The Landless Workers Movement’s itinerant schools: occupying and transforming public education in Brazil

Abstract

This article explores how social movement co-governance of public education offers an alternative to neoliberal educational models. The Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) is one of the largest social movements in Latin America. We describe one of the many schools that the MST co-governs, the Itinerant School Paths of Knowledge (Caminhos do Saber), located in an occupied encampment in the state of Paraná. We analyze three of the most unique pedagogical innovations in the school: the teacher’s incorporation of ‘portions of reality’ into classroom teaching, the student work collectives, and the participatory student evaluation process. Although these pedagogies are seemingly mundane changes to everyday school practice, we argue that they represent a challenge to the neoliberal educational model being implemented globally. These movement pedagogies are likely to continue, despite recent conservative attacks, and they offer several concrete lessons for how to effectively contest neoliberal educational practices in other global contexts.     

The policy and practice of music education in England, 2010–2020

Since the introduction of the National Plan for Music Education there have been significant changes in music education within England. Whilst some celebrate figures that report increased access and engagement, many teachers and others continue to have legitimate concerns regarding the quality of the music education on offer in schools and Music Education Hubs. There are concerns that the provision of music education is incoherent and patchy across the country. Many would argue that the opportunity to access high-quality music education has become a ‘postcode lottery’. There is a sense that the fragmentation of music education as a result of curriculum reforms and the diversity of approaches taken by Music Education Hubs and other bodies has significantly enhanced this incoherence. This article seeks to review the policy and practice of music education in England over the last 10 years. It draws on recent research from various sources and maintains a particular focus on government policy and the consequences of this for the field as a whole. It reflects on how things could be improved in the future. It argues for a clearer focus on a practitioner-led approach to research and advocacy, in particular one led by the notion of ‘policy as practice’ rather than continuing with the current approach and its intrinsic failings.     

Think Tanks, ‘policy experts’ and ‘ideas for’ education policy making in Australia

This paper provides a case study of the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) in Australia with a focus on its education policy work, specifically the report, School funding on a budget (SFoB). CIS is a conservative right wing advocacy think tank, established in 1976 in the aftermath of the Whitlam government’s policy activism, framed by classical liberalism or neoliberalism with a provenance in the political economy of Hayek and Friedman. As such, it is committed to smaller government, individual responsibility and more market driven solutions to social problems. CIS gives more emphasis to academic research than other think tanks of its kind. This paper theorises think tanks as hybrid, boundary spanning organisations that work across academic, media, political and economic fields. An argument is proffered that it is the restructured state, with its loss of research capacity and fast policy making, which has strengthened opportunities for think tank influence across the policy cycle in education. With SFoB, CIS used a political moment, the first Abbott federal government budget focused on ‘budget repair’, to argue a case for reducing government educational expenditure as a percentage of GDP in the long term. That policy moment was used for recommending the abolition of the federal department of education and further dismantling of public schooling. SFoB is shown to be exemplary of the conservative advocacy think tank report genre in its usage of ‘mediatized’ language, surface accoutrements of academic research, and user focus. SFoB is a manifestation of what can be seen as the ideas for policy work of CIS, dressed up as research.     

China's changing policy and practice in television education, 1978–1993

In the People's Republic in China, government policies are aimed at enabling the country to achieve by the year 2050 the same standard of economic development as the middle group of developed countries, such as Portugal and Greece, reached in 1990. Education supported by television has been given an important role to play, but China's policy and practice in television education has changed considerably since 1978. The remarkable growth of the television universities, started in 1979 with a terrestrial broadcasting system, was aided by a large World Bank loan. Reforms of the late 1980s in higher education led to a decline in undergraduate numbers in these universities, but other reforms enabled them to serve new groups, such as those requiring specialised vocational courses. Next, the government decided to establish a satellite television system for education, to serve several purposes including in-service training for primary and secondary school teachers, and “post-university” television education for technicians, managers and professional staff. The outcomes of these changing policies have been monitored and to some extent evaluated, raising questions about the future of television education in China.     

The moral in Paulo Freire’s educational work: What moral education can learn from Paulo Freire

The Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire had a great influence on theory and practice of education across the world. Freire presented his theory and work as educational and political, not as moral. In this article, the legacy of Paulo Freire will be analysed from a moral education perspective. Nine pedagogical principles will be presented and the changes he contributed in different academic disciplines will be analysed. We conclude that in particular, his focus on social justice, empowerment and transformation can make moral education more linked to society, and more part of a process of humanisation.     

