Worker education played a crucial role in the development of the trade union movement in South Africa and in the broader struggle for social transformation. This article reviews key moments and dynamics in the trajectory of worker education in South Africa. We argue that international developments, the rise of neoliberalism, and the negotiated…

Due to the political context and the restrictions placed on general freedoms and trade union activities, workers' education in Palestine remained informal and largely reliant on oral memory until the early 1990s. For decades, it was an integral part of political education. Workers' education only became a stand-alone field after the…

This paper explores the use of "learning circles" as one form of knowledge production in social action research. It reports on a project that used learning circles as a setting within which to increase the engagement of people living with low income in developing strategies for the reduction and elimination of poverty in Canada. It presents the…

This study explores a collaborative project between high school youth and adult educators (graduate students in education) to create public service announcements. How do young people and educators talk about media, politics, power, and social change? Based on my observations of participant interaction, I argue that power is not dichotomous, with…

The rise of new social movements has produced an emerging discourse on activist scholarship. There is considerable ambiguity about what the term means. In this article I draw on my work as a trade unionist, political activist, and activist lawyer in Mumbai, and later as a social justice activist in New Zealand to reflect on the meaning of activist…

Recent social movement activities--in particular, transnationally-coordinated global justice mobilizations--require participants to work across substantial differences in languages, cultural backgrounds, political visions, and organizing traditions. Negotiating such differences is an active, adaptive, and learning-intensive process. In contrast to…

This paper traces the kinds of learning engendered through Adivasi trans-local and local subaltern social movement (SSM) action addressing state-corporate developmental collusions, state-caste interests and the resulting dispossession of Adivasis from land, forest and their ways of life given the economic liberalization drive to exploit resources…

This article conveys results from a participatory action research (PAR) engagement with activist/educators working in Ghanaian social movements. First, this PAR group has articulated two typologies from which to understand Ghanaian social movements based on their processes of organization, communication and learning rather than merely the issues,…

In this article, we draw on the example of the Friday Absenteeism Project, a photo voice project with sixth grade learners in a rural KwaZulu-Natal school, to interrogate the nature of participatory process and cultural production. In so doing, we explore a number of critical issues related to youth participation, including ethics, citizenship and…

This paper explores the prospects of using critical realism as a guiding philosophy for critical inquiry in the field of educational administration. A relatively recent philosophy in the social sciences, critical realism offers an alternative framework for researchers engaged in empirical work that is aimed at transforming undesirable social…

Advocates moving multicultural education beyond ethnic awareness into a more theoretical and constructive phase. Argues for incorporating epistemological theories regarding the subjectivity of knowledge with an awareness of the interdependence of different cultures. (MJP)

Argues that enormous changes in the world economy, the production of goods and services, and demographics mandate a more flexible approach to educational inquiry. Criticizes the foundations and practice of organizational theory as being hierarchical and Eurocentric. Concludes with a series of suggested models utilizing a more qualitative approach.…

Argues for the establishment of "African-centered" schools on an experimental basis, in direct consultation and partnership with students, educators, administrators, and the local community. Maintains that most mainstream public schools reinforce concepts and values of the dominant culture and alienate students of color. (MJP)