The Micro-Macro Dialectic: Teacher Activism Within and Across Multiple Systemic Domains

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Activism, Resistance, and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Abstract

Teachers are increasingly forming and joining activist groups as they seek to resist neoliberalism and effect social justice-oriented educational change. This paper examines the work of one teacher-led activist organization, Philadelphia’s Caucus of Working Educators, and how its members work across multiple contexts in order to make public education more equitable and just. In so doing, we develop a theoretical notion that we call the “micro-macro dialectic,” and show that activist teachers strive to maximize their strategic influence through agentively working within and across multiple systemic domains of public education. Such domains include classrooms; activist and union organizations; school district policies; city and state politics; and national discourses and ideologies.

Authors

• Rhiannon M. Maton, SUNY - College at Cortland

• Lan Ngo, University of Pennsylvania