The educational historian Brian Simon is well known for his portrayal of the social and political conflicts surrounding adult working-class education in 19th and early 20th-century England. However, the third and fourth volumes of his classic history of education in Britain, covering the period from 1920 to 1940 and 1940 to 1990 respectively,…

"Dialectic Materialism as a Method of Doing Education" - was written over 30 years ago by one of us -- Huebner. Following an interesting dialogue we had over the last years, Dwayne suggested co-re-writing a revised piece to be published under both names. It explores at greater length the ideas that structured the initial piece and offers…

The antagonism between "class" and "race" have plagued educational theory for decades. As a communist organizer seeking to move Marxist educational theory out of the stagnant waters of theoretical debates, I turn to recent CRT scholarship, which I find much more in line with the communist project. Yet, this literature omits…

This paper aims at discussing the characteristics of the Brazilian K-12 educational system using contributions from the Italian scholar Antonio Gramsci. His writings about education discuss the effects of unequal distribution of educational opportunities among students of different social classes and the consequences of this inequality on the…

In this position article, we tackle fungibility, precariousness and separateness in the academia. Speaking as young humanities and social sciences scholar in North America, we argue that the current neoliberal conditions in higher education can be understood as alienation from work in the Marxian sense. Hence, the kind of intervention that…

On October 16, 2017, over 12,000 faculty, librarians, and counsellors in 24 independent postsecondary colleges in Ontario, Canada went on strike for the fourth time since they organized in 1971 as members of the Civil Service Association of Ontario and won their first collective agreement the next year. Begun as an apolitical, self-consciously…

Using the 'medical' framework (symptoms, diagnosis and prescription) in Schwab's the Practical 1 article, I analyze the current state of contemporary curriculum theorizing as a result of the reconceptualist movement. I argue that curriculum theorizing is in serious crisis due to the loss of the original subject of curriculum studies--practice and…

In this article I focus on the differences between social democratic and Marxist education theory and policy and proceed to distinguish between Classical Marxism and two-types of neo-Marxist analysis (`Culturalist' and `Structuralist'). I then set out what I consider to be five key questions Marxists ask about education policy. relate to: (i)…

While the loss of space for critical engagement has been a primary focus for critics of the neo-liberal transformation of higher education, the recasting of the relationship between education and economy has not meant the death of critical thinking. Instead, I argue that critical thinking has emerged as a binding point in higher education…

This paper outlines a theory of radical democratic education by addressing a key concept in Laclau and Mouffe's Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: articulation. Through their concept of articulation, Laclau and Mouffe attempt to liberate Gramsci's theory of hegemony from Marxist economism, and adapt it to a political sphere inhabited by a plurality…

To date research and scholarship on privatisation in education lacks critical depth and intensity. Many accounts have been largely descriptive, focusing on how privatisation takes places, or on the threat of privatisation, or its insertion within education systems. Furthermore, work on educational commodification has been substantially dissociated…

FORUM invited Melissa Benn and Jane Martin to interview Clyde Chitty, a brilliant and effective classroom and university teacher, one of the most well-known advocates of comprehensive education, a long-standing member of FORUM's editorial board, and for two decades co-editor of the publication. It was Michael Armstrong who called him 'the patron…

Having challenged student resistance scholarship for glorifying forms of resistance that tend to be self-destructive to students, the field has shifted to supporting and advancing more transformational forms of resistance, such as organizing campaigns for social justice issues. While this is a welcome advance, the conception of transformative…

In this article Paul Warmington examines the dystopian analyses pervading recent work by David Blacker, John Marsh, and Pauline Lipman. Their unsettling depictions of education under late capitalism bear witness to irreversible economic and environmental malaise, the colonization of education by neoliberalism, and the unsustainability of faith in…

In this article Clayton Pierce reviews three books representative of the recent neo-Marxist literature on education: David Blacker's "The Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame," John Marsh's Class Dismissed: "Why We Cannot Teach or Learn Our Way out of Inequality," and Pauline Lipman's "The New Political…