Tensions and challenges in China’s education policy borrowing

Abstract

Background: This article critically discusses the key tensions and challenges arising from the educational policy borrowing in China, through its current education reform. Focussing on the new curriculum reform (NCR), the paper highlights the interactions and conflicts between foreign and local ideologies and practices.

Sources of evidence: The main sources of evidence that form the basis of the analysis for this article were research data from an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews conducted with 166 school principals, vice-principals and teachers from China between 2013 and 2015.

Main argument: It is argued that the NCR has borrowed selective ideas and practices from elsewhere, such as a school-based curriculum, student-centred pedagogy and formative assessment. It is further suggested that the borrowed policies are mediated and moderated by the ideological attitude of the Chinese educational stakeholders, stemming from the notion of ‘theory-ladenness’ within an exam-oriented paradigm.

Conclusions: The example of China illustrates the effects of an ideological attitude on educational policy borrowing that challenges the notion of universally appropriate ways of teaching, learning and reforming an educational system.     

Politics and higher education in Brazil: 1964–1986

Brazilian education, and higher education in particular, were transformed by the coup of 1964 and the two decades of military government that followed. In this article the political ideology of the military governments is described together with the concepts of national political security and national economic development. The implications of these concepts being translated into policy, especially in the context of the relationship between Brazil and the U.S.A., are considered with reference to the role education should have within modernisation. In conclusion, a counterargument is presented in respect of how higher education should now be conceptualized, organised and operated in post-military Brazil.     

Paulo Freire and ‘the need for a kind of education in hope’

This paper explores Paulo Freire’s philosophy of hope. This is significant because, for Freire, it was human hope that rendered education possible, necessary and necessarily political. Like other areas of his thought, however, his reading of hope contained ambiguities and contradictions, and the paper explores these by locating Freire’s thought in the wider context of the philosophy of hope. It focuses in particular on the divergent interpretations Freire provides regarding the objective and the experience of hope. It argues that many of the conflicting demands placed on the radical educator stem from the tensions and vagaries one finds within his philosophy. The paper concludes by discussing the wider significance of Freire in light of the discourse of ‘complex hope’ that is developing within educational studies.     

The characteristics of China’s compulsory education funding policy change, 1986–2006

China’s Compulsory Education Law, determining the development of compulsory education, was first promulgated in 1986 and then amended in 2006. It has been a symbolic milestone in the history of Chinese education. During two decades, there have been totally 8 influential reforms in compulsory education funding policy. From the viewpoint of practical analysis and value analysis about policy changes, China’ s compulsory education funding policy is still in a state of dramatic changes and mixed changes, which shows some disadvantages. __________ Translated from Jiaoyu Lilun Yu Shijian 教育理论与实践 (Theory and Practice of Education), 2006, 27(3): 37–40     

Revolution or backlash? The mediatisation of education policy in Australia

Recent scholarship has identified the emergence of a new modality of policy work: the mediatisation of policy. This paper provides an Australian case study which reports on the tactics of an Australian Federal Minister of Education and a media commentator who both engaged in public pedagogical work for the purpose of spinning education policy. In particular, we argue that this example of the mediatisation of education policy has worked to stifle pedagogical innovation as advocates of middle schooling reform struggle against what appears to be a backlash to the social-democratic reforms of the post-World War II era. Such backlash politics is understood in terms of a struggle to maintain the role of teachers as curriculum designers and not be merely technicians; to sustain critically reflective learning communities of colleagues and friends; and not succumb to pedagogies of resentment that are driven by a logic of deficit views of students and their communities.     

