Bøger i Radical Politics and Education serien

This open access book, originally published in Portuguese in 1988 and now available in English for the first time, describes the Brazilian educator, Antonio Leal's, experiences teaching so-called "unteachable" children in Rio de Janeiro's favelas. A Voice for Maria Favela tells the story of how Leal considers what the children bring to the class, gradually engaging them in developing a narrative about Maria Favela, a single mother and housemaid. Leal uses the sounds within the story to draw out the students' abilities to see enunciation and articulation as a process of becoming literatized. A contemporary and admirer of Paulo Freire, Leal nevertheless recognised that his students' needs could not be theorized along Freirean lines of oppressor/oppressed. He devised an emancipatory approach that is more focussed on the individual child and their capacity for self-expression than those often found in critical pedagogy. The book puts forward a unique type of radical pedagogy and philosophy of education, developed through direct classroom observation. The book includes a substantial introduction written by the translator Alexis Gibbs (University of Winchester, UK) and preface by Inny Accioly (Fluminense Federal University, Brazil). The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Drawing on the thoughts of Jacques Rancière, this open access book seeks to understand the politics of childhood art by attending to the relational matters in children's artistic practices rather than the linear age-based developmental theories which often limit children's creativity. Weaving Rancière's ideas on pedagogy, politics, and aesthetics, with a research study at a Kindergarten classroom in the USA and the author's own art experiences in South Korea as a child, Hayon Park discusses the politics and ethics of teacher-led art projects, children's popular culture, and adult-child drawing companionship. The author argues that childhood art and in education is inherently political and relational as, from an early age, children are acutely aware of monitoring, categorisation, and the potential oppression of their art making and learning. Offering a post-structural, reconceptualist approach to art education, Park argues for new emancipatory practices and pedagogies, which encourage children's creativity and activate curiosity.The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Louis Althusser's thinking laid the groundwork for critical educational theory, yet it is often misunderstood in critical pedagogy, sociology of education, and related fields. In this open access book, David I. Backer reexamines Althusser's educational theory, specifically the claim that education is the most powerful ideological state apparatus in modern capitalist societies. He then presents this theory's flawed reception in critical educational research and draws out a lost tradition of educational thinking it inspired with important applications to race, gender, ideology, and the concept of social structure in education. Correcting the record about Althusser's thinking in the traditional narrative of critical educational research becomes an opportunity to revisit fundamental questions for thinking about school in its social context. For students and researchers of education, critical theory, sociology of education, and critical pedagogy, this book will be a resource for rethinking the social foundations of education, both as a field and as a set of theoretical frameworks for educational research.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Offering a novel take on the history of education in the US, A History of Education for the Many examines the development of the education system from a global and internationalist perspective. Challenging the dominant narratives that such development is the product of either a flourishing democracy or a ruling-class project to reproduce structural inequalities, this book demonstrates the link between education and the struggles of working-class and oppressed peoples inside and outside the US. In a country notorious for educating its people with an inability to see beyond its own borders, this book offers a timely corrective by focusing on the primacy of the global balances of forces in shaping the history of US education. Combining Marx's dialectic with W.E.B. Du Bois' historiographical approach, Malott demonstrates how the mighty agency of the world's poor and oppressed have forced the hand of the US ruling class in foreign policy and domestic educational policies. Malott offers a unique view of the dialectical development of social control by examining the role of the police and state violence, along with education or ideology over time. This situates the 2020 uprisings against racism and the movements to defund the police within a historical context dating back to eighteenth-century slave patrols. As US imperialism declines in the 21st century and social movements across the globe continue to swell and intensify, Malott's historical analysis looks backwards as it pushes us, optimistically and realistically, forwards towards a liberated future.The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license on bloomsburycollections.com.