How are grassroots activists analysing and contesting polic - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

How are grassroots activists analysing and contesting policy travel?

Karin

Doolan

, Department of Sociology, University of

Zadar

UNIKE Workshop 3: Policy Travel, Ljubljana, 7-11 July 2014Slide2

The student activist as policy analyst

„academic researcher, the doctoral student, the policy bureaucrat, the commissioned researcher, the freelance analyst for hire, the consultant researcher, the policy entrepreneur”

(Rizvi and

Lingard

, 2010: 46

);

Legitimacy derived from policy analysis training (expert: specialized technical knowledge, professional);

Adding another actor: the

„

amateur

”

policy analyst: student activist: legitimacy derived from first-hand experience. Slide3

Travel of education policy – travel of resistance (International week of action)

Austria (2009), Croatia (2009), California (2009), Ireland (2010), UK (2011), Nigeria (2011), Columbia (2011), Chile (2012), Canada (2012), South Korea (2012), Spain (2013), Italy (2013);

Protests against tuition fees;

Solomon and

Palmieri

(2011): „resistance against capitalism’s assault on students and the underprivileged”;

„Our long-term goal is to end the

neoliberalisation

of this society” (Independent Student Initiative, 2009). Slide4

Critical approach to education policy analysis

The

positionality

of the analyst needs to be made clear;

Needs to determine how the problem is historically constituted, including broader discursive policy settlements (assumptions built into policy on a temporal dimension);

Needs to take account of globalization processes (large spatial frame);

Suggest how policy could be otherwise: „offer an alternative social imaginary” (Rizvi and

Lingard

, 2010: 70): social justice;

Supported by empirical evidence. Slide5

Materials

Croatian

case

:

Skripta

: „study notes”;

76 documents: April 20, 2009-October 24, 2011;

1 A3 paper, text printed on both sides;

Student statements, interviews, translations of published texts, important information;

April 20, 2009:

Manifest: declaration + Q&A

;

Timetable of events;

Code of conduct;

Direct democracy. Slide6

Positionality of the student policy analyst in Croatia (Rizvi and

Lingard’s

call to reflexivity)

Temporal location: 2009, global economic crisis, austerity measures;

Spatial location: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (*Nussbaum, 2010);

Have an explicit normative agenda („articulating our own political demands”);

Raise the issue of whose interests are being served with particular education policies: is it just rather than is it efficient?

Position of the marginalised. Slide7

Discourse practice: Public-private

Education policy

Resistance

Commodification

of education.

„We will

not allow

public goods to be transformed into commodities

”

„

Commercialisation

is

not a value neutral process,

it changes the social purpose of educational institutions;

to reduce education to profit

criteria (in its camouflaged, euphemised variant of „economic efficiency”)

means to silently abolish its primary function”

„The only public space which is directly accessible

to us is that of the public institution in which we are being educated”

„

The state

cannot give over its role to private entrepreneurs

because through

privatisation

the university becomes an institutions primarily oriented to

profit-making

”

„articulating

public interest

”Slide8

Discourse practice: Right-privilege

Education policy

Resistance

„reckless

and

socially insensitive taking away

of that right” [right to education]

„the

right to education is a right that belongs to everyone

, independently from the financial status of the individual”

„

silently cancelling

the right to education

for everyone”

UN Declaration on Human RightsSlide9

Discourse practice: Inclusion-exclusion

Education policy

Resistance

„money is a form of social

power and a social force; introducing it as a selection criteria means using the mechanisms of social force in order to

socially exclude and disable the realisation of an important right

”

„Equality

is not

for sale

”

„such policies lead to further

societal fragmentation and polarisation

.

An even bigger gap is being created between the rich and poor, privileged and marginalised”Slide10

Social practice

Cultural context

Resistance

„attacking

trade unions, social institutions, healthcare etc. labelling them as „socialism”, the alternative being „

social

darwinism

in which

individual consumption and shopping centres

are supposed to compensate for the

abolishment

of…collective

solidarity

”

„

protecting

society from commercialization”;

„

defending

social interests from the socially destructive processes of commercialization and social polarisation according to income”

„aggressive representational

-media culture of the cult of

individualism

”

„fighting

for a

more just society

”Slide11

Learning process

Ball (1997): the importance of embedding education in a „set of more general economic and political changes”;

Assertiveness in advocating for change;

Rhetoric: student texts more engaged

, more

empowering

;

Globalisation of education policy/places that matter for policy are dispersed: who is the addressee of resistance (WB, OECD)?

Semi-periphery location(world-systems theory): specificities of the Croatian context (hybridity?);

Clarification of concepts;

Fine-grained empirical analysis?Slide12

How are grassroots activists analysing and contesting policy travel?

Karin

Doolan

, Department of Sociology, University of

Zadar

UNIKE Workshop 3: Policy Travel, Ljubljana, 7-11 July 2014