Tag: activism

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Remaking education from below: the Chilean student movement as public pedagogy

Author: Jo Williams, Victoria University

Edition: Volume 55, Number 3, November 2015

Summary:  This article considers the Chilean student movement and its ten-year struggle for public education as an example of public pedagogy. Secondary and university students, along with the parents, teachers, workers and community members who have supported them, have engaged in the most sustained political activism seen in Chile since the democratic movement against the Pinochet military dictatorship between 1983 and 1989. The students have successfully forced a nationwide discussion on education, resulting not only in significant educational reform, but also a community rethinking of the relationship between education and social and economic inequality in a neoliberal context. Framed through Giroux’s conceptual definition of public pedagogies and drawing on field
research conducted throughout 2014 as well as existing literature and media sources, this article considers the role of the student movement in Chile in redefining the concept of ‘public’ and the
implications for radical perspectives on learning and teaching.

Keywords: students, activism, Chile, public pedagogy

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 55_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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The ‘accidental activist’: learning, embodiment and action

Author/s: Tracey Ollis

Edition: Volume 48, Number 2, July 2008

Summary: The 21st century has seen renewed interest in activism, community development and social change globally (Kenny 2006). This paper outlines the educational significance of the learning practices of activists as they engage within and against the state. In an era of adult education which emphasises lifelong learning and learning in the workplace, this article explores the holistic practices of activists as they learn from one another in a social context or ‘on the job’. Adult activists act with agency, their learning is purposive; it is resolute and they are there and act for a reason. This learning is not only cognitive but also embodied; it is learning often associated with the emotions of passion, anger, desire and a commitment to social change. Drawing on current research in Australia, attention is given to an important but at times forgotten epistemology of adult learning.

Keywords: activism, learning practices, adult education, lifelong learning

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Cultural codes as catalysts for collective conscientisation in environmental adult education: Mr Floatie, tree squatting and save-our-surfers

Author/s: Pierre Walter

Edition: Volume 52, Number 1, April 2012

Summary: This study examines how cultural codes in environmental adult education can be used to ‘frame’ collective identity, develop counter- hegemonic ideologies, and catalyse ‘educative-activism’ within social movements. Continue reading “Cultural codes as catalysts for collective conscientisation in environmental adult education: Mr Floatie, tree squatting and save-our-surfers”