Callum Mcgregor

Towards a radical digital citizenship in digital education

ABSTRACT In this article, we attempt to define and explore a concept of ‘radical digital citizenship’ and its implications for digital education. We argue that the ‘digital’ and its attendant technologies are constituted by on-going materialist struggles for equality and justice in the Global South and North which are erased in the dominant literature and debates in digital education. We assert the need for politically informed understandings of the digital, technology and citizenship and for a ‘radical digital citizenship’ in which critical social relations with technology are made visible and emancipatory technological practices for social justice are developed.

Direct climate action as public pedagogy: the cultural politics of the Camp for Climate Action

Discourse theory is employed to analyse the public curriculum generated through the Camp for Climate Action. This movement emerged as a germinal response to tensions within the dominant discourse on ‘Climate Action’ by articulating it into a broader history of civil disobedience and staging spatial interventions that ostensibly identified the root causes of climate change. This generated learning opportunities over time for both activists and the wider public. However, this attempted redefinition of ‘Climate Action’ was threatened by coercive state action, which sought to link it with ‘domestic extremism’. Tensions emerged between ‘liberal’ and ‘radical’ participants as the meaning of ‘Climate Action’ once again became contested. The article concludes by exploring the implications of these tensions for the movement’s pedagogical efforts.

From social movement learning to sociomaterial movement learning? Addressing the possibilities and limits of new materialism

Abstract In recent years academic interest in social movement learning (SML) has flourished. Studies in the Education of Adults has arguably emerged as the premier international forum for exploring the links between adult learning and movements for progressive change. In parallel to this subfield, yet largely in isolation from it, Studies has fostered the development of sociomaterial approaches to adult education and lifelong learning studies. These approaches reflect a wider trend in the social sciences and humanities towards what has been termed ‘new materialism’. In what follows, I develop SML theory by considering what such perspectives have to offer. Firstly, I explore the similarities and differences between so-called new materialisms and historical materialism. Secondly, I explore what happens when social movement learning is redefined as sociomaterial movement learning. The final part addresses the ethico-political questions raised when SML is understood in sociomaterial terms.