: Using reflexivity to
promote students’ learning of qualitative research. Reflective Practice, 17(2), 100–113.
Gouldner, A. W. (1970). The coming crisis of Western sociology. London: Heinemann.
Guzmán-Valenzuela, C. (2017). Neoliberal discourses and the emergence of an agentic field: The
Chilean student movement. In R. Brooks (Ed.), Student politics and protest (pp. 47–62). London:
Routledge & SRHE.
Guzmán-Valenzuela, C., & Barnett, R. (2013). Academic fragilities in a marketized age: The case
of Chile. British Journal of Educational Studies, 61(2), 1–18.
Harding, S. (1990). Feminism, science, and the anti-enlightenment critiques. En L. J. Nicholson
(Ed.), Feminism/postmodernism (pp. 83–106). New York, NY: Routledge.
Hawthorn, Gregory. (1987). Enlightenment and despair.A history of social theory (2nd ed.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hill Collins, P. (1986). Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of Black
feminist thought. Social Problems, 33(6), 14–32.
Kilminster, Richard. (1998). The sociological revolution. From the enlightenment to the global age.
London: Routledge.
Leathwood, C., & Read, B. (2013). Research policy and academic performativity: Compliance,
contestation and complicity. Studies in Higher Education, 38(8), 1162–1174.
Lucas, L. (2006). The research game in academic life. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Lucas, L. (2014). Academic resistance to quality assurance processes in higher education in the
UK. Policy and Society, 33(3), 215–224.
Mauthner, N. S., & Doucet, A. (2003). Reflexive accounts and accounts of reflexivity in qualitative
data analysis. Sociology, 37(3), 413–431.
May, T., & Perry, B. (2013). Universities, reflexivity and critique: Uneasy parallels in practice.
Policy Futures in Education, 11(5), 505–514.
May,T., & Perry, B. (2014). Reflexivity and the practice of qualitative research. The SAGE Handbook
of Qualitative Data Analysis, 109–122.
May, T., & Perry, B. (2017). Reflexivity:The essential guide. Sage.
Mayol, A. (2012). No al Lucro: de la Crisis del Modelo a la Nueva Era Política. Santiago: Debate.
 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 the-
ory 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 reescrit-
ura 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 move-
ment 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 marketisa-
tion 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 pro-
cesses. 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 assump-
tion that the idea or argument in question (and/or frequently that the per-
son 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 bipar-
tisan 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 arbitrar-
ily (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 them-
selves 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; how-
ever, 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 inher-
ently, and unavoidably, a utopian project. In accordance with Stetsenko’s con-
ceptualization, 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 con-
tribute 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 his-
torical 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 guid-
ing, 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 evi-
dent in radical critiques of the developing class-based society, and the imagin-
ing of classless society. The utopianism of the 18th and 19th centuries reflected
the urgings of an emerging working class increasingly conscious of its exploita-
tion, but also influenced by the revolutionary democratic ideas of the radical-
ized, European bourgeoisie. Debates within the left over the need for countries
to move through distinct stages of first a bourgeois revolution, and full develop-
ment 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 uto-
pian. 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 judge-

ment 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 alterna-
tive but uncertain replacement system (see for example Wallerstein, 2010;
Wallerstein, Collins, Mann, Derlugian, & Calhoun, 2013). As the quote indi-
cates, 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 sec-
ond 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 involv-
ing 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 end-
point 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, possibili-
ties, 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 affirma-
tive 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 edu-
cation,” 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 activ-
ities 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 alter-
native 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 uto-
pian 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 eco-
logical 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 driv-
ing 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 regu-
larly 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 sys-
temic 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 struc-
tures 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 social-
ism 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 contempo-
rary 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 stu-
dents 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://venezuela-
nalysis.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 oth-
ers’ 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 knowl-
edge. 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, bil-
lions 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 crit-
ical 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 dehuman-
izing 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 undemo-
cratic 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 educa-
tion) 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 indi-
viduals’ 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 reject-
ing 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, subsist-
ence, 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 con-
tinue 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 dehumani-
zation 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 inter-
ventions 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 dif-
ficulties. 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 for-
ward (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 i­ndividual-
­heritage. Being a “hopeful subject” means being closer to emancipation/
humanization as opposed to being “a hopeless person.” We may see the possibil-
ity 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 quar-
ter-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 organ-
izations. 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 interre-
lationships 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 free-
dom etc., it was reasonable to believe that transforming just one of these dimen-
sions 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 inequal-
ity, whether by selective concessions to individual groups or through mass pop-
ular 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 ear-
lier situation – of sporadic waves of mass revolt, often clandestine organizations
in a context of generalized illegality and tenuous links with individually sympa-
thetic 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, typ-
ically organized hierarchically: the classic example being the German SPD.
