Popular Education Movement Research Articles

Shaping reflective political leaders

ABSTRACT Unlike many other countries, in Sweden there are more significant paths to political leadership than the university degree. Most Swedish political parties offer leadership training programmes that include practical and ideological content and several have a design rooted in the popular education movement. This article explores how party political training for leaders happens in practice, using data from interviews, surveys, text files and ethnographic field notes. Using reflection and ideology as theoretical concepts, the study shows how reflection is used for different aims, and how it can shape participants ideologically. Ideology, in terms of describing what is good, is communicated from the top down in these courses in a general way. In terms of showing what is possible and desirable to either legitimise or challenge, these programmes leave that open to negotiation among the participants, which implies a confidence in their competence by virtue of being elected. Allowing different interpretations risks undermining the party's ideological core; however, since popular education methods are not negotiated, participants are required to reflect deliberately and listen to each others views on the issues under discussion. This can be understood as a safety line as it most likely leads to self-sanitation from the party's perspective.

The Adventures of MouseGirl: An Undergraduate’s Perspective on her Data Visualization Project and the Need for STEAM in American Education

Abstract The author’s unique arts-science research experience involving data visualizations of complex mouse brain data leads her to recognize that education in America needs to adopt the increasingly popular STEAM education movement. This is a view that many others, both students and professors, increasingly share in the light of their own successes with learning and accessibility using STEAM methods. These successes also show the importance of incorporating the arts into STEM education. In this article, the author will discuss her data visualization in the context of advocating for the importance of STEAM education and collaborations in general.

Popular knowledge as popular power: struggle and strategy of the Emancipa popular education movement in Brazil

ABSTRACT This paper is a written dialogue among four activists from the Emancipa Popular Education Movement in Brazil, following the principles of Freirean pedagogy as a ‘circle of culture’. It delves into how popular knowledge can be experienced as popular power, narrating the history, struggles, and strategies employed by the Emancipa movement in their pursuit of democratizing Brazilian universities. The discussion is set within the context of Latin American structural inequalities and the issue of educational exclusion in Brazil. It emphasizes the vital role of contesting culture and knowledge as part of the movement’s fight against social injustices perpetuated by peripheral capitalism, including racist violence and gender oppression. The paper adopts emancipatory pedagogy as the method to empower and mobilize grassroots efforts in this transformative endeavour.

Ecke, pappa och jag

This paper describes the history of the rural labor movement in Sweden and its specific popular adult education through life stories. The project centers on the author’s father’s narrated memories of his childhood and the farmhand Erik Eriksson, called Ecke (1903-1996). Ecke was a rural worker with just a few years of schooling who was organized in the Swedish popular education movement for workers at his time. Through his dedication he changed the social aspirations for rural workers’ children in the area, amongst them the author’s own father. The paper draws on a walk along interviews with the author’s father, in order to examine how memory, place and social mobility are interlaced when visiting the intervieweeÅLs childhood homes and remembering Ecke and his deed.

Dr John Conolly: An Owenite in Disguise?

An in-depth reform of the asylum system took place in Great Britain from the 1830s onwards, under the influence of Dr John Conolly, who succeeded in imposing a new model at Hanwell pauper lunatic asylum, near London, a model that was more respectful of the patients and based on the abandonment of mechanical restraint (non-restraint) combined with occupational therapy. The success of this system at Hanwell, the largest asylum in the country with over a thousand inmates, contributed to the spread of what became a form of psychiatric orthodoxy for the next thirty years. Far from being a strictly medical measure, this reform was anchored in a general reform of poor relief. In this respect, it was in line with the Poor Law of 1834 (inspired by Jeremy Bentham, notably under the aegis of Edwin Chadwick, secretary of the Poor Law Commission). This reform was also part of a more political reflection on the extension of civil and social rights for the working classes, in particular under the impetus of John Conolly: his personality and his political commitments, in favour of Chartism, his participation in popular education movements such as the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and his links with Lord Brougham and Robert Owen make him a particularly representative figure of the reformers of the time, moving in complementary circles with porous boundaries. This study thus sets out to demonstrate the combined influence of utilitarianism and utopian socialism on lunacy reform and its implementation at Hanwell Asylum.

