VI. International Conference on Critical Education

Description

Nurturing Dissent: Developing the Unruly Subject in Higher Education In the UK there have been many incidences of dissent in UK universities: student occupations, strikes, teach-ins/outs and other political acts against the way universities are run and financed. In a great many cases, these events/protests/actions are treated as isolated incidents and very few university staff bring the essence of these actions into the classroom, capturing the unruly desires of these individuals as learning tools and part of curricula. This non-engagement with dissent has the effect of illustrating that, no matter what is said by critical teachers, political actions and the politics of education are separate issues and have little to do with each other. In this paper, I argue that as critical educators and academic activists we need to come together and protect each other so that we may ensure that this is no longer the case. Higher Education is under attack more than ever before and I will argue that it is the role of the critical educator in the university to make robust connections between the pedagogy of politics and the politics of pedagogy in real ways that capture the social and political imaginations of students. Thus creating a classroom practice that nurtures the unruly side of both staff and students alike, and makes acts of dissent against dominant hegemonies in higher education a part of the core curriculum in the classroom. This is particularly important, I will argue, in the Education Studies curriculum as many of our students go on to teach others in a variety of levels and contexts. Understanding the importance of dissent and the unruly subject in educational settings becomes paramount for those who will go on to teach the next generation of children or become the next generation of education scholars if anything is to change.

Period	11 Aug 2016
Event type	Conference
Conference number	VI
Location	London, United Kingdom