This paper explores the metonymic slippage surrounding the discourse of public education, through observations and interviews with Lawson High School active campaigners in the state of Victoria, Australia. The notion of campaigning for public education has become an ever-present issue on an international scale, and this article aims to contribute…

Drawing on a three-year multimethod study of civic engagement within "Dewey Elementary," this article identifies the contextual supports of civic efficacy. In particular, it works to map the role of the teacher in supporting the civic action and efficacy of six fifth-grade girls who requested changes to the school's existing lunch plan.…

This article has two major objectives: to describe the structure of the student movement in Canada and the formal role of students in higher education governance, and to describe and analyze the "Maple Spring," the dramatic mobilization of students in opposition to proposed tuition fee increases in Quebec that eventually led to a…

This paper analyses the current state of student representation in Russia as deeply rooted in the institutional structure of the Soviet higher education system. The study traces the origins of existing institutional arrangements for student representation at the level of university governance and analyses how representation practices have been…

Drawing on data from a historical-ethnographic study of the cultural politics of school desegregation in Seattle, USA, the author explores suffering as a recurring theme in the narratives of four black leaders, educators and activists involved in the struggle for black educational opportunity in that city during the post-Civil Rights Era. As these…

The 1968 Spainhower Commission planned extensive changes in the organization of public education in Missouri, proposing larger, comprehensive districts throughout the state. Intended to increase efficiency and reduce inequities, its reform proposals spurred widespread opposition from both rural and suburban communities. In the suburbs hostility…

For almost two decades, the Prairie School for Union Women (PSUW) has operated in Saskatchewan, Canada. Its use of feminist popular education, adult learning principles in facilitation, and mentoring and support for activist practices make it unique from other labour schools in many respects. This paper focuses on a community-based participatory…

The 2011 Chilean student movement was one of the most massive and original processes of social mobilization in Latin America in the last decade. Led by university students, the movement challenged the longstanding free-market orientation of educational policies in Chile, demanding a more active role for the State in the regulation and supply of…

"In areas like ours, everything we've ever had we fought for. It wasn't just handed to us," says Anna Hutchison, a community activist and one of the founders of the North Edinburgh Social History Group. For decades, Anna tells the author, the community has had to struggle for the basic amenities others in the city take for granted,…

Over the last 20 years, high-profile episodes of bullying have stirred up broad public alarm. This attention may appear to be merely trendy, but it's important. Bullying--commonly defined as systematic exclusion, aggression, or harassment that one child or a group of children inflicts on less powerful children--is pervasive in schools. Many…

This study examines how cultural codes in environmental adult education can be used to "frame" collective identity, develop counterhegemonic ideologies, and catalyse "educative-activism" within social movements. Three diverse examples are discussed, spanning environmental movements in urban Victoria, British Columbia, Canada,…

R.U. Ready? at Georgetown University is an annual sexual assault awareness event that incorporates peer education and resources with opportunities for students, staff, and faculty to dialogue about providing bystander intervention throughout the campus community. Beyond dialogue, participants learn about student activism and the resources and…

Before all the talk about "public intellectuals," Michael Walzer was one. For 50 years, he has gone back and forth between positions at Princeton and Harvard Universities and then at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, where he is now emeritus. His writings appear regularly in "Dissent" magazine, which he has co-edited for…

Examining the intersection of civic engagement and environmental literacy is particularly timely because 2012 marked a critical juncture in history: the United Nations Literacy Decade ended, and a 20-year appraisal of the United Nation's Earth Summit commenced. The Literacy Decade, launched in 2003 under the slogan "Literacy as Freedom," situated…

The present article explores the way children engaged with the buraku issue in Japan shape the collective discourses concerning the "buraku minority identity", and re-design the "Otherness", through being rooted in non-ethnic and universal standards, such as local attachment, socioeconomic values, community and family-based…