“I am making myself remember that awful time”: Juvenilia, Hiroshima, and the Politics of Peace

In 1951, Asata Orada, a professor of education at Hiroshima University, took on the grim task of collecting first-hand accounts from children who had survived the atomic bombing of August 6, 1945. Of the over 1000 testimonials he received, he compiled 105 into Genbaku no ko: Hiroshima no shonen to shojo no uttae [Children of the A-Bomb: The Testament of the Boys and Girls of Hiroshima], a book meant to honour the dead and make a bold contribution to peace education. This article argues that children’s writing about the atomic bombing was implicated in multiple, interrelated political projects. The first section examines the writers’ work of navigating the meaning of their survival, as well as Japan’s new pacifist identity; some of the children express ambivalence or even distrust toward this new national script. The second section picks up the more explicit politics that the children’s stories came to represent. The left-leaning Japan Teachers’ Union sponsored two films based on the book, but neither fully achieved the goal of communicating both the deplorable intensity of war and the spiritual imperative of peace to a broader audience. The third section dwells on the extent to which children fought to articulate their grief, and focuses on the unwilling writer, an unusual figure in juvenilia studies. The children were asked to sublimate their pain into the work of peace, but their writing testified instead to an experience that defied articulation altogether, and to a need for resolution that was ultimately beyond their ability or responsibility to deliver. Through Children of the A-Bomb, juvenilia studies can recognize children’s writing as a tool for political action, a site of traumatic memory, and also a fundamentally limited form of communication that could only know the surface of human pain, and leave readers wondering at the soundless depths below.

Teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty: COVID-19 and education in the Global South

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing education inequities, further marginalising those with poor and limited education opportunities, particularly in conflict, fragile, and insecure contexts. In the Global South, the COVID-19 pandemic compounds existing crises, frailties, and inequities as the impoverished suffer food insecurity, physical conflict, and crises of health and water. Existing research suggests that the pandemic has further disadvantaged marginalised communities, weakened learner performance, increased learning losses, and stretched already strained education budgets. However, little is known about the role of teachers in the policymaking process relating to matters that have a direct impact on their work. It is this gap that we address in this paper. Drawing on research, commissioned by the Open Society Foundation and Education International, based on a detailed desk-based review and interviews with purposefully selected Teachers' Union and Government officials in eight African countries, we examine the role of teachers in education policy-making processes and the kinds of support made available to them, or the lack thereof, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the conceptual framing of de Sousa Santos's sociology of absences and cognitive injustice, we demonstrate that teachers have been absent from policymaking processes and have not been adequately provided with the necessary professional development (PD) and psychosocial support to navigate the uncertainties and pedagogical requirements imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Union Affiliation and Civic Engagement: Teachers in Bogotá, Colombia

ABSTRACTDo labor unions still motivate their members to participate in politics, or have social and economic changes undermined their political importance? This question is important to revisit, as globalization and economic reform have weakened many popular sector organizations in Latin America, reducing some to mere patronage machines. This article examines the case of the teachers’ union in Bogotá, Colombia to assess whether and how labor unions are able to promote the political activation of their members. Employing a multimethod research design that begins with a quantitative analysis of a survey of Colombian teachers, this study finds that union affiliation is associated with higher levels of motivation to vote. It then uses evidence from interviews to show how union advocacy and internal elections for leadership positions shape political behavior, contributing to civic engagement. This research engages with broader debates about democratic quality and political representation in contemporary Latin America.

Analogic Perspective-Taking and Attitudes Toward Political Organizations: An Experiment with a Teachers’ Union

Attitudes toward social out-groups can be improved through “analogic perspective-taking,” whereby respondents are encouraged to use an analogy to take the perspective of the group. It is unclear, however, whether analogic perspective-taking can improve attitudes toward political organizations; how perspective-taking fares compared to the provision of narrative alone; and the limits of the attitude changes it creates. We report results from an experiment that tested analogic perspective-taking exercises about members of teachers’ unions. While perspective-taking improves attitudes toward unions, union members, and willingness to pay more in education taxes, it also increases support for some antiunion policies. A second study suggests that the bidirectional policy effects are attributable to subjects’ difficulty distinguishing pro- from antiunion policies. Analogic perspective-taking can improve attitudes toward social and political groups. But narrative exchange is not always superior to narrative provision, and both approaches may yield mixed effects on policy attitudes.

