#Eduresistance: a critical analysis of the role of digital media in collective struggles for public education in the USA

From Facebook-coordinated high-school walkouts to compelling Internet-based protest art that has accompanied recent teacher strikes, grassroots education activism in the USA has gone digital. Despite the proliferation of research on the mediatisation of education policy, few studies have explored the ways in which activists for public education engage with Web 2.0 technologies. This paper makes a contribution to this under-researched area by exploring selected activist accounts including Parents Across America, United Opt Out National, and the PS 2013 campaign in New York City. I draw on critical, feminist, and cultural studies theories of education and social movement media to analyse activist media practices in a policy and political milieu dominated by corporate media and neoliberal governance structures. The analysis reveals that progressive education activists strategically deploy digital media to amplify voice, build collective identity, and disseminate alternative knowledge to enable direct action. A situated analysis also reveals significant differences in activist media practice which are shaped by particular political histories and geographies. The paper concludes with a discussion about future lines of inquiry into the role of digital media in collective struggles for public education.     

Efficient Social Justice: How Critical Race Theory Research can Inform Social Movement Strategy Development

Critical Race Theory (CRT) scholars in Education, like activists, are intent on dismantling racism in education (and society at large), and often do so by engaging the problem of racial injustice through social science research. CRT research creates a wealth of awareness about how racism functions, and as a result, inspires social agency to create a more just society. This conceptual piece explores how CRT research, when joined with the efforts of activists, is even more potent with capacity to realize social justice. In the paper, the tenets of CRT in Education are outlined, and serve as the foundation of a model that reveal how each tenet can shape research designs, that inform decision making in social movement strategy development. The model is inspired by the author’s personal experiences with combining CRT research with social movement strategy development, and is intended to serve as an impetus for increased dialogue about how CRT social science research, particularly in Education, can support activists’ goals to dismantle racism.     

Activist forest monks,adult learning and the Buddhist environmental movement in Thailand 1

In the tradition of grassroots environmental movements worldwide, activist Buddhist monks in rural Thailand have, since the late 1980s, led a popular movement to protect local forest, water and land resources while at the same time challenging dominant state and corporate ‘economist’ development paradigms. Most famously, these ‘development monks’ (phra nak phathanaa) and ‘ecology monks’ (phra nak anuraksaa) have led local villagers and NGO activists in the symbolic ordaining of large trees and forests (buat paa). They do this in the hope that they will not only protect forests from logging, but also teach local people the value of conserving forest resources. This paper charts the history, philosophy and practice of the activist forest monk movement in Thailand, its contribution to our collective knowledge of adult education in new social movements, and its value to environmental adult education.     

Doing the Work: A Portrait of an African American Mother as an Education Activist

In recent years, much research has documented the benefits of parent involvement and offered strategies on how educators can encourage parents’ participation in their children’s education. While the literature has brought much needed attention to school-family relationships, little is known about parents who are activists for educational improvement beyond their own children’s schooling and who concern themselves with district policymaking and governance. This article offers a portrait of one African American mother who is an education activist in Boston, Massachusetts. Drawing on social movement and Black feminist theories, the portrait documents how and why she has devoted her life to educational reform and equity with an emphasis on racial equality. The article concludes with a discussion of two possible factors that contribute to the making of an education activist: the development of a political racial identity and educators’ support for education activism.     

Universities,civil society and the global agenda of community-engaged research

This article explores a key point of tension in contemporary discussions of community-university research engagement. Two perspectives are discussed. The first suggests that changes in the nature and structure of research have helped create democratic research spaces and opportunities within the university for communities. In this emerging (global) knowledge democracy movement, community-based researchers are increasingly seeking to connect lessons learned in local settings to the global context. The second perspective situates such developments in the context of the knowledge economy of higher education and suggests that community engagement is also developing in a manner that supports the advance of knowledge capitalism. The decisive tension is that universities around the world are being encouraged by governments to assume greater responsibility for economic development and to translate knowledge into products and services for the market – whilst at the same time being tasked to work with communities in alleviating the social and economic excesses of the market.     

大学科研服务组织：新知识生产条件下的组织创新

知识认知变迁带来知识生产模式的变迁,大学知识生产逐渐服务化与组织化。大学科研服务组织是大学科研服务组织化阶段的产物,它和传统的基层科研组织有很大的不同,是一个不断创新的组织结构。它以服务为导向、问题为中心,能够基于市场的变化做出快速的反应,在动态边界基础上实现自我创新、是一种新型的知识生产方式。     

Genre and activism: Schools, social movements, and genres as discourse conduits

This article examines the literacy practices of three school-based student activist groups: a Gay-Straight Alliance, a high school chapter of Amnesty International, and a human rights club unaffiliated with Amnesty. Specifically, this article investigates how members of the different groups advanced their projects by repurposing school genres such as hallway bulletin boards and office memos. By articulating movement messages in school genres, it is argued, activists tightened their schools’ connections to social movements and circulated movement discourses through school space. After findings on each group are presented, the concept “genre as discourse conduit” is induced from the data and is used to reevaluate the nuances and implications of students’ efforts to articulate movement discourses in school genres. Equipped with this new concept, researchers may better analyze activist groups’ efforts to perform movement work in schools.     