Territórios educativos na formação por alternância: escola - família - comunidade

Este artigo tem como objetivo dialogar sobre a Formação por Alternância e seus cotejos com a Educação Não Escolar. A metodologia adotada para este trabalho foi a pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, tendo como base a revisão da literatura em autores que tratam da teoria da Educação Não Escolar e da Pedagogia da Alternância. O Artigo aponta que o movimento de educação popular indica possibilidades de formação ampliando os territórios da educação, sendo a escola apenas um deles. A Pedagogia da Alternância praticada nas Escolas Família Agrícolas também apresenta concepções da escola para além dela. Os processos formativos desenvolvidos na formação por alternância nessas escolas rompem com lógicas ideológicas hegemônicas que limitam a territorialidade educativa ao âmbito escolar formal ao colocar em interação diferentes atores, tempos e territórios educativos. Ao propor novas metodologias para o desenvolvimento da práxis pedagógica pela interação escola e comunidade a Pedagogia da Alternância reconhece a pluralidade dos processos educativos desenvolvidos em diferentes tempos-espaços. Os processos formativos que envolvem as famílias e parceiros, assim como os processos educativos junto aos estudantes alternantes, extrapolam o território escolar, se expandem para outros territórios, a comunidade, os movimentos sociais, sindicais, organizações sociais, entre outros. Neste movimento, a escola é tensionada a reelaborar suas representações sobre o seu lugar de produção do conhecimento e assumir os demais lugares com suas dimensões educativas, ampliando a visão e o conceito de escola para além dela mesma. Palavras-chave: educação não escolar, territórios educativos, pedagogia da alternância. Education territories in Dual Education: school – family – community ABSTRACT. This article aims to discuss Dual Education and compare it to Non-School Education. It is based on bibliographic and documentary research, particularly considering the literature on Non-School Education and Dual Education (Formation en Alternance). It argues that the Popular Education movement points to learning possibilities by expanding the education territories, with school being just one of them. Dual Education as practiced in Agricultural Family Schools is instilled with a notion of school that goes beyond its walls. The Dual Education processes in those establishments break the hegemonic ideologies that confine education territoriality to formal school by allowing the engagement and interaction of different education actors, times, and territories. By proposing new methodologies for developing pedagogical praxis based on school–community interaction, Dual Education recognizes the plurality of training and learning processes developed in different times and spaces. The training and learning processes that involve families and partners, as well as those involving the students themselves, transcend the school territory by expanding school to the community, social movements, unions, social organizations, among others. As a result, the school is forced to re-elaborate its own representations of locus of knowledge production and to embrace other educational loci, i.e., to expand how it sees and conceives of itself. Keywords: non-school education, educational territories, alternation pedagogy. Territorios educativos en formación en alternancia: escuela - familia - comunidad RESUMEN. Este artículo tiene como objetivo dialogar sobre la Educación en Alternancia y sus colisiones con la Educación No Escolar. La metodología adoptada para este trabajo fue la investigación bibliográfica y documental, basada en la revisión de la literatura de autores que abordan la teoría de la educación no escolar y la pedagogía de la alternancia. El artículo señala que el movimiento de educación popular indica nuevas posibilidades de formación, ampliando los territorios de la educación, siendo la escuela solo uno de ellos. La Pedagogía de la Alternancia que se practica en las Escuelas Agrícolas Familiares también presenta conceptos de escuela más allá de ella. Los procesos formativos desarrollados en formación por alternancia en estas escuelas rompen con lógicas ideológicas hegemónicas que limitan la territorialidad educativa al ámbito escolar formal al poner en interacción diferentes actores, tiempos y territorios educativos. Al proponer nuevas metodologías para el desarrollo de la praxis pedagógica a través de la interacción entre escuela y comunidad, la Pedagogía de la Alternancia reconoce la pluralidad de procesos educativos desarrollados en diferentes tiempos-espacios. Los procesos de formación que involucran a familias y socios, así como los procesos educativos con los estudiantes alternos, van más allá del territorio escolar, se expanden a otros territorios, la comunidad, movimientos sociales, sindicatos, Organizaciones Sociales, entre otros. En este movimiento, la escuela se tensa para reelaborar sus representaciones sobre su lugar de producción de conocimiento y asumir los otros lugares con sus dimensiones educativas, expandiendo la visión y el concepto de escuela más allá de sí misma. Palabras clave: educación no escolar, territorios educativos, pedagogía de la alternancia.