Multi-Sector Collaboration in Legal Protection for Teachers and Students Amidst of Covid-19 Pandemic (Case of Mirit Kebumen, Indonesia)

The Covid-19 pandemic has become one of the most unexpected problems, and has had a significant impact on all sectors. Not only the health sector, but also education. The pandemic is forcing all parties to change the pattern and method of education, as well as forcing them to adapt quickly. Various learning process activities are carried out online, but various research results show the weaknesses of this method. Starting from the effectiveness of the learning process, dependence on communication devices (cell phones and laptops), to various legal problems faced by teachers, students, and parents of students. This service program aims to provide reinforcement in terms of protection for teachers and students during the pandemic by involving multi-sectors (Universities-Legal Aid Institutions-Teachers' Union). The partner in this activity is the Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI) in Mirit District, Kebumen Regency, Central Java. The implementation method in this service uses several things, namely: (1) socialization, (2) education, (3) legal assistance, (4) partner networks. Through this service program, it is hoped that in addition to realizing collaboration between institutions: the Faculty of Law UNNES-LBH-PGRI, it is also hoped that this activity can provide encouragement for teachers in increasing the capacity of legal assistance.

Role of Teachers' Union in Professional Development of Teachers in the Public Universities of Nepal

This paper focuses on the role of teachers' union in the professional development of teacher in the public universities of Nepal. To date no worth mentioning impression about the activities of teachers’ union in the professional development of teachers has been observed. Hence, this paper explores the affirmative role of the union in the professional development of its members. In the course of this study, in-depth interview was carried out for the collection of the data and thematic analysis was done for analysis and interpretation. The participants in this research were five leaders from different teachers’ unions and two members as beneficiaries from the union. It has been found that the teachers’ union works as a platform for sharing knowledge and skills among the teachers, and it also makes the existing teachers as well as the newly appointed teachers aware of the recent development in the field of teaching and learning in the global education ambiance. Moreover, the use of different available networks facilitates in encouraging the academic actions that eventually supports in the professional enhancement of the teachers.

Reframing the narrative: Renewing power resources and capabilities in union campaigns for public education

Neoliberal logics have put teacher unions on the defensive, requiring evaluation of the resources and capabilities necessary to improve teachers’ industrial and professional conditions and broader public education issues. This article examines the case of a teachers' union in Australia – the NSW Teachers’ Federation – and their renewal of resources and capabilities in recent public education campaigns. In applying a power resources and capabilities framework to the analysis of two prominent campaigns, this article develops the argument for renewal of power resources and capabilities through mobilising and transforming narrative resources and reframing public education issues in order to challenge ideological narratives around public education, build discursive power and sustain influence within a neoliberal environment.

Perpetuating Social Injustice Through Neglecting the Voices of the Non-Unionized Teachers

The democratic dispensation elevated teacher trade unionism to unparalleled and unprecedented levels in the South African education system. The education laws of South Africa recognize teacher unions which meet the South African labor-related requirements. The three powerful teacher unions that recognize and represent thousands of teachers are the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa (NAPTOSA), and the Suid Afrikaanse Onderwysersunie (SAOU). These recognized teacher unions represent their members in decision making processes and not teachers who are non-union members. This chapter is based on an in-depth evaluation of extant literature, and further, it is interpretive in approach and employs social justice as the theoretical and conceptual framework.

The Effect of Teachers’ Union Contracts on School District Efficiency: Longitudinal Evidence From California

While the effect of teachers’ unions on school districts continues to be debated, the research literature provides few definitive conclusions to guide these discussions. In this article, we examine the relationship between teachers’ union contracts and school district efficiency. We define efficiency as the ratio of short-run productivity (student performance on standardized exams) to expenditures. We estimate a series of school district fixed effect models using measures of district collective bargaining agreement (CBA) restrictiveness tied to longitudinal outcomes. We find that CBA restrictiveness is positively associated with expenditures on students, instruction, instruction support services, and teacher and administrator salaries over time. We find no significant relationship between CBA restrictiveness and student achievement. Finally, we find a negative relationship between CBA restrictiveness and district efficiency. Given the small magnitude of our effect sizes, we conclude that weakening union rights may not produce large gains in efficiency and may come at substantial political costs.