跨学科与博士生培养：美国顶尖研究型大学社科类人才培养研究

跨学科理念滥觞于美国,在知识生产模式转型背景下,由单一学科向跨学科的结合与转变不仅是社会科学发展的内在要求,更是解决日益复杂的现实社会问题的客观需要。当代科学发展与知识创新越来越呈现出学科交叉、融合、渗透以及整体化的趋势,新的知识生产呈现跨学科性的基本特征。知识贵为整体,过度分化的学科知识消解了社会科学研究者对复杂的社会事实与问题的认识能力,以及消解了作为整体的思想活动的能量。跨学科研究与人才培养受复杂问题的解决需求与知识创新的驱动而生,美国研究型大学重审原有培养"学科守门人"的博士生培养模式,将跨学科理念融入博士生培养全过程。跨学科研究与人才培养逐渐成为世界顶尖研究型大学博士生教育改革与发展的重要趋势。本研究通过对美国顶尖研究型大学社科类博士生跨学科培养的理念与实践以及组织制度保障进行研究,为其他研究型大学的跨学科人才培养提供借鉴价值。     

The utility of Twitter as a tool for increasing reach of research on sexual violence

Researchers in violence prevention areas seek to disseminate work for impact to practice and policy. Knowledge transfer, exchange, and mobilization are common terms for research knowledge utilization where public communication platforms are playing an increasing role, having unique capacity to connect stakeholders in advocacy and lived experience, academia, non-governmental organizations, government-supported organizations, such as child welfare, and research funding bodies. Social networking platforms provide a communication intervention opportunity to test the effectiveness of the research reach. A Canadian Institutes of Health Research- funded team grant in boys’ and men’s health, focusing on sexual violence (SV) victimization, health, and resilience undertook an evaluation to examine whether a strategic approach involving a cadre of SV experts (n = 46) and their research increased engagement. Using a unique identifier (#CIHRTeamSV) content was shared on social media (Twitter) within an ABABAB experimental monthly format (A = no sharing; B = sharing content), following a baseline entry of researchers. Active Twitter engagement lead to increases in the number of individuals’ profile views, article downloads, and citations. These findings encourage further research into the utility of social media for disseminating sexual violence research, and that social media has developed as a forum for evidence-based conversation on sensitive topics of public health import.     

From process to practice: research,reflexivity and writing in adult education

The greater involvement by adult education practitioners in research poses the need to locate and problematise research as an activity. By seeing research as a social practice rather than a process it becomes possible to highlight the vital and neglected dimension of reflexivity. The paper argues that there is a need to recognise the place of writing in adult education research. Research can then be understood as a textual practice where it is impossible to ignore the workings of reflexivity and the need for researchers to be reflexive. The different forms reflexivity can take are considered in order to show that reflexivity does not refer exclusively to the effects of the researcher's psychological make‐up or personal values. It is argued that there is a need for adult education researchers to become critical writers and readers of research texts and a framework is outlined which makes it possible to highlight the workings of reflexivity as a movement away from the purely personal to an awareness of the operation of language, discourses and power/knowledge formations in the assumptive structures and unconscious values of research.     

Educational leadership and social activism: a call for action

The purpose of this article is to argue for a social activist stance in educational leadership that fundamentally addresses social change and human emancipation. This call for social activism is framed within neoliberal, neoconservative, and authoritarian populist discourses in the USA, which to social justice educators and leaders had devastating effects on education. Empirical data from an activist high school principal, activist university professor, and activist priest reflects their development of political clarity, political capacity, political collaboration, and an ethic of risk. It is suggested that the work of socially active educational leaders needs to be broadened to include such things as public policy advocacy, networking, organising, community development, and scholarship. Finally, the article concludes with a variety of ways educational leaders can demonstrate their social, moral, and political activism as they challenge the status quo, fight for social justice, and come to understand the politicised notion of leadership.     

Troubling the proletarianization of Mexican immigrant students in an era of neoliberal immigration

In response to Richardson Bruna’s “Mexican immigrant transnational social capital and class transformation: examining the role of peer mediation in insurgent science”, this paper draws on the author’s research on organizing, mobilization and knowledge production among adult im/migrant workers in Canada. While appreciative of the content and concerns of Richardson Bruna’s argument, the paper argues for a clearer position on tensions between agency and structure, and class and capitalist social relations in which to contextualize the schooling of immigrant children in today’s US classrooms. In addition, it explores some implications of Mignolo’s (2000) work on the geohistory of knowledge, notably his concept of ‘border thinking’ for teachers, teacher education, and curricula. Finally, the article suggests the potential of methodological frameworks and approaches of institutional ethnography (Smith 1987), political activist ethnography (Frampton et al. 2006) and global ethnography (Burawoy 2000) to inform research into this field.     

