Rebecca Tarlau

Education of the countryside at a crossroads: rural social movements and national policy reform in Brazil

This contribution explores the strategies used by popular movements seeking to advance social reforms, and the challenges once they succeed. It analyzes how a strategic alliance between the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) transformed the Ministry of Educations official approach to rural schooling. This success illustrates the critical role of international allies, political openings, framing, coalitions and state–society alliances in national policy reforms. The paper also shows that once movements succeed in advancing social reforms, bureaucratic tendencies such as internal hierarchy, rapid expansion and ‘best practices’ – in addition to the constant threat of cooptation – can prevent their implementation.

Coproducing Rural Public Schools in Brazil Contestation, Clientelism, and the Landless Workers’ Movement

The Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) has been the principal protagonist developing an alternative educational proposal for rural public schools in Brazil. This article analyzes the MST’s differential success implementing this proposal in municipal and state public schools. The process is both participatory—activists working with government officials to implement MST goals—and contentious—the movement mobilizing support for its education initiatives through various forms of protest. In some locations, the MST has succeeded in institutionalizing a participatory relationship with government actors, while in other regions the MST has a more limited presence in the schools or has been completely banned from participating. Drawing on the concept of coproduction—the active participation of civil society actors in the provision of public goods—the author argues that coproduction is a joint product of high levels of social mobilization and government orientation. The former is necessary in all cases, while the latter can take the form of either a left-leaning or clientelistic government.

Understanding rural resistance: contemporary mobilization in the Brazilian countryside

Contradictions between impressive levels of economic growth and the persistence of poverty and inequality are perhaps nowhere more evident than in rural Brazil. While Brazil might appear to be an example of the potential harmony between large-scale, export-oriented agribusiness and small-scale family farming, high levels of rural resistance contradict this vision. In this introductory paper, we synthesize the literature on agrarian resistance in Brazil and situate recent struggles in Brazil within the Latin American context more broadly. We highlight seven key characteristics of contemporary Latin American resistance, which include: the growth of international networks, the changing structure of state–society collaboration, the deepening of territorial claims, the importance of autonomy, the development of alternative economies, continued opposition to dispossession, and struggles over the meaning of nature. We argue that by analyzing rural mobilization in Brazil, this collection offers a range of insights relevant to rural contention globally. Each contribution in this collection increases our understanding of alternative agricultural production, large-scale development projects, education, race and political parties in the contemporary agrarian context.

Critical food systems education (CFSE): educating for food sovereignty

ABSTRACT Food systems education can help individuals and communities transition to more sustainable food systems. Despite the growing scholarship on food systems education, there is a paucity of critical perspectives on its pedagogical methods, learning outcomes, and overarching objectives. This article addresses this gap by integrating insights from critical pedagogy, food justice, food sovereignty, and agroecology, developing a new synthetic area of study and research entitled critical food systems education (CFSE). CFSE is composed of a tripartite perspective, consisting of praxis, policy, and pedagogy. This framework is guided by the following overarching question: How can food systems education prepare individuals and teachers to transform the food system, and help communities attain food sovereignty? Following a review of the food systems education literature, we highlight the constraints of the depoliticized approach by drawing attention to its race and class-based assumptions. We then construct a definition of CFSE, and articulate the theoretical and practical cornerstones of this perspective, which are drawn from critical pedagogy, food justice, food sovereignty, and agroecology. A case study of a seed sovereignty project at a vocational high school associated with Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement is used to exemplify how CFSE can contribute to educating for food sovereignty.

Education and Labor in Tension Contemporary Debates about Education in the US Labor Movement

This article examines the conflicting visions within the US labor movement about the proper function and implementation of labor education programs, and how educational programs are connected to union structure. While this article is primarily based on interviews with union officials, the article also draws on union documents and participant observation in union meetings and educational workshops. The author argues that an analysis of worker education programs is an appropriate entry point for drawing out the similarities and differences that exist about the goals, structure, and political values of different unions in the contemporary US labor movement.

If the past devours the future, why study? Piketty, social movements, and future directions for education

Abstract In 2014, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century rocked the economic and political world, with its argument that inequality is destined to increase; in the field of education, however, this book has been almost entirely ignored. I argue that Piketty’s treatise is relevant to educational theories for three reasons: his rejection of meritocracy contributes to theories of social mobility; his critique of human capital theory provides fodder for debates about educational purpose; and his interdisciplinary analysis supports the political economy tradition in education. However, I also argue that it is necessary to move beyond the economic determinism in Piketty’s arguments, to explore the transformative potential of education as a consciousness-raising process, the agency of communities, the production process, and alternative solutions to inequality. I argue that education scholars should use the renewed interest in inequality generated by Piketty’s book to shift the dominant discourses about education, schools, and social justice.