Education for Black Liberation

Popular education has played a central role in Pan-African liberation struggles historically and in the present moment. In the period following African independence, social movements that emerged around and through education in Africa were informed by and in dialogue with related decolonial movements of the Global South. However, the specific contributions of Pan-Africanist revolutionaries to the broader philosophy and praxis of education for liberation is often under-appreciated. This paper explores this impact through Paulo Freire’s political and intellectual engagement with Pan-Africanist popular education movements, radical intellectuals, and broader revolutionary struggles. In considering Freire’s work in dialogue and practice with African revolutionary thinkers, this paper shows that, while Freire shaped elements of liberation education in Africa, he was also deeply shaped and influenced by the historical conditions of the time and key African revolutionaries who were struggling towards similar objectives. Additionally, we explore the continued salience of Freirean educational praxis in contemporary Pan-Africanist social movements, through the example of a present day online pedagogical experiment, the Pan-African Activist Sunday School and Solidarity Collective.

CHỦ TỊCH HỒ CHÍ MINH VỚI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM HÀ NỘI

President Ho Chi Minh was the one who laid the foundation for the birth of Vietnamese revolutionary education. During his lifetime, he always paid attention to the country’s education and training. Facing many difficulties and hardships right after gaining independence in 1945, President Ho Chi Minh emphasized the task of fighting “the enemy of hunger” and “the enemy of illiteracy”, promoting the Popular Education movement to eliminate illiteracy among people. During his activities as the country's leader, his works, speeches and articles highlighted his views on a comprehensive education, focusing on both virtue and talent, associating with reality, and combining school, family and social education. He is also a shining role model of self-study, self-training and persistent struggle to improve himself. In a short time, from 1957- 1964, President Ho Chi Minh visited Hanoi National University of Education four times. The devotion of Ho Chi Minh for the country’s education in general and Hanoi National University of Education in particular is an exemplary symbol for school leaders, officials, employees and students to follow and implement so that the university will forever deserve with the title of “the moral university of the whole country” as he always hoped for in his life.

Better in Pictures

Better in Pictures

EDUCAÇÃO POPULAR NA PARAÍBA: MEMÓRIA E HISTÓRIA DO SEDUP

The paper presents the adversities and contributions of the Popular Education Service (SEDUP) to the Popular Education movement in Paraiba, evidenced by its history and memory in two periods, that of resistance to military authoritarianism and the democratic transition, which corresponds to the decades 1980 and 1990. The research has a qualitative type, with the investigation carried out through documentary sources. In its trajectory, SEDUP developed a popular educational action, with subaltern classes with all their diversity, and belonging to rural and urban territories, starting from an emancipatory education perspective.

Quels impacts des activités bénévoles sur la santé ? Un exemple à travers le scoutisme

What are the health impacts of volunteer activities? An example through scouting. There is little work linking health and engagement in volunteer activities. Can the volunteer environment be considered conducive to a better quality of life in general or is it more a question of personality variables related to individuals? If so, which ones? Can we imagine, for example, that some people are bound by a strong passion for their volunteer involvement? The objective of this article will be to explain and understand what volunteering is and its psychological impact with the example of scouting (a specific method of popular education). The prism of Vallerand's dualistic model of passion is used to try to identify the consequences of volunteering in scouting (and volunteering in general) on the perceived health of volunteers. After defining volunteering and scouting, this model is explained and it is shown how its use is an interesting contribution to the understanding of the impact of volunteering on perceived health. In France in 2019, according to Recherches & Solidarités, which publishes an annual barometer of commitment in France, 12.5 million French people will be engaged in a voluntary activity in 2019. That's one in four French people. Popular education is an educational model based on the education for all model of the Age of Enlightenment. At the time, it appeared to be necessary to educate people to fight against obscurantism and the Catholic Church's hold on society. Popular education is an educational method based on “education of the people by the people and for the people” whose objective is the improvement of the social system and individual and collective fulfillment. Scouting is a popular education movement with a specific method and mission. The mission of scouting is to contribute to building a better world by forming committed citizens, aware of the problems of their society and committed to solving them. Its method, the scouting method, is based on small group life, education by action, life in nature, symbolic framework, personal progression, adult support and commitment to its values and in the community. “Passion is that strength that leads a person to get involved in an activity that they love, that defines them and that is important to them. The passion for an engaging activity is composed of two dimensions: the harmonious passion that is globally positive for the health, perceived health and well-being of individuals and, conversely, the obsessive passion that is globally deleterious for the health, perceived health and well-being of individuals. With this article, a model has been designed that integrates the dualistic model of passion into the specificities of volunteering in scouting in order to detach potential explanations of the positive and negative impacts on individuals. An explanation of the disengagement of certain volunteers and hypotheses about a change in the type of passion were developed. With regard to the number of volunteers in scouting (and in popular education), it is important that this data be taken into account as a protective or aggravating factor in their health and well-being. These are real public health issues. It is a question of creating the conditions for the development and maintenance of a harmonious passion among volunteers in order to retain them and ensure that their commitment is conducive to their development.

