#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.     

Organisational perspectives on globalisation in education

ABSTRACT

This special issue showcases the Gordian knot between organisations and globalisation in education and exposes the organisational infrastructure of globalisation in education. Overarching themes include education serving the globalisation of organisational models, globalisation as re-organising educational organisations, the organising of international bodies operating in education, and global-oriented organisations and organising in education. The paper concludes with a call for utilising organisational perspectives in the exploration of globalisation in education.     

Pathways to co-impact: action research and community organising

This article introduces the concept of ‘co-impact’ to characterise the complex and dynamic process of social and economic change generated by participatory action research (PAR). It argues that dominant models of research impact tend to see it as a linear process, based on a donor-recipient model, occurring at the end of a project following the take-up and use of findings. PAR challenges this approach, as impact is embedded in cycles of the action research process; the distinction between researchers, research informants and research users is blurred; and micro process-based impacts, including changes in the thinking and practices of co-researchers, are as significant as findings-based changes in policy and practice. A conceptual framework is developed, based on a three-fold distinction between ‘participatory’, ‘collaborative’ and ‘collective’ impact. This is applied to a case study action research project, Debt on Teesside, working with low-income households in North-east England. The project is analysed in terms of participatory impact (e.g. developing skills of participating households, mentor-researchers, and university staff); collaborative impact (e.g. findings-based changes in thinking, policies and practices of advice, community finance and housing agencies, and local authorities resulting from collaborative research); and ‘collective impact’, adapted from the field of social interventions, which involves organisations collectively targeting specific actions based on research (e.g. changing policy and practices of lenders and government relating to high-cost loans).     

Responses to multi-level institutional complexity in a national sport federation

National Sport Federations are responsible for governing all aspects of a sport within their respective countries. In developing and promoting their sport National Federations must respond to multi-level complexity arising from internal stakeholder needs and commercial, government and social demands. While organisational complexity responses have been extensively researched, little of this work has considered the unique positioning of sport federations. Drawing on the theoretical perspective of institutional logics and complexity, the authors adopted a case study approach to investigate Triathlon Australia’s response to its complex operating environment, conducting 18 in-depth semi-structured interviews with current and former board members, chief executives, senior managers, and government representatives responsible for national sport policy and funding. Interview data were complemented with an examination of Triathlon Australia’s annual reports and Australian government policy documents (1998–2016 period). Four themes and several organisational responses’ themes emerged from the inductive and iterated thematic data analysis: (a) external complexity – alignment, diversification, transcendence, negotiation; (b) interstitial complexity – empathy, formalisation, collaboration, specialisation; (c) internal complexity – division, balance, leverage; and (d) emotions – connection, harness. Driven by quasi-insolvency and admission into the Olympic programme, and national government policy requirements for funding, Triathlon Australia responded to its complex environment by embracing all logics, designs and agendas, unravelling new ways to solve or mitigate it via hybrid responses. Implications for both theory and practice are outlined.     

Reflections on working with virtual action learning

This paper brings together the reflections of the authors on their shared and individual experiences of virtual action learning. Whilst many conclusions are shared, there are also some points of difference in practices.     

影响社区老年体育发展的主要因素分析

老年人是社区体育活动最主要的参与人群,他们参与的积极性直接影响到社区体育文化的开展.通过对社区及在城市社区里参加体育锻炼老年人进行的调查,发现组织因素和个人因素是社区老年体育发展的两大基本因素,并提出了相应的建议.