Moving against and beyond neoliberal higher education in Ireland

The chapter explores the impact of neoliberalism on Irish society and higher education (HE) and how this has been resisted. Taking a critical realist approach it seeks to analyse neoliberalism in HE in a way that is neither simplistic nor politically immobilising. It outlines the trajectory of neoliberal ideas in Ireland and their impact on higher education especially in the wake of the Great Recession. Most research on this topic neglects questions of agency and resistance. Thus, the main concern of the chapter is to document and analyse the various ways neoliberalism has been resisted in Irish higher education by staff, students and through social movement campaigns. It draws on mixed methods and qualitative research alongside documentary analysis for this purpose. The chapter concludes with reflections on how this resistance might be strengthened in the future by building alliances in order to reimagine the university.

Adult basic education in Australia: in need of a new song sheet?

Adult Basic Education (ABE) emerged in Australia as an organic, practitioner-driven field motivated by social justice concerns; however, neoliberal ethos has now overtaken the driver’s seat of the field. The changes in ABE from a practitioner led provision to what remains now is a story covering over four decades. Ironically, however, what has been most impactful in recent years is the absence of an identifiable policy. Tracing the ABE’s trajectory into a policy vacuum, and analysing the difficulty this vacuum presents for activists within the field, the chapter points to possibilities of resistance that may strengthen and restore an ethos of social justice in the field.

The marginalisation of popular education: 50 years of Danish adult education policy

Drawing on Biesta’s distinction between three functions of education: qualification, socialisation and subjectification, the chapter traces adult education policy in Denmark from the 1960s to the 2010s. Based on analysis of policy papers, we show how adult education policy during the past 50 years has developed from a combined focus on all three functions of education to a dominant focus on qualification from a human capital perspective, subordinating socialisation and subjectification to the idea of integration into the labour market and being employable. By shedding light on changes in adult education policies, we aim to question today’s language of economic necessity and technocratic inevitability in relation to adult education policy and to evoke a discussion about what adult education should be good for. The historical reading of Danish adult education policy, thus, serves as a resistant act by showing that adult education can be and has been thought otherwise.

Nourishing resistance and healing in dark times: teaching through a Body-Soul Rooted Pedagogy

For centuries, schooling has enacted trauma and cultural erasure. Today, the neoliberal corporate ‘reform’ agenda contributes to destabilizing communities and separating educators, children, and families from the power education holds to unlock inquiry, creativity, connectedness, and agency toward resistance. Authors shape a pedagogical framework for use across teacher education and schools utilizing Chicana Feminist and Indigenous epistemologies. In earlier work, authors posit six tenets of Body-Soul Rooted Pedagogy galvanizing resistance/resilience mechanisms enduring in body, spirit, and land to transform education. Here, we forward Tenet 6, which shapes a hopeful, healing, regenerative pedagogy for the traumas of U.S. schooling.

Countering dull pedagogies: the power of teachers and artists working together

Neoliberal education policies, with their press for audit friendly checkpoints, produce dull pedagogies. In schools, the monotony of three-part lessons, shallow knowledges and multiple-choice testing produces underachievement and undermines the quality of teaching and learning. We describe the ways in which artists can work with teachers to resist the default practice of dullness. We focus in particular on the ontological, epistemological, ethical and redistributive underpinnings of arts-based pedagogies, arguing that it is these, rather than any particular techniques, that counter the underwhelming and inequitable effects of bland, rule-driven schooling.

The employability skills discourse and literacy practitioners

This chapter shows how the human capital model of knowledge that is embedded in transnational and national policies has led, in literacy programmes, to a focus on skills at the expense of wider goals. However, practitioners have resisted this discourse of deficit to some extent by a shared understanding of what is good practice, clear views of their underpinning value system and creative ways of delivering pre-set outcomes.

Rethinking adult education for active participatory citizenship and resistance in Europe

Based on the preliminary results of the European research project EduMAP the chapter discusses the widely recognised yet weakened position of active participatory citizenship and its role in the current debate on the responsibility of adult education as a medium for empowerment and emancipation from prioritised neo-liberal values. The initial focus is on the various problems faced by adult education in Europe. Adult education as a means to achieve active participatory citizenship is then discussed suggesting that it is important to examine the educational implications of relevant theories and practices on citizenship. The paper concludes by suggesting that the current discussion on the challenges European societies face today, must acknowledge the need for adult education to be reformulated in ways that are enriched by diversity and the wide range of learning contexts and communicative practices that pose new challenges.

Strategies of resistance in the neoliberal university

Major changes are taking place in the UK university sector as HE is transformed into a high value commodity on the international market. These changes impact strongly on the day-to-day experience, relationships and identities of academic staff. This chapter reports on an interview study of academics’ writing practices in three UK Universities and three disciplines. Despite ample and vivid evidence of stress, acceleration of work, loss of autonomy and deteriorating working conditions we found little trace in our data of organized, collective resistance. However, there were many examples of tactical and symbolic workarounds and of staff holding on to core disciplinary values and vocational commitments. The chapter suggests that the framework of "everyday resistance" as proposed and documented in many contexts by Scott and others helps us to understand these reactions and how they reflect high levels of discomfort and wider frustration with the directions in which universities are moving.

Resisting the neoliberal: parent activism in New York State against the corporate reform agenda in schooling

Over the last two decades, parents and community members in New York have increasingly resisted the neoliberal corporate reform agenda in schooling, including rejecting high-stakes testing. The parent-led opt-out movement in New York State has successfully opted around 20% of eligible students out of the Common Core state standardized tests over the last three years. To understand how a parent-led grassroots movement has achieved such political success, this chapter focuses on the two most influential opt-out organizations in New York State, the New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) and Long Island Opt Out (LIOO). The chapter investigates how they used social media and horizontal grassroots organizing strategies to gain political success, along with vertical strategies pressuring the legislature and Board of Regents. Our research reveals that parents in New York are reclaiming their democratic citizenship role in influencing their children’s public schooling and rejecting the corporate reform agenda.

Everyday activism: challenging neoliberalism for radical library workers in English higher education

The purpose of this chapter is twofold: to examine the political position of academic librarianship in the context of recent changes in English Higher Education and to explore existing and emergent moments of radical educational possibility. Firstly, we argue for critical attention being paid to the university library – a site often perceived as self-evident, neutral, predictable – and highlight ways in which the work of the library has been affected by processes of neoliberalisation. Secondly, we investigate Radical Librarians Collective (RLC), an open, horizontalist organisation of library workers and supporters, as a potential site through which to counter these developments and foster radical alternatives. RLC’s successes are primarily within its aims to provide solidarity, space for discussion, and mutual aid nationally between like-minded library workers, and its support for everyday workplace practices of resistance. We conclude with suggestions for the collective’s development which focus on structure and local action.