Education In/For Socialism : Historical, Current and Future Perspectives

This book re-examines aspects of historical socialism, and includes case studies of education within twenty-first century socialist and post-socialist contexts shaped by the trajectories of historical socialism.

Through these case studies, contributions offer insights into key questions: How are education systems and student subjectivities shaped by post-socialist trajectories and current regional politics, economics and resistance movements? How do sedimented socialist discourses and geographies alter and contest the ‘neoliberal child’ and ‘childhood’ in post-socialist education? How have disjunctures between the rhetoric of historical Marxism-Leninism and the practices of educators, students and student political organizations played out under socialism, and what could we learn from that for our present? How much emancipatory potential is there in the theories and practices of (popular) education for combatting injustice in the absence of mass, revolutionary political parties?

Above all, this volume affirms the need to move beyond simplistic accounts of historical socialism and post-socialist transitions. By exploring how socialist trajectories remain influential and have potential in our current contexts, this book contributes to the work of politically engaged educators working to re-imagine and reconstruct education. This book was originally published as a special issue of Globalisation, Societies and Education.

Tom G. Griffiths is a senior lecturer in comparative and international education at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Drawing on world-systems analysis, his research is centred on exploring the potential contribution that education can make to the transition of the capitalist world-system towards a more democratic, equal, just, and peaceful alternative.

Zsuzsa Millei is a research fellow in the Space and Political Agency Research Group at the University of Tampere, Finland, and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her interdisciplinary research considers child politics, including policies for children, children as political agents, and children as subjects of ideology and politics. Her current project explores how children make their place in a transnational world.