It also became necessary to speak of multiple movements, as fascist move-
ments 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 rela-
tionships 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, associ-
ated 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 the-
oretical 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 publish-
ing contexts which rewarded a focus on structure rather than agency, so that
­working-class struggles were now subordinated to discussions of political econ-
omy. 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” increas-
ingly excludes the main organizational components of popular activism between
the 1880s and the 1960s. Political parties, trade unions, activist media, popu-
lar 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 fragmenta-
tion 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 transfor-
mation 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+, develop-
ment, peace, anti-poverty, anti-racist and other NGOs, staffed by a small num-
ber 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 reli-
gious 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 dif-
ferent 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, para-
doxically, 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 chal-
lenged by the Buddhist Theosophical Society’s schools, combining English-
language 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 rep-
resented an extraordinary achievement in terms of self-organization, as did
the various forms of radical working-class adult education (self-organized, sup-
ported by sympathetic elites or within trade union and political party contexts).
The Steiner–Waldorf school movement, which in very different ways chal-
lenged 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 prob-
ably 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 remark-
ably 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 offi-
cial 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 knowl-
edge. Students turned the critical eyes of their own disciplines (particularly
in the social sciences and humanities) on the actual social relations of edu-
cation, while also drawing on newer forms of anti-authoritarian Marxism,
radical democracy and anarchism – soon to be joined by the developing dis-
courses 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 cul-
ture-war offensives from the right in later decades, as well as being more qui-
etly defeated by neoliberal cuts, an increasing focus on testing students and
evaluating faculty, and a grimmer economic outlook which privileged instru-
mental approaches to education and employer interests. However, the legacy
of radical thought within education remains significant, and if student move-
ments 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 educa-
tion, 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 polit-
ical 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 uni-
versity 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 artic-
ulate. 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 alli-
ance 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 learn-
ing processes. As we have seen, much academic theorizing is “frozen” move-
ment 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 class-
room, it is time again to pay attention to the new shapes which social move-
ment 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 out-
side 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, neo-
liberal fragmentation and political niche markets, new struggles keep spring-
ing up; movements keep making alliances across differences and reach toward
a general transformation of society. Society is still in movement, and under-
standing 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 alli-
ances (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 ideolog-
ical 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 refer-
ence 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 help-
ing 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, criti-
cal 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 ped-
agogy as follows: “Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which
go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pro-
nouncements, 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, organiza-
tion, 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 behav-
iors 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 commit-
ment to social emancipation that would entail rigorous theoretical devel-
opments in ideology critique that were directed at “uncovering underlying
truths behind sometimes baffling and debilitating appearances and ide-
ological 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 dis-
tinct 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 argu-
ments upon on a neo-­Weberian conception of class-as-status-group and sug-
gests 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 normal-
ized and weaponized against the most vulnerable populations consisting of the
poor and people of color was always a constant consideration of critical educa-
tors 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 una-
ble 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 neo-
liberalism 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 cre-
ation of a viable socialism for our times?
Debates over the viability of socialism are now percolating through the edu-
cational journals committed to social justice. At the same time, functionar-
ies 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 pro-
duction 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 pol-
itician 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 rou-
tinely call for mildly redistributive measures such as increased taxes on
corporations and the rich, a more progressive income tax, the reintroduc-
tion 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 cap-
ital 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 cooper-
ative 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 pro-
ductive 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 alter-
native. 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 alter-
native. This entails understanding the processes of capitalist accumulation
by analyzing how relations of production are responsible for value pro-
duction, 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 pro-
ductivity 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 grow-
ing 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 rev-
olutionary 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 edu-
cators 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 cir-
cumstances. 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 exist-
ing 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, borrow-
ing 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 dif-
ferentiate 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 hermeneuti-
cally 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 foun-
dation 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 cri-
tique 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 inequal-
ities 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 pre-
condition 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 popula-
tions 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 ped-
agogy 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 capital-
ism 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 augmenta-
tion 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, homo-
phobia – 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 dem-
agogues, 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 cap-
italism, 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 heteroge-
neity 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 ped-
agogy 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 expe-
riences are reflected in or refracted through various critical theories, such as
various feminist theories, theories that connect gender, race and political econ-
omy, 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 libera-
tion 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 pro-
duction 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 neces-
sary 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 nego-
tiate 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 com-
munity 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 existen-
tial, phenomenological process that doesn’t follow prescribed steps. The intent
is to build a psychosocial moratorium where the educator and the students aban-
don 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 depo-
liticize 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 educa-
tors 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 barbar-
ity 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 incapa-
ble of challenging bourgeois notions of common sense. Revolutionary critical
pedagogy must offer a viable means for developing individual autonomy, critical-
ity, 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 edu-
cation. 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-and-
philosophy-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 educa-
tion, 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&is-
sue=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-covid-
economy-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, regula-