Anger and disillusionment in Argentinian feminism, 2011–2015: an ethnography of feminist activism in Buenos Aires' popular education movements

ABSTRACT This essay draws from four years of ethnographic fieldwork with women activists in self-defined Paulo Freirean-based popular education schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rather than leaning on the traditions of education activism, modeled on Freire’s class-based emancipatory vision, the women in this study sought to turn popular education’s focus toward intersectional oppressions that impacted girls and women in their communities. Through their anger and disillusion with the form Freirean thought had been taken up by social movements, I illustrate how participants were contemplating ways to make room for women’s experiences by pinpointing junctures of racism, sexism, and classism as they impressed upon the lives of people living and learning in precarious conditions.

The confluence of popular education and social movement studies into social movement learning: A systematic literature review

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to systematically review and trace the lineage of theoretical debates around social movement learning in the field of adult education. We compiled articles, books and conference proceedings on adult education and social movements from Google Scholar using the software Publish or Perish and manually filtered the data to only include those that explicitly address the topic. Based on the data, we identified key literature that scholars cross-referenced, which extended the review to include the literature from the 1970s until today. We argue that the theoretical debates about social movements and education can be characterised by four phases: 1) popular education within and for social movements, 2) the Old/New Social Movement debate and its radical influence on adult education, 3) conflict and pushback between scholars, and 4) social movement learning as a confluence of literature. We argue that it is only when scholars writing about popular education interacted with scholars promoting the idea of ‘new’ social movements that the current proliferation of ‘social movement learning’ emerged. Thus, the knowledge production of social movement learning itself has been a result of a dynamic and historical movement in the field of adult education.

Concepção teórico-metodológica dialética

O artigo propõe analisar a concepção Dialética e sua incursão nos estudos dos movimentos de educação popular no período de 1958 a 1964. Como procedimento metodológico utilizamos a pesquisa bibliográfica, através da revisão de literatura da área, seja em livros, periódicos, dissertação de mestrado ou tese de doutorado que versam sobre o objeto de estudo. No primeiro item Concepção teórico-metodológica dialética, procuramos esboçar a concepção dialética, baseada numa breve revisão de literatura de tradição marxista. No segundo item A incursão da dialética nos movimentos de educação popular no Brasil, analisamos a incursão da concepção dialética nas pesquisas dos movimentos de educação e cultura popular Brasil no período de 1958 a 1965.

Anarchist/syndicalist and independent Marxist intersections in post-apartheid struggles, South Africa: the WSF/ZACF current in Gauteng, 1990s–2010s

ABSTRACTSouth Africa has a long-established independent left, outside the big traditions of nationalism and Marxism-Leninism. Post-apartheid its fortunes have varied considerably, as space opened up for movements to the left of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, but opportunities declined as the state increased its legitimacy, penetration of civil society, and systems of patronage. This paper looks at cooperation, competition and convergence on the independent left, with particular reference to independent Marxists (mainly the well-established Trotskyist tradition) and revolutionary anarchists and syndicalists (a movement that revived in the 1990s). These intersections have taken place in study groups, popular education, student struggles, and post-apartheid social movements and unions, and indicate the vitality and fragility of the independent left, and the ongoing importance of cooperation and overlaps, as well as of long-standing divisions over theory and strategy. Particular attention is paid to Keep Left, the Socialist Group, the Democratic Socialist Movement, and the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front.

Countering post-truths through ecopedagogical literacies: Teaching to critically read ‘development’ and ‘sustainable development’

A key aspect of teaching ‘development’ is understanding the conundrums and tensions between balance and imbalance with constructs of global (all humans, all societies, all populations) and planetary (all of Earth, including humans) spheres. This article deconstructs some key tenets of populist post-truth frameworks (termed as post-truthism in this article) as affecting how development and sustainability is taught within ecopedagogies and argues for structural grounding of ecopedagogical literacy within pedagogies as increasingly imperative. Rooted in critical theories and popular education movements in Latin America, through reinvention of Freirean Pedagogy, the literacy’s root word ecopedagogy is transformative teaching in which educators dialectically problem-pose the politics of socio-environmental connections through local, global, and planetary lenses. Without deepened and widened readings of development and sustainability viewed within both global and planetary spheres, in conjunction with development’s effects upon local societies and ecological systems, developmental actions are unsustainable and defies the definition of development. Discussed will be the ecopedagogical tenets, including emergent ecopedagogical literacies, of critical socio-historical analysis, local and diverse epistemologies, deconstruction of pedagogies on the environment, and problem-posing one’s and others’ livelihood to counter post-truthism.