The Labour Government's further education policy 1945–51

Despite the 1945 Labour Government's commitment to social reform, it did not have a very radical education policy beyond its determination to implement the 1944 Education Act and raise the school leaving age to fifteen. Nevertheless, the Minister of Education, Ellen Wilkinson, and her senior civil servants, were keen to expand and reform further education. In 1947 they produced a detailed national plan for further education, although ominously its publication was delayed because its capital expenditure implications fell foul of the increasing economic stringency of the Government. There was a heavy emphasis in the plan on vocational further education and its most far‐reaching aspect was the proposal to introduce compulsory part‐time education and training up to the age of eighteen for all who had left school, to be provided in new county colleges. However, this proposal was overtaken by the deepening economic crises faced by the Government in the later 1940s, and was not implemented. Voluntary part‐time vocational education and training did expand considerably but in a much more limited form than originally envisaged. There were also plans to encourage local education authorities to extend their non‐vocational further education or ‘learning for leisure’ activities in partnership with other providers, including the universities and the WEA. These plans were quite ambitious and broadly liberal in concept, and did lead to a significant postwar expansion, but this was somewhat uneven, depending on the commitment and drive of individual local authorities. Although practical activities (the traditional ‘night school') constituted the bulk of this non‐vocational further education, the Ministry encouraged the local authorities to secure adequate provision of ‘theoretical studies’, foreign languages, cultural studies and education for citenzenship. It also included outdoor recreational activities, youth work, specialized women's subjects, but not literacy. However, in the end many of the intended new schemes were blighted by the worsening economic situation, or by inertia.     

The Workers’ Movement and Popular Education in Contemporary Spain (1868–1939)

The Spanish workers’ movement came into existence towards the middle of the 19th century, and even in the initial stages of its formation, it supported a number of educational initiatives in association with democratic and republican sectors from the bourgeoisie. But it was really from the September Revolution (1868) onwards that popular education began to appear explicitly on its political agenda. The Spanish section of the First International developed the first specifically workers’ education programme in the country, the so‐called “enseñanza integral” (integral education).     

Caught up in the past? Social inclusion,skills, and vocational education and training policy in England

Since the mid-1990s, governments of different political persuasion have tried to reform VET policy to address problems in skills formation and social inclusion. Despite considerable policy activism, success has been somewhat limited, and England failed to overcome the problems associated with its liberal training regime. This article assesses the failure in vocational skills formation as a political economy and a public policy problem. It challenges the determinism in the political economy literature, points to poor public policy-making, and outlines possible policy levers.     

General or vocational? The tough choice in the Chinese education policy

China has made great efforts to vocationalise its senior secondary education in the belief that vocational education better than general education can prepare young people with the skills needed for employment in industry. This runs against a large empirical literature from the last few decades arguing strongly against vocational education on employment opportunity and cost-effectiveness grounds. This paper examines the relationship between employees' educational (and other) backgrounds and their performance in the workplace, as well as their income, based on a survey of 1433 employees in two cities in China. It concludes that pre-employment education gives better work performance, but that vocational education does not lead to better performance than general education.     

Decolonization,educational language policy and nation building in plural societies: The development of Chinese education in Malaysia, 1950–1970

The two decades from 1950 to 1970 were a crucial period of educational reorganization in Malaysia that stemmed from the decolonization after the Second World War. This educational reorganization sought to address the perennial issue of nation building via educational language policy. The development of Chinese education was under severe threat as the British colonial government opted for a national school system that used English and Malay as the media of instruction in place of the segregated vernacular school system that had existed during the colonial period. Much to the relief of the Chinese, the national school system failed to materialize due to the lack of financial resources to reorganize the entire educational system. But the Chinese were unable to maintain the Chinese school system within the ambit of the national educational system advocated by the postcolonial Alliance government. The Alliance government had only allowed the Chinese to undergo Chinese education at the primary level. At the secondary level, it opted for a monolingual system of education based on Malay as the main medium of instruction in order to foster national integration through a common language. The Chinese had to switch to this medium of instruction if they wanted to remain in mainstream education. Such a system of transitional bilingual education was aimed at incorporating the Chinese into the nation building process.     

Convergence in education policy? A quantitative analysis of policy change and stability in OECD countries

In this article, we quantitatively assess education policy change in OECD countries. While research has frequently underlined the importance of international exchange for national policy development, it is yet unclear whether resulting policies are converging. By distinguishing different kinds of education policy goals, we hypothesise that indicators related to macro-level goals are more likely to converge than those related to implementation. We then analyse the development of several education policies since the 1990s. We find strong convergence of some indicators and among some groups of countries, but no clear pattern emerges. Convergence is only partially influenced by the abstractness of education policy goals, and in particular the Scandinavian countries seem to pursue their own approaches in important education policy options.