研究型大学虚拟科研组织的组建模式与运行机制

虚拟科研组织是应用虚拟组织的概念和设计思想,把不同的研究者或者研究集体通过信息技术连接在一起,形成一个相对稳固的动态研发联盟。在全球化、信息化时代,研究型大学面临大科学背景下知识生产方式的巨大变革,面向跨学科的、复杂的、实践的研究课题的新型学术价值观正在形成,日趋完善的e-Science技术体系为学科分化与融合提供了强大的信息技术平台。构建基于本校或者跨越多个学术机构的虚拟科研组织成为研究型大学应对冲击与挑战的必然选择。虚拟科研组织在其建立之初,要充分论证对其组建的可行性、持续发展的可能性、组织形式和组建模型,运行过程中需慎重设计研究项目的选择、资源协调、组织文化、激励约束机制和保密机制等日常运行机制。     

Shifting positionalities across international locations: Embodied knowledge,time‐geography,and the polyvalence of privilege

Despite a robust body of scholarship on positionality, the practice of international Higher Education research often neglects engagement with the varied, fluid and complex positionalities of researchers across national boundaries. Through a series of vignettes, the authors argue for reflexivity that extends beyond rigid social identities and towards embodied knowledge, or self‐understanding that is mutable and context responsive. For international mobile researchers especially, new affinities can evolve through propinquity and social custom, and gradually become incorporated into self‐knowledge with the passing of time. Beyond mere cultural competency, this article raises the importance of symbolic competency that simultaneously negotiates the multiple dimensions of language, various forms of capital, as well as evolving social identities in conducting research in different contexts.     

Life at the margin: education of young people,social policy and the meanings of social exclusion

This paper explores the term ‘social exclusion’ in the context of new social and education policies being constructed in the UK. It examines the links with terms such as ‘poverty’, ‘deprivation’ and ‘equality’ and the implications of policy developments for those identified as socially excluded. Tensions and contradictions appear to be emerging between the UK government's stated policy intentions to address social exclusion, and local knowledge and experience. Issues of power, market power, participation and inclusiveness are explored specifically in the context of education. The paper draws on research being undertaken in a deprived inner-city area with voluntary sector organizations that provide education for marginalized young people.     

A plan to encourage home reading

Museums have the capacity to enhance social cohesion, which is the product of a trusting, connected community. History museums and historic sites, in particular, can serve communities by stimulating dialogue on difficult issues, accurately representing all the people of a nation, and creating forums for discussion among groups with disparate opinions. History museums promote social cohesion by solidifying the identities of their audiences—as members of communities, ethnic groups, nations, and the world. This article combines extensive research with firsthand experience in history museums to accurately portray the ways different museums affect social cohesion. It looks first at what social cohesion is, and the ways in which both civil society and educational organizations contribute to it. It makes the argument that museums share attributes of both civil society and educational organizations. This article then addresses the different ways museums contribute to defining identity, bridging community divides, and addressing society's most difficult issues. It does this with in-depth analysis of several Holocaust museums and the movement in Russia to memorialize sites of Stalinist terror.     

邓培对工人运动的开创性贡献——纪念邓培烈士诞辰130周年

中国工人运动的先驱和优秀活动家邓培,对唐山的民主革命事业和中国的工人运动做出了许多开创性的贡献。唐山许多革命工作是他第一个做的,许多革命组织是他第一个建的,许多革命领导职务也是他第一个担任的。他是唐山工人阶级的优秀代表,英勇的革命先锋。     

Toward a sociology of participation in adult education programmes

Membership in voluntary associations and participation in adult education programmes have long been recognized by researchers in the fields of adult education and sociology as closely related forms of participatory behaviour. This inquiry realizes the potential of this relationship for the study of participation in adult education programmes through the reformulation of a sociological construct called personal influence. It is argued that personal influence in the form of face‐to‐face contact with primary and secondary influentials is at the heart of recruitment strategies targeted at adults, is often an important component of an adult's decision to participate in formally organized learning activities, and may play a critical role in retention and instruction of the adult learner. Secondary analysis of research on voluntary associations, social movement organizations, and adult education programmes, together with data on two populations of adult learners from ar ongoing large scale study of Adult Basic Education participants, underscores the importance of personal influence for explaining the entire range of participatory action and interaction.     

Deploying the post-colonial predicaments of researching on/with ‘Asia’ in education: a standpoint from a rich peripheral country

Against the current infatuation with Asia in Australian education, this article rearticulates the notion of ‘Asia literacy’ to explore new ways of researching on/with/through Asia. Drawing on the post-colonial critique of Western social science knowledge, I first demonstrate the problematic nature of Australian knowledge production on and with Asia in social science and education. And yet, I also highlight the contribution that Australian scholars have made to decolonizing knowledge work, with particular attention to their critique of internationalization of cultural studies in the 1990s. In so doing, I identify the particular epistemic standpoint of Australian scholarship, which has emerged out of its ambivalent location in the global politics of academic knowledge production. Then, I identify three types of engagement by Asian researchers with Western knowledge. Situating Australian education scholarship among them, I explore what ‘Asia literate’ education research might look like from the vantage point of Australia.