Ecopedagogy: teaching critical literacies of ‘development’, ‘sustainability’, and ‘sustainable development’

ABSTRACT Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) largely emerged from Environmental Education (EE) models to teach how actions for ‘development’ positively and negatively affects our societies and the rest of nature, to then determine how such actions can be ‘sustainable’ without causing current or future socio-environmental oppressions. However, the ‘development’ has been increasingly taught as adhering to normalized neoliberal ideologies. This article provides a critical analysis of reinventing environmental pedagogies to center the ‘reading’ of development framings through the following questions: ‘What is development?’, ‘Who is it for?’, and ‘What are the politics behind it?’ Emergent from two research projects, centering the teaching of critical literacies (i.e. ecopedagogical literacies) to read ‘development’ and ‘sustainability’ was found essential in higher education. Rooted in critical theories and Freirean popular education movements in Latin American, ecopedagogy is transformative teaching in which educators dialectically problem-pose the politics of socio-environmental connections through local, global, and planetary lenses.

História e historiografia da Educação de Jovens e Adultos no Brasil - inteligibilidades, apagamentos, necessidades, possibilidades

Resumo: A fixacao da CEAA, de 1947, como marco da atuacao da Uniao em favor da educacao de adolescentes e adultos; a emergencia de movimentos de educacao popular na decada de 1960 e a constituicao de uma proposta e um paradigma pedagogico para a EJA, com o trabalho de Paulo Freire; a repressao do regime militar as praticas educativas de orientacao freireana e a instalacao do MOBRAL, em 1970, constitui a base de uma tradicao historiografica da EJA. O artigo analisa como a efetuacao dessa memoria obscureceu o processo de incorporacao da educacao dos trabalhadores ao sistema educacional brasileiro republicano. Discute a necessidade de ampliacao do conhecimento historico na afirmacao identitaria da EJA e acena para possibilidades investigativas a partir das estatisticas educacionais dos anos de 1930.

The reconstruction of culture: Peuple et Culture and the popular education movement

One of the most significant popular cultural movements of the Liberation was the organisation Peuple et Culture. Born in the Christian-Socialist ethos of the École des Cadres at Uriage under the Vichy regime, and inspired by the cultural policy of the Front Populaire, it developed as a Resistance organisation, bringing culture to the bands of résistants in the Vercors. At the Liberation and in the early years of the Fourth Republic, it played a key role in defining cultural reconstruction, emphasising the need for infrastructure and trained personnel, and working towards a holistic approach to workers’ education and culture from school years into all stages of adulthood. As such, in spite of political and theoretical inconsistencies and contradictions, it laid the ground for future cultural planning policies under the Fifth Republic.

Os anos 1960, a expansão dos movimentos sociais no Brasil e as iniciativas de combate ao analfabetismo no Rio Grande do Norte

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar o que possibilitou o desenvolvimento de iniciativas para o combate ao analfabetismo no Rio Grande do Norte, com ênfase nos movimentos de educação popular promovidos durante a década de 1960. Esta discussão não se restringe apenas aos fatores locais, mas dialoga com o contexto nacional e internacional, reconstruindo o cenário da educação popular no RN, durante os anos 1960. Para tanto, fizemos uso de um processo de revisão bibliográfica, utilizando autores clássicos na história da educação, como Vanilda Paiva e Dermeval Saviani, além de outros que produziram obras de história e memória sobre movimentos de educação popular locais, como Moacyr de Góes e José Willington Germano. Além destes autores, revisamos outros trabalhos acadêmicos que abordam a temática da educação popular no RN. Pudemos perceber que a educação popular no RN seguiu o impulso do pensamento voltado ao nacional-desenvolvimentismo, esteve diretamente relacionada à expansão dos movimentos sociais e ao avanço de governos populares. Além disso, havia também a influência direta de grupos ligados à Igreja Católica. A junção desses fatores possibilitou o surgimento de movimentos de educação popular voltados a combater o analfabetismo. Dentre vários movimentos, destacamos a atuação do Centro Popular de Cultura (CPC) da UNE, do Movimento de Educação de Base (MEB) ligado à Igreja Católica, do Movimento de Cultura Popular do Recife (MCP), do Sistema Paulo Freire, das 40h de Angicos, da Fundação Campanha Popular de Educação da Paraíba (CEPLAR) e da Campanha “De pé no chão também se aprende a ler”.