EN:

As educational sectors and stakeholders are increasingly engaged in the practice of international education, there have been many discussions regarding two persisting issues with the practice, which can be summarised as Western-centrism and elitism. Applying concepts from the study of political economy, this paper analyses major political constraints underlying these two challenges. The paper suggests that the origin of these political constraints is a Western-dominated neoliberal world order, with powerful effects on the educational choices made by advantaged groups in non-Western societies. The analysis highlights a political-economic cycle based on the West’s export of educational products in exchange for human and economic capitals, which sustains the current ecology of international education. The paper also discusses possible ways to redress the political constraints for international education to be more inclusive and equitable. It concludes with notes on new challenges underway and their effects on the future directions of international education.

EN:

In this paper, we explore how teacher educator parents’ (TEPs) feelings about their choices for their children’s schooling and how these choices align or don’t with their professional values. We provide a nuanced look at the emotional elements of “school choice” and the delicate intersections of teacher educators’ personal and professional identities amid a neoliberal educational system that is grounded in choice. This paper illuminates TEPs’ cognitive dissonance and struggle through conflicted and emotional choices as they strive to live in ways that reflect their ideals, while parenting within a racist and stratified school system.

EN:

This is the third issue in a special series titled Contemporary Educator Movements: Transforming Unions, Schools, and Society in North America. In this issue, we turn our attention to educator organizing in cities on the east and west coasts of the United States, tracing movements that developed before and alongside the statewide organizing highlighted in the previous issue. In particular, we bring together studies that illuminate the organizing of educators within social justice caucuses: groups of educators organizing to advance justice and democracy in their schools, unions, and communities. The authors and interviewees in this special issue document the complex ways that educators advance racial justice and democracy within and through their organizing.

EN:

Since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2016, there has been a rise in reported hate crimes across the country. This study focuses on how educator activists in the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE), the social justice caucus of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, and in the Caucus of Working Educators (WE), the social justice caucus of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, relate to fellow educators who express racist views. This study argues that when engaging with fellow educators, who have racist views, social justice caucus activists participate in practices, including building relationships, having difficult conversations, and engaging in collective protest activities, that deepen union presence at the workplace and increase participation in the union by creating cultures of solidarity (Fantasia, 1988). MORE and WE reaffirm the importance of labor organizing in the educational justice movement and of anti-racist activism in the labor movement. They fight oppression through practices that democratize their union, and at the same time, the focus on racial justice drives the need for greater union democracy because engaging with racial tensions requires a democratic space for members to fight dysconscious racism (King, 1997) and arrive at new understandings.

EN:

Within the contemporary anti-union environment fueled by neoliberalism, teachers are organizing and educating each other in order to push back against the corporate reform agenda and envision a public education that supports all students. Using a critical autoethnography methodology, the author narrates her participation in social justice unionism through a series of episodes and then performs the analytical practice of co-reading with critical social theories. This article illuminates intersections of democracy and racism with neoliberal education reform and practices of teacher leadership. It concludes with implications for social justice caucuses and social justice unionism.

EN:

This piece weaves together excerpts from interviews with two key leaders of the Black Lives Matter at School movement, which were conducted as part of a broader ethnographic study of educator movements. In their respective interviews, Anderson and Hagopian discuss their roles in the Black Lives Matter at School movement, suggesting some of the ways that this movement has grown from 2016 to 2020.