tion and resourcing of hegemonic, institutionalized forms of education, along-
side 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 undercom-
mons (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 edu-
cation 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 sur-
plus 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 knowl-
edge, 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 uni-
versity, 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 intellec-
tualism 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 mili-
tancy (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 practi-
cal, 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 attempt-
ing 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 pro-
cess 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 commu-
nities, 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 fem-
inized and racialized subjects on the margins. This enables those projects to
establish unique analyses of educational possibility from within new, emanci-
patory horizons. These analyses recognize the desire for progressive and demo-
cratic 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 sin-
ful. 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 auton-
omy (Gorz, 1982). What alternative education offers is less a masculine, engi-
neered, corporate life driven by technique, and instead one rooted in humane
 Alternative Education 171
values where individuals rather than capital are sovereign. Anything other-
wise 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 neces-
sity) 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 neolib-
eral 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 pub-
lic, as a revolutionary activity. In a politics of community engagement and
cross-disciplinary activity, and in radical education collectives, these strate-
gies form cycles of struggle that point toward possibilities for: detonating the
school or university (Amsler & Neary, 2012); using prefigurative pedagogi-
cal 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 commu-
nities engaging with the work of dismantling our abstract experiences, and
addressing their concrete impacts. As a result, it is possible to associate edu-
cational 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-Scoping-
Studies-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 possi-
bilities 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, privat-
ization 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) elab-
orates 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 continu-
ity 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 move-
ments 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, out-
rage 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 con-
ceives 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 appropria-
tion 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 uni-
versalizing 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 soci-
ety, 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 contrib-
uted 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 ele-
ments that distinguish the different stages of life. Hence, they highlighted the
­importance of social institutions, such as school, family, and work in differen-
tiating 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 sup-
posed 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 het-
erogeneities 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 over-
coming 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 socie-
ties. 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 compar-
ison 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 histor-
ical 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 human-
ity. 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 atten-
uate 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 conse-
quences. 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 over-
come 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 neolib-
eral 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 edu-
cation, 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 pro-
duced 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 pres-
sure 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 confront-
ing 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 [intro-
dução 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 Pós-
Graduação 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 educa-
tor 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 dan-
gerous about education, aligning ourselves with the positive danger of educa-
tion, 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 long-
held 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 transfor-
mation 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 impli-
cations in particular for the main actors of education – educators themselves.
Neoliberalism was introduced in an era characterized by a new political and eco-
nomic 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 ideol-
ogy of neoliberalism encompasses the principle that everything functions as a
business (Tarnoff, 2016). One of the central concepts introduced by neoliber-
alism concerns the disempowerment of the government’s interaction, acknowl-
edging 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, con-
trol, 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 under-
standing 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 entre-
preneurs and, at the same time, entrepreneurs of themselves, acting as autono-
mous 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: inequal-
ity 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 educa-
tional domain in both direct and indirect ways. This was unavoidable, as the
educational system is not exempt from the consequences of crisis; it is con-
strained 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 contrib-
uted 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 rela-
tionship 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 chal-
lenges 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 educa-
tion, 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 educa-
tion 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 con-
trol 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 edu-
cators, as they are now tasked with following and delivering a pre-determined
curriculum, with no divergence. Due to the pressures of the education mar-
ket, schools are now embroiled in a war of competition to improve perfor-
mance (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 account-
ability 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 them-
selves 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, achieve-
ments, lesson observations, appraisal meetings and tools to promote the vis-
ibility 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 posi-
tion 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 oppo-
nents 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 care-
fully 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 alterna-
tive 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 exam-
ple, 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 contes-
tation, “in which the reordering of social arrangements becomes a possibility”
(Jones, 2010, p. 793). Crises, apart from amplifying disorientation and increas-
ing 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 oppor-
tunities for students to build meaningful understandings of the world. This era
of multiple crises could become a time of reform and opportunity for individ-
ual 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 possi-
bilities for a different and better education system, despite the fact that they
themselves were facing many difficulties, with implications in practical, eco-
nomic 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, edu-
cators 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 peda-
gogical 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 compel-
ling 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 sce-
narios 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 pol-
icies 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 subjec-
tivity. 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 relation-
ships 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 dialec-
tic 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, edu-
cation 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 bor-
ders 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 problem-
atic 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 individ-
uals’ 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 charac-
terized. 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 sup-
posed 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 particu-
lar 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 divi-
sion 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 teach-
ing, 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 expan-
sion 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 pro-
cesses and job structure, restructuring of national states in line with the finan-
cial markets, the national systems of education and the school suffered a big
blow. In this context, Sousa Júnior (2014) highlights the school crisis, charac-
terized 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 globaliza-
tion, the promise of democracy, once so inherent in the system, disintegrates.
