Teachers Strike! Comparative Perspectives

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The changing nature of educational governance under a neoliberal policy regime has been described as a global assault on teachers and teaching (Weiner & Compton, 2008). This session examines teachers’ responses to education reform not in the classroom but on the street in collective actions. What conditions shape teachers’ call to action? What are the implications in the aftermath for teaching, public education, and participatory democracy? To respond to these questions, we assembled a collective of scholar-activists from three continents. We drawn from literature in sociology of education on teachers’ unions and social movements and history of education to forge a critical dialogue respecting contextual differences while acknowledging shared political challenges to sustain public education and participatory democracy.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Teachers Work/Teacher Unions

Chair

• Sarah A. Robert, University at Buffalo - SUNY

Papers

• The Emergence of Dissident Teachers in Neoliberal Times: From an Absent to a Collective and Politicized Subject in Chile - Felipe Acuña, Institute of Education - UCL; Andrea Lira, Teachers College, Columbia University; Ivan Salinas, Universidad de Chile; Javier Campos-Martinez, University of Massachusetts - Amherst; Centre for Research in Inclusive Education, PUCV

• The Victory of the Victims: The Paradoxical Result of the Swedish Teacher Strike of 1966 - Joakim Landahl, Stockholm University

• Repairing Democracy's Institutions? A View From Wisconsin's Teacher Unions - Eleni Schirmer, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Teachers' Strikes Against the Coup in Brazil: How Educators Engage in Political Mobilization - Dalila Andrade Oliveira, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais; Rebecca Tarlau, Pennsylvania State University