This paper considers the role and function of Left academics within "elite" (i.e. Russell Group) universities within the UK. Deploying Marxist theory and critical realism, it analyses the "dialectical contradictions" experienced in such a role and reflects upon productive strategies for resisting the hegemony of neo-liberalism…

Beginning with a reading of Kant's "The Conflict of the Faculties" and then moving towards a tentative possible theorization of the University as a hegemonic apparatus this paper aims at discussing university movements in terms of (counter) hegemony. Recent struggles against austerity, neoliberalism and the erosion of democracy,…

The present paper--from a vantage in Bulgaria, and focusing in significant part on this country as an iconic example of the "post-socialist freefall' and its dystopia on European capitalism's neocolonial "new periphery"--is a revised version of an earlier chapter in "Immiseration Capitalism and Education: Austerity,…

A fundamental goal of the university must be to advance a democracy based on the socialist principles of freedom and critique. A Marxist revolutionary critical pedagogy for democracy is advanced that includes a call for the inclusion of faculty of color who may bring diverse epistemes toward doing research that promotes dissent. The author…

The transformation of the historical functions and goals of the European university is producing the transition from mass university to what has been called "corporate university". With this goal, I will examine how the new functions of the university are aimed at providing services and precarious workers to the labor structure of…

In today's world characterized by increasingly effective neoliberal policies, not only the sphere of public services is being constricted but also the concept of "public service" --which traditionally has been pointing at a responsible state providing public services based on social principles and methods-- is being transformed. In…

Neo-liberal policies have been affecting in waves all public services in Turkey since 1980s. The most affected institutions in this process were education in general and the higher education institutions in particular. This article consists of two dimensions. In the first dimension, the process, in which the neo-liberal policies started with a…

The paper addresses national and global questions concerned with neoliberalism, social democracy and social justice. It explores a number of themes that arise from the British Labour Party's policy review and its rebranding as One Nation Labour (ONL). In particular it addresses ONL's approach to the economy, localism and vocational…

Critical pedagogies are marginalized in the present common sense about teacher education. This also applies to the global South due to the co-option of conservative thought and neoliberal marketization as part of the present world capitalist system. This development creates unexpected alliances between the local and the global. However,…

This article evaluates the curriculum reform implemented in Turkey in 2004 by the Justice and Development Party (AKP). The curriculum reform targeted primary school education and reorganized the curriculum for several primary school courses. The AKP declared that renewed curricula would replace the former behaviorist approach, which had been…

Both secondary and postsecondary public education may offer one the last spaces for true democratic dialogue untainted by the market (Giroux, 2011). Public education however is under attack by "reformers" who seek to privatize it and transform it into a market good (Klein, 2007). Due to this, public education needs leaders who will fight…

In this article, I employ Jacques Rancière's conception of an explicative order to explore how the World Bank contributes to the global project of educational neocolonialism. I argue that the Bank operates as a Master Explicator who taps into students' "inability" to learn by themselves. It explicates concepts such as…

Since 2012, corporations, politicians, journalists and educators have asserted that MOOCs--massive open online courses--are radically changing North American and global education, and for the better. This article offers a counterpoint to the techno-deterministic and optimistic buzz surrounding for-profit MOOCs by contextualizing and analyzing…

This study draws on forty-six interviews conducted with staff from think tanks, education advocacy organizations, and university based education policy centers to discuss five prominent frames--the Public Education in Crisis frame, the Human Capital frame, the Unions are the Problem frame, the Advocates not Researchers frame, and the Irrelevant…

This article argues that, in Greek higher education policies of the 2000s, "equality of educational opportunities" is not given as much importance as in the 1980s and the 1990s, when higher education had been massively expanded. In the 2000s, the issue of equity is giving way to that of efficiency/quality, in accordance with a neoliberal…