Between 2011 and 2015, at the dawn of the global financial crisis, Spain went through severe austerity measures that led to social unrest and to the emergence of new expressions of collective action. In the educational field, teachers' unions and grassroots movements organised against the neoliberal and neoconservative policies promoted by the…

This article examines the division within Chile's main teacher organisation caused by a dissident movement during the development of the new National Teaching Policy (PND), which occurred between the years 2014 and 2016. It focuses on the teachers' collective awakening and the internal logic of neoliberal teacher policies. Through interviews and…

This paper engages with the Freirean concept of politicity for critical policy studies in education. The first part lays the ground to expand the conceptualisation of teachers' politicity. I argue this entails an examination of the limits and possibilities within a juncture. To develop the argument, the second part focuses on a teacher strike that…

This paper investigates the case of Singapore where there are teachers' unions but industrial actions are rare. It questions why and how has educator organising, steered by Singapore Teachers' Union, transformed? Our findings show that historical, political, and socio-economic dynamics have influenced the transformation of STU. For more than…

This study examines the media representations of Turkey's educational labour union, Egitim-Sen. In so doing, it analyses the news coverage of the protests of Egitim-Sen against the education policies of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, structured by an Islamist political perspective. In this study, the content analysis has been…

History has much to offer education in emergencies scholars and practitioners. Most research in this field comprises qualitative case studies and, to a lesser extent, quantitative experimental studies, both of which tend to focus on either the impact of interventions or whether education processes or structures are a cause or effect of conflict. I…

The professionalization of the teaching profession has been among one of the most crucial education policies for improving the quality of school education in Hong Kong. This paper reviews the process of professionalizing school teachers in Hong Kong from the early 1970s when it marked the beginning of the significant growth of the size of the…

While the South African Constitution enshrines both children's right to a basic education and teachers' right to strike, conflict between these two often occurs when the way in which teachers' unions conduct strike actions detracts from learners' education. This article identifies the parties affected by industrial action in the school context,…

The current tumult in the Mexican education arena has deep roots in politics and tradition, but it is latter-day global competition and international measures of student performance that are driving reform efforts. Teacher strikes and demonstrations are not new in Mexico, but issues raised by today's protesting teachers represent a combination of…

The transformation of the historical functions and goals of the European university is producing the transition from mass university to what has been called "corporate university". With this goal, I will examine how the new functions of the university are aimed at providing services and precarious workers to the labor structure of…

The authors have investigated teachers' reactions towards an imposed reform initiated by the Israeli Ministry of Education in collaboration with one of two teachers' unions based on the messages and letters sent by high school teachers to an internet forum during a teachers' strike which took place between October and December of 2007. This study…

This paper considers the history of Québec's higher education system and the reforms that have contributed to the role of education in the province. Québec's education system has repeatedly been a site for social and political transformation; most recently, reevaluation of education's role in the province has revealed a tension between…

In October 2012, Premier Christy Clark announced government would consult with the education partners for the purpose of reviewing teacher bargaining structures and processes with the goal of providing a more stable learning environment for British Columbia students. The review looked for opportunities to achieve two priorities: (1) Create…

This article takes as its starting point a strike among African trainee literacy workers in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1952. While the existing literature tends to concentrate on the tensions and contradictions in British colonial education policy, this article uses the strike to investigate how these agendas were…

In this paper we describe a qualitative research project conducted at a public elementary school in a rural community in Guatemala. From analysis of interviews with teachers and the school administrator, we found that a key concern of participants was how they viewed the increasingly problematic relationship between their local educational…