Early childhood education and care (ECEC) leaders are required to have training and experience, given the diversity of responsibilities they have to meet. This paper explores the participation of ECEC leaders in grassroot associations and teachers' unions. Following a qualitative methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 ECEC…

Professional educators--in the classroom, library, counseling center, or anywhere in between--share one overarching goal: ensuring all students receive the rich, well-rounded education they need to be productive, engaged citizens. In this regular feature, we explore the work of professional educators--their accomplishments and their challenges--so…

Public K-12 education in the United States is distinctively a local affair: school districts are governed by local boards of education, composed of lay members typically elected in non-partisan elections. These boards have decision-making power over hundreds of billions of public dollars and oversee complex agencies that, in addition to preparing…

This article argues for the importance of labor education in fighting the climate crisis, a vital form of education too often overlooked in the climate movement. Drawing on a case study of unionized culture workers in the United Kingdom, the article seeks to show the distinctive embedded nature of labor education. Success of labor education on the…

This article explores organisational infrastructure in the movement for safe schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on several qualitative studies of educator organising during the pandemic, this article shows that educators across the United States have organised through a range of social movement organisations, including national…

The question this article attempts to answer is, how can teacher unions take advantage of the opportunities afforded by their organizational structures while minimizing the factors that have stood in the way of educational and societal change? Drawing from examples of teacher unions' strategies from studies of several organizations outside of the…

Teacher organizing in the twenty-first century presents new and understudied challenges and opportunities for union leaders and members. In this article, we explore the structure and function of the secret Facebook group created and used by teachers in West Virginia (USA) prior to, during, and since their historic statewide strike in February…

Since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2016, there has been a rise in reported hate crimes across the country. This study focuses on how educator activists in the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE), the social justice caucus of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, and in the Caucus of Working…

On average, only about 16 percent of annual union dues paid by members in 19 Massachusetts public school districts stayed with local union chapters. The remaining 84 percent of dues revenue went directly to the state (Massachusetts Teachers Association) and national (National Education Association) union affiliates. But what about public higher…

The U.S. has witnessed a resurgence of labor activism, with teachers at the forefront. We examine how teacher strikes affect compensation, working conditions, and productivity with an original dataset of 772 teacher strikes generating 48 million student days idle between 2007 and 2023. Using an event study framework, we find that, on average,…

In 2019, the English government embarked upon revision to the statutory Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) document and to associated non-statutory guidance. At the time, concerns were raised that early childhood experts were insufficiently involved in drafting the document. Consequently, an Early Years Coalition of early childhood organisations…

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…

This article explores the relationship between unionization and academic freedom protections for sessional faculty in Ontario universities. Specifically, we compare university policies and contract provisions with a view to determining whether unionized sessionals hired on a per-course basis have stronger academic freedom protections than their…

This study investigated Nigeria's private university lecturers' welfare and their legal rights. The study adopted a doctrinal approach which enabled a proper examination of the extant laws applicable to a lecturer as an employee and the reviewed laws included: the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as Amended), Labour Act Cap…

As children grow and develop, child care workers play a vital role in fostering learning and providing support in a safe and nurturing environment. High-quality child care jobs, where workers are valued and respected, benefit both workers and the children and families they serve. Unfortunately, the United States has historically undervalued the…