Ideas about freedom are essentially only limited to the economic field, delib-
erately emptying the political citizenship dimension. In addition, there is a
global spread of conservative and fundamentalist ideas, with which the system-
in-­crisis interacts to coexist and survive, proposing laws that fit such conserv-
ative 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 fundamen-
talist 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 con-
ception 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 ideo-
logical 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 ideol-
ogy and in the sciences that demarcate the practice and organization of school.
Beyond in school, this perspective strongly guarantees an unequal social struc-
ture 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 eco-
nomic elites and conservative forces against workers’ rights and public educa-
tion 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 concen-
trated 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 main-
tain that the school must not confront to conservative religious and family val-
ues 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 auton-
omy 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 hegem-
onic 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 edu-
cation 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 school-
ing that seems uniform, must give space to the challenge of building a collec-
tive 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 con-
cealed 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 rele-
vant 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 dom-
inant 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, semi-
nars for debate and teamwork strategies) aimed at raising the subjects’ aware-
ness of the mechanisms that generate social inequalities and injustices. In other
words, the aim should be to highlight as problems the various aspects hegem-
onic 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, politi-
cally 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 ini-
tial 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 impor-
tant 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 (rac-
ism, 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 compa-
nies 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 consen-
sus 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 writ-
ten word) and social communication, considered in its extended form as a com-
plex 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 con-
ception 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 educa-
tional 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 ide-
ology 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, ide-
ology 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, reap-
propriated and reworked (Eagleton, 2004).
The notion of ideology as a system of signification of reality offers the possi-
bility 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 trans-
formation 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 com-
plex than the deterministic vision offered by the theory of ideology as false
consciousness, since it emphasises a subject’s deliberative processes and contra-
dictions 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 them-
selves, 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 connec-
tions 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 par-
ticular 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 diver-
sity and the complexity of reality, and through critical deconstruction should
promote dialog between the various discourses that constitute reality (their rela-
tions, possibilities, consequences, etc.), seeking differences but also possible con-
nections. 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 illumi-
nate 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 eval-
uated 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 edu-
cation; 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 edu-
cation (Buenfil Burgos, 2000):

To indicate the ambiguous nature, internal contradictions and constructed

nature of any hegemonic educational discourse. In other words, to iden-
tify the marks or scars that hegemonic ideologies leave as they suture, con-
structing 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 invisibi-
lization 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 wel-
fare States (Torfing, 1998), apartheid in South Africa (Norval, 1998), the rela-
tions 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 anthropol-
ogy, feminism, social psychology or cultural studies.
The expanding horizons of PDA have generated numerous theoretical stud-
ies 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; con-
tributions on curriculum theory, cultural studies and post-structuralist edu-
cation 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 legiti-
mize military intervention in Iraq (Van Dijk, 2006).
2 An excellent example of this type of analysis is Henry Giroux’s cultural studies on Dis-
ney 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 inves-
tigación. 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 repre-
sentative democracy, the destruction of the environment and the disorgani-
zation 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 knowl-
edge. 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) con-
sist 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 collec-
tive subject that does not precede this commoning activity (Kioupkiolis, 2019).
According to Dardot and Laval (2014, pp. 20, 48–49, 155, 234), the com-
mons 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 com-
mons is rather scant compared to other forms of commons, such as the envi-
ronmental 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 consid-
ered 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 “com-
moning” education, which emphasizes the making and managing of the collec-
tive 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 neolib-
eral order and the logics of top-down state power into directions we cannot
fully predict. The commoning process unfolds at two different but intercon-
nected 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 “com-
moning education” has been developed, constructing alternative spaces for
learning and participation, promoting democracy, movement and experimen-
tation. 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 alter-
native 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 com-
mons,” 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 mean-
ings 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,” “stu-
dent,” “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 com-
moners 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 educa-
tion (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, pre-
serving “lines of flight” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) that enable a fluid and con-
tinually 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 rhi-
zomatic 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 lib-
ertarian 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 inter-
ests. There are no official (state or private) standards about space and time, the
learning content and the learning pathways to knowledge. Therefore, the par-
ticipants 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 com-
munity. On the other hand, the commons’ logic can be developed inside pub-
lic 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 differ-
ences among them.
