Our feminist cross-national comparative study explored the informal and nonformal education and learning of women politicians in Canada and India. Using individual interviews, focus groups, surveys and observations of training sessions we compared and contrasted socio-cultural contexts, challenges, education and learning philosophies, and diverse…

This article has three primary goals centring on a re-examination of the research frameworks we use for understanding the politics of social movements. First, I detail the ideological and methodological deficiencies of the old social movement/new social movement framework. Second, I highlight the positive contributions of research that favoured or…

Ghana has been identified as an important example of democracy in Africa, yet the story of this democratic success overlooks the crucial role social movement activism and learning have played in locally reconfiguring and deepening what democracy means. A key dimension of this overlooked-story is ongoing efforts to contest both local and global…

In the first decade of the 21st century, efforts to create alternatives to neoliberalism emerged in many parts of Latin America. Social movements across the region took to the streets, occupied abandoned factories, and started to create new democratic spaces, solidarity networks, and social economy initiatives. In one country after another,…

The article is based on activist research working in an anti-deportation social movement, and on sixteen interviews with both experienced and less experienced activists between 2009 and 2011. The anti deportation social movement made up of a range of organisations, is identified as a left social movement situated in an historic producer…

Writing on social movement learning and environmental adult education invokes particular views on knowledge that need further examination and development in relation to food social movements. Although food social movements take different forms, the paper argues that the politics of food knowledge is at the centre of many of these movements.…

Social movements at universities have recently flourished as a response to the Bologna Process and austerity measures at universities, but studies on learning within these movements are still scarce. Our goal is to describe one movement which started at the University of Gdansk in 2009 and aimed at democratising the university and implementing…

Popular education movements can be dated back to the religious heresies of the Middle Ages but only become well-formed movements following the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. In this article I outline the scope and nature of some of the most effective of these movements which have come to inform the concept of the "public sphere" advanced by…

Can the current education programme of the Australian trade union movement contribute to reviving union growth and union culture, develop new activists and leaders, and encourage and facilitate the organisational change needed to re-orient unions to develop broader alliances? Twenty-five Australian trade union leaders were asked to describe the…

While there is a wealth of literature and research on radical adult "popular" education for social change, most of it looks forward and speculates on the educational processes best able to help the oppressed of the world overcome naive passivity and become critically aware "subjects" of social change. Within a critical education framework, this…

The educational aim of this genealogical study of ribbon workers as popular educators is to expose activist and voluntary organisations, not only as generative sites of learning, but also as sites of habituated learning and stereotypical colour assumptions. This study urges popular educators and activists to reflect critically on the popular…

The article explores the relationships of feminist organisers with government policy makers and within their own organisations. Based on a qualitative study of eight directors and eight board members of grassroots feminist organisations, this paper examines how the funder (State) and the women (executive directors and board members) interact and…

As illustrated by the educational strategies of women's groups in the Dutch Liberal Party and Leiden University, social movements contribute to adult education. The question remains whether separate programs for women or encouragement of women's participation in existing program is more conducive to emancipation. (SK)