Thomas Piketty’s relevance for the study of education: reflections on the political economy of education

Beginning in the summer of 2008, the global financial crisis destroyed wealth across the world. Emanating from the world’s financial capital in New York City, as the financial institutions Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, the crisis rapidly influenced the financial well being and prosperity of people, businesses, and governments across the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe. The crisis exposed the harsh reality behind the rapid economic growth and wealth creation of the new millennium – it was predicated on levels of inequality unseen since the Great Depression. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century documents this landscape of rising wealth inequality in the twenty-first century. While inequality is not a new topic, the book’s unparalleled success came at a moment of political salience when inequality was at the forefront of academic conversations, political rhetoric, and social movement demands. Piketty’s arguments powerfully entered the public dialogue and served to reinforce the growing consensus that our global economic system is unjust and has led to unprecedented returns on wealth for a few and devastating, precarious conditions for most of the world’s population. Although the question of inequality is not a new topic in the field of education, Piketty’s economic treatise is an opportunity to revisit the question of education’s role in producing a more equal society in the twenty-first century. According to Piketty, the diffusion of knowledge and skills through education is an important ‘force for convergence’, but cannot overcome the powerful forces of divergence within capitalism that propel increasing inequality. This special issue is comprised of scholars who examine if, how, and to what extent Piketty’s analysis is useful for understanding contemporary relationships between inequality and educational policy and practice. The authors draw on, expand, reject, and/or critique Piketty’s arguments and proposals in light of empirical findings in their own research.

Gramsci as Theory, Pedagogy, and Strategy: Educational Lessons from the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement

In this chapter, I analyze the educational initiatives of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), one of the largest social movements in Latin America. Over the past three decades, MST leaders have developed a set of pedagogical and organizational proposals for education, which local activists attempt to implement in public schools across the country. I argue that the MST’s attempt to enter the state and govern public schools is not a form of cooptation but, rather, a strategic attempt to transform the civil society terrain, what Antonio Gramsci referred to as a “war of position.” This often leads to contradictions, tensions, and defeats, but these educational interventions are critical to the MST’s larger political struggle: garnering the moral and intellectual leadership of civil society for an alternative hegemonic project. In this chapter, I use the case of the MST to highlight what I see as Gramsci’s three educational contributions: (1) his deeply educational theory of the process of social change, (2) his analysis of the pedagogical process through which learning and education should take place, and (3) his suggestions about appropriate strategy when attempting to engage the state and transform public institutions, including school systems. I illustrate these three contributions through an analysis of Gramsci’s writings, returning continually to the case of the MST to show how Gramsci’s educational proposals are being implemented in the twenty-first century.

State Theory, Grassroots Agency, and Global Policy Transfer: The Life and Death of Colombia’s Escuela Nueva in Brazil (1997–2012)

This article analyzes the transfer and 15-year policy trajectory of Colombia’s “global best practice” Escuela Nueva in Brazil. This program, initially transferred to Brazil in 1997 with the help of the World Bank, was largely unknown for the first decade of its life span. Then, between 2008 and 2011, after the World Bank stopped funding the program, Escuela Nueva / Escola Ativa suddenly became one of the most well funded and controversial programs in the Brazilian Ministry of Education. Continual protest and unrest concerning the program led to its termination in 2012. This article argues that it is only possible to understand these developments through an explicit theory of the “contested” state, wherein the state’s purpose is understood as both social reproduction and mediating class conflicts. Drawing on the global policy transfer literature, this framework emphasizes the role of elite actors, transnational agencies, and grassroots mobilization in determining educational policy trajectories.

Book Review: Insurgency Trap: Labor Politics in Postsocialist China, by Eli Friedman

culture of “early exit” to an emphasis on prolonging working lives. The next two sections discuss the problem of the skills of older workers in changing labor markets and explore how workplaces should be redesigned to adapt to an increased proportion of older workers. The fourth part aims to clarify the concept of generations, especially its application to the workplace, arguing that the concept has been misused in the corporate human resources world. The final section considers the management of the labor supply in ageing societies, exploring the relationship between the ageing of the population and the ageing of the workforce. Taking for granted that the phenomenon of longer working lives has come to stay, Older Workers offers a series of recommendations for policy makers and employers. Author Charness poses that training older workers, who are less likely to shift firms, can be a good economic “investment.” Naegele suggests that life-cycle-oriented personnel policy for older workers (i.e., a policy adapted to the needs of older workers) would improve their employability. In order to remain competitive, given the coming supposed “shortage of talented workers,” Ilmarinem proposes that firms need to promote the “work ability” (i.e., personal resources, like health and education) of older workers. And Busch recommends alternative recruitment methods to increase the probability of hiring an older worker. There are also some original and important theoretical and conceptual observations. Marshall and Wells show convincingly that mainstream opinions about allegedly important differences in the behavior of generations in the workplace are exaggerated. Taylor and McLoughlin contend that the relationship between the ageing of the population and the ageing of the workforce is not one of direct causality, holding that “exclusionary policies affecting older workers are persistent” (p. 240). It is clear that the vast majority of recommendations in the book aim at improving the employment chances and the working and living conditions of older workers. Yet it is not clear how these recommendations can have any meaningful effect when lowquality jobs, job insecurity, and higher unemployment and underemployment are becoming the characterizing elements of a “new normal.” There is also a central contradiction that casts doubts about the effectiveness of these policy recommendations: governments and employers alike welcome and promote a higher retirement age, while workers, as a general obvious rule, oppose it. This fact alone makes clear that workers need to develop their own, class-based view on this important issue. Why do workers need to work longer? Is it mainly a consequence of demographic and economic forces? Or is it more a consequence of the declining power of labor? Older Workers does not address these questions, but it is a valuable reference for much-needed interventions on this issue that forcefully articulate the interests and needs of workers, young and older.