An important difference between education of the commons and other alter-
native theories of education is that a commons-based education does not follow
a specific pedagogical theory or a single pedagogical doctrine for the organiza-
tion 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 dynam-
ically promotes, to some extent, the logic of the commons, but faithfully fol-
lows 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 peda-
gogical projects while they are interested in the processes of the construc-
tion 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 edu-
cational communities focus primarily on self-determination, self-sufficiency
and self-regulation, or on the constitution of community life. In this theoret-
ical 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 sub-
ordinated 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 consti-
tute 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 teach-
ers and students” for a “revolution” growing out of dialogue, which under cer-
tain 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 depend-
ency 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 auton-
omy 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 prede-
termined conventional and strict hierarchical control systems. Moreover, con-
ventional 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 com-
modity (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, threaten-
ing their certainties and their allies in the marketplace (Pechtelidis, 2018).
Regarding the autonomous libertarian small-scale commons, a basic con-
straint 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 com-
mons 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 con-
stitutional paradigm that brings together progressive governments with grass-
roots 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, unem-
ployed people etc. However, social movements remain independent of govern-
ments, 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 decen-
tralization 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 develop-
ing 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 pro-
tection 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 emanci-
patory 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 devel-
opments, which explore alternative ways of learning and crafting diverse com-
munities 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 par-
ticular material and symbolic reality, which consists of everyday issues, prob-
lems 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 educa-
tion. 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 democ-
racy 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 collec-
tivity. Young, 24(1), 1–16.
Pechtelidis, Y. (2018). Heteropolitical pedagogies. Citizenship and childhood. Commoning edu-
cation in contemporary Greece. In C. Baraldi & T. Cockburn (Eds.), Theorising childhood: citi-
zenship, 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 pur-
chasers 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 edu-
cational success and occupational/economic success into an unequal society/
economy. That is, a more meritocratic system. Other socialists wish to go fur-
ther, 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 analy-
ses and projects of three broad types of socialist. Firstly, social democrat, sec-
ondly, 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 demo-
crats, 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 soci-
ety, 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 sec-
ondary schooling for all, free school meals, financial support – a grant for chil-
dren 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 over-
come 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 strug-
gle, 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 capi-
talism, 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, sub-
sequently, 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 “social-
ism from below,” with less emphasis on the state, party organization, party pro-
gramme, 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 cap-
italist 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 gen-
dered 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 res-
idential education centers, and “cultural trips” were widespread. At the post-
school 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 commu-
nities, 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 social-
ist, wishing teachers to be “transformative intellectuals” seeking a fairer soci-
ety. 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 teach-
ers 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 individualis-
tic 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 educa-
tors 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 edu-
cator, 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 over-
whelming 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 dem-
ocratic participative pedagogy which can break down, to some extent, pat-
terns of domination and submission, and is a pedagogy that listens to children’s,
students’ and local communities’ voices. This is a pedagogy that bases teach-
ing 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 orig-
inate 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 edu-
cators, 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 “crit-
ical” (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 move-
ments. 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 cur-
riculum”? 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 encom-
pass (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, activ-
ism 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 educa-
tion systems? Marxists prefer and work for what in Britain is called “compre-
hensive 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 polit-
ical 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 Cor-
byn 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 Stalin-
ist Communist Parties, which seek the overthrow of capitalism, or Communist Parties
that are reformist and carry out neoliberal policies. They have different education pro-
grammes 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, environmen-
tal 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/selec-
tions.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 comprehen-
sive 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-smyth-
education-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=IwAR349OKt6lL5HRD1Si-
JK-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 sur-
passes 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, includ-
ing sound poems composed of verses without words.
Adorno picked up on the relationship between Dada and stammering’s revo-
lutionary 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 stut-
tering the poetic or linguistic power par excellence” (p. 111). Writing becomes
something “that explodes like a scream” (p. 112); what might be taken as “inar-
ticulate 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 recogni-
tion 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); “disidentifi-
cation” (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 com-
modity production? He does not let his commodities speak but, like a ventrilo-
quist, 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 civiliza-
tion 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 condi-
tion 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 “meta-
physics 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 con-
fronted 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; sub-
sumption 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

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 manage-
rialism 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; revolution-
ary 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
Index 229
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; com-
mon 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
value 30, 31, 33, 34, 47, 49, 50, 51, 54–60,
65, 70, 71, 73, 89, 90, 93–97, 100, 104,
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
youth 7, 14–16, 35–40, 64, 66, 72, 104,
150, 154, 174–179, 192, 193