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Making Sense of Neoliberalism’s New Nexus Between Work and Education, Teachers’ Work, and Teachers’ Labor Activism: Implications for Labor and the Left

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The Palgrave International Handbook of Marxism and Education

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Abstract

This chapter explains how educational researchers have come late to understanding the new nexus between work and education in capitalism. I summarize some of those changes then analyze the unique potential of teachers and teachers unions in reviving labor struggles, primarily by educating the Left about reciprocity between support for movements for social justice and union transformation, examining how these can increase political resistance to ruling class power. I suggest the pandemic was used to accelerate and intensify changes so substantial that what has occurred should be understood as a new iteration of the neoliberal project in education, in a process that reflects and reinforces changes in work in the global economy. Public education, structurally and ideologically flawed from inception, is being reconfigured with changes in curriculum, teaching, and funding intended to persist well beyond the pandemic. The chapter ends with implications of how struggles of social movements that contest the shortcomings in public education rooted in historic social injustices might guide our vision about the schools we want and deserve, helping inform further resistance to the new neoliberal project.

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  1. New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ, USA

    Lois Weiner

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  1. Lois Weiner
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  1. De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

    Richard Hall

  2. Fluminense Federal University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Inny Accioly

  3. Adam Mickiewicz Universitý, Poznań, Poland

    Krystian Szadkowski

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Weiner, L. (2023). Making Sense of Neoliberalism’s New Nexus Between Work and Education, Teachers’ Work, and Teachers’ Labor Activism: Implications for Labor and the Left. In: Hall, R., Accioly, I., Szadkowski, K. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Marxism and Education. Marxism and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37252-0_21

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