“All kids matter”? Catholic institutional advocacy for federal COVID relief funding for non-public schools

This article explores the policy interests expressed by the largest private educational system in the United States, American Catholic schools, during the first four months of the COVID-19 crisis. Critical discourse analysis is applied to public texts produced by the Catholic Church between March 1 and July 1, 2020, in order to understand the discursive strategies through which this institution constructs meaning in the policy arena. This analysis illustrates how Catholic leaders use language to make racialized and low-income students “discursively invisible.” The author documents a significant change in policy discourse, from neoconservative logics to neoliberal ones, which corresponds directly to political signaling from the Trump Administration. Drawing on critical race theory, the author suggests implications for policymakers and stakeholders.

Developing, Implementing, and Learning From a Student-Led Initiative to Support Minority Students in Communication Sciences and Disorders

Purpose The Student Equity & Inclusion Workgroup is a student-led initiative at The University of Kansas that aims to advance equity and inclusion. Within this structure, the workgroup is entirely student-led and independent of any institutional initiatives. It has developed three themes— recognizing minority student leadership, ensuring equitable access to opportunities, and meaningfully supporting students—and used those themes to develop comprehensive programming in research, institutional advocacy, mentorship, and fellowship. Research initiatives included creating research opportunities for minority students by developing independent research projects. Institutional advocacy initiatives focused on policy change and developing a uniquely situated network of allies at and beyond the university. Mentorship centered student-to-student transmission of knowledge, skills, and support. Fellowship entailed creating opportunities for community building and recognition of minority student excellence. Conclusions Student-led initiatives such as those of the workgroup may be an effective way of supporting minority students in communication sciences and disorders. Institutions endeavoring to advance equity and inclusion should consider empowering students through facilitation of self-directed development, using institutional supports to support minority students on their terms, and recognizing students as capable partners in rethinking equity and inclusion.

‘The real power must be in the base’ – Decentralised collective intellectual leadership in the European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City

The ongoing commodification of housing and urban space in Europe has led to the formation of a burgeoning housing movement, consisting of large anti-eviction networks in Southern Europe, as well as tenants’ unions and right-to-the-city networks in Central and Northern Europe. These different forms of housing activism have become increasingly connected at the transnational level, primarily due to the work of the ‘European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City’. Consisting of activist groups from over 20 different countries, this coalition facilitates mutual exchange, organises collective campaigns and has begun engaging in institutional advocacy at the European Union level. It steadily expands in size and tactical repertoire, aiming to develop a more unified transnational strategy for attaining affordable and self-determined living space across Europe. Drawing on the writings of Antonio Gramsci, this article makes the case that the ‘European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City’ increasingly performs the function of a ‘collective intellectual’ that organises a transnational struggle against neoliberal hegemony. Based on qualitative analyses of documents, interviews and field notes, it demonstrates that the ‘European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City’ exhibits a counter-hegemonic perspective that opposes neoliberal capitalism as a whole and manages to facilitate mutual solidarity across different activist communities explicitly on the basis of class struggle. At the same time, instead of organising a democratic centralist political project the ‘European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City’ pursues a more decentralised approach to collective intellectual leadership that prioritises domestic struggles, yet also lacks a cohesive long-term strategy.

The Public Institution Presidency

Public college and university presidents must navigate the political and social structures associated with state legislatures to ensure that policymakers provide acceptable levels of institutional funding and develop policies beneficial to higher education. Yet, few presidents are prepared for their political and institutional advocacy roles. This chapter presents an analysis of the challenges facing public institution presidents and how advocacy strategies can be used to advance their institutional agendas.

The Valleys Project Archive

Ffotogallery's photographic survey and archive The Valleys Project was initiated at a time of significant social and economic upheaval in south east Wales. This article explores the contexts for the establishment of the project in the early 1980s and how it was subsequently shaped by political and institutional advocacy as well as the emerging importance of creative photographic practice as a recognized independent activity in the UK and beyond.