Many political and economic forces are driven by the desire to eliminate democratic plurality in today's political juncture. Democratic republicanism itself in its contemporary forms has failed to address many of the daunting moral, political, economic, social, technological, and ecological challenges we face today. It is argued that to fulfill…

This article describes the work of a civic education program in New York City schools called Youthbuilders, which existed from 1938 to 1948. Youthbuilders' aim was to engage youth in civic education projects and teach them about their place in a democracy and worked with them to support racial and social equality. Shortly after World War II, they…

At the core of the intractability of racism is the persistent cultivation of our collective ignorance of it. This book argues that this cultivated ignorance compels us to support a status quo that we abhor. We are stuck because we cannot imagine a world beyond racism. We are also stuck because engaging with issues of racism with others usually…

In this chapter, the editor reflects on the contributions of each chapter envisioning what social justice adult education, grounded in critical frameworks for democratic social change and social movement learning, could look like.

Teacher education programs worldwide have adopted the goal of promoting an inquiry stance among teacher candidates. Such programs commonly ground teacher candidates' clinical practice in practitioner inquiry -- a cyclical, systematic, and intentional process supported by inquiry communities. While democratic and justice-oriented purposes are…

In this essay we explore how pernicious social narratives affect schooling and suggest rethinking leadership may ameliorate issues of injustice in education. We reject the idea that school leaders must necessarily be politicians who serve as bureaucratic management-oriented functionaries. We claim instead they are intellectual leaders who might…

Global and societal changes present profound challenges and complexities for the future of music education practice and research. In these times of rapid change, four members of the MER editorial board reflect on the need to challenge normalising discourses of music education and encourage new understandings and/or territories within the field. In…

This paper considers what decolonizing film education might mean through a series of research initiatives undertaken across different cultures which explore social media platforms for creating moving image sequences. The paper attends to three factors in the current climate of education: the accessibility of the medium, its immediacy in…

After decades of a savage global capitalist nightmare both in the United States and around the globe, the mobilizing passions of fascism have been unleashed unlike anything we have seen since the 1930s. The denial of the most basic elements of neoliberal fascism appears more difficult in the age of mass pandemics. Neoliberal violence now takes…

Within the past century in North America, Europe, and elsewhere, brief episodes of student political activism and protest have alternated with much longer periods of apparent apathy and social conformity (fringe elements of artistic bohemianism notwithstanding). This article looks to the ideological origins of student protest in the Marxist…

This article highlights both the internal educative practices of social movements and how these practices can effectively link to building Freirean pedagogies within higher education institutions. At the heart of this possibility lies the democratic transformation of relations between students and teachers on the one hand and researchers and…

Providing a critical look at how it is possible for institutions of higher education to go beyond the institutional constraints that plague the neo-liberal university, the authors of this volume explore the powerful role of transformative university-based research and education. An emerging global network of concerned teachers and researchers who…

This paper examines Theodor W. Adorno's notion of democratic pedagogy and the role of emotions in re-educating and democratizing a society, particularly in light of the current political situation in many countries around the world in which right-wing extremism is on the rise. The paper revisits Adorno's educational thought on critical…

The literature portrays globalisation as a 'Janus-like phenomenon', implying that it has two 'heads' like the mythical giant Janus; beyond the rise of hyber-liberalism, xenophobia and socio-economic inequity, globalisation has also humanistic and democratic elements. In this context, a global agenda of social justice and equity of educational…

Research demonstrates the benefits of educating for social justice in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) programs. This body of research shows that social justice pedagogy enables student teachers to create a sense of social agency and community purpose in their teaching that positions them with more certainty when facing the political…