In 2019, Poland experienced a massive teachers' strike that lasted three weeks. Although the strike had a great impact on many teachers, in the end, this three-week action failed to obtain any of its demands. Using the concepts of workers' associational power and union legitimacy, I argue that one of the reasons for the loss was a crisis of…

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…

Teacher unions are working in challenging times. Building power is important for teacher unions to resist neoliberal reforms that have aimed to restructure school education and weaken collective organisation. Yet we have few understandings of the democratisation project that teacher unions have engaged in to build and renew internal power in this…

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…

Purpose: School climate strikes are opening spaces of appearance, becoming differently active forms of public pedagogy where new and previously unthought collective climate action is possible. This inquiry contributes to understanding school climate strikes as important forms of climate justice activism by exploring how they work as public…

This article will explain how a series of educator strikes in 2022 in Ghana led to increased awareness of and calls for tax justice and debt relief from a growing movement of public sector workers and civil society organisations. We chart how the issues and demands of teacher organisations and other public sector workers shifted and increased over…

Teacher unrest is an important research object in the literature on teacher unionism in Latin America. This article makes a novel contribution to this traditional topic, presenting statistical data on primary and secondary teacher strikes in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico from 2012 to 2022. This approach highlights important differences in strike…

The School Strike for Climate campaign led to public discussion about children's political participation. Children are generally excluded from formal political systems, however this campaign challenges mainstream attitudes that children are not sufficiently competent to participate in politics. This paper presents an analysis of Australian…

The 'demand for justice' is a long-standing principle of Oaxaca's Sección 22 union chapter, which has led a teachers' movement since the 1970s that has evolved to meet changing social, political, and economic circumstances. Various researchers around the globe have increasingly linked notions of justice with education, exploring terms like social…

Labour strife in the education sector in Ontario has repeatedly highlighted the precariousness of certain types of teaching and learning that are delivered under the catch-all designation extracurricular. This paper reviews education legislation in Ontario over the past 40 years that has impacted teachers' right to strike; examines how teacher…

We explore a site of unplanned, informal critical pedagogy and how raising critical consciousness occurs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many students in England were required to pay rent for accommodation they could not occupy, or which offered reduced amenities. These undergraduates, who were largely first years, had yet to meet each other.…

The climate strikes of 2019 motivated millions worldwide onto the street and provided a platform for youth voices that demanded global climate action. This article explores the experiences of climate strike leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand questioning the motivational factors behind the youth action. In-depth interviews with 15 climate strike…

Unions have played a decisive role in promoting democracy and social justice in Tunisia. In 2023, two teacher unions led a yearlong 'silent strike' of withholding student marks from administration. Based on interviews with 60 teachers, this article analyses teacher views on the unions and on ongoing protests. While unions are still considered the…

This article investigates the impact of economic inequality and educational background in shaping how non-activist "standby" youth in London experience environmental politics. Focus groups were carried out with 33 young people aged 16 to 22 in three groups from higher and lower positions of socio-economic status and educational…

The School Strike 4 Climate New Zealand (SS4CNZ) movement have organised and led four strikes between 2019 and 2021. With each successive strike, adult support for students' demands increased. Their most notable achievement was garnering sufficient support to pass Aotearoa New Zealand's Zero Carbon Bill into legislation. However, tensions with…