Precarity as Resistance and Cultural Solidarity: A Critical Pedagogy for Exploitative Flexibilisation

This discursive paper uses the work of Freire and others to propose a critical pedagogy for precarity which is grounded in forms of radical (post)politics. A critical pedagogy for precarity is proposed that calls for a replacement of, or synthesis with, the UK government’s employability in HE agenda. Through the conscientisation of prospective graduates towards a ‘being-with-the-world’ and the associated mental habits and bodily practices that focus on the principles of a Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE), solidarity, reciprocity and sustainability, as a response to precarity, is possible by creating local solidarity-based associational spaces for critical education and praxis, we advocate for critical pedagogical practices alongside more opportunities for collective action that engender solidarity, reciprocity and sustainability in graduates’ bodily practices and modes of thinking and being, through a critical pedagogy that facilitates cultural action for freedom, self-help and collective forms of social provisioning of biological and social needs: housing, food, energy production, social caring and welfare needs in general

Environmental Responsibility, Active Social Learning, and Political Action

Critical criminology will be applied to a discussion of environmental responsibility and the proposed controversial practice of \u27fracking\u27. First, Green Criminology is discussed, as it seeks to re-direct the traditional focus of criminology onto patterns of crime and forms of criminality often marginalised by dominant research agendas and discourses. Green Criminology seeks to examine behaviours and actions that may not necessarily be deemed criminal, but can potentially or actually cause social and environmental harm. Links will be made throughout between environmental issues, economic development and social and environmental justice. Another key feature of Green Criminology is the way in which it seeks to align with environmental activism, and an account will be given here of ethnographic research into a contemporary environmental protest movement, the \u27anti-fracking\u27 movement. In relation to this movement and its potentiality, there will be a particular focus on what is known as active social learning and the ways in which community views can be formalised in order to facilitate a dialogical relationship with representative structures. In the context of environmental responsibility, the case for active social learning as a critical pedagogy is the need to find ways of interacting that bring about necessary changes in situations where there is much we don\u27t know and need interactions with others to find out, with an emphasis on the co-creation of knowledge. This can be seen as vital for the development and success of social/environmental and political movements, as well as for creating and preserving the conditions for genuine participatory democracy

Setting Them Up To Fail: Post-16 Progression Barriers of Previously Disengaged Students

This paper looks at post-16 progression opportunities for a group of previously disaffected 14–16-year-old students who undertook vocational learning in their final two years at school in the north-west of England. The paper argues that advanced forms of vocational learning at key stage 4 are leading to over-skilling and educational limbo for many young people. Questionnaire data was obtained from 109 participants in total. These included 16-21-year-olds looking to enter further education or employment with training (n=84), 14 vocational learning tutors, and 11 further education teachers. Although the vocational route can lead to a nationally recognised qualification, literacy and numeracy achievements are often below the expected standard, thus creating a mismatch in identified abilities. Due to the current government-enforced pressure to succeed in English and maths, a perceived ‘deficiency’ in any of these areas presents a significant barrier to progression. The students in this study are seen to be vocationally over-skilled yet underachieving in academic areas. As such, progression routes are severely limited, resulting in a high number of individuals dropping out of learning altogether

Debating Student as Producer: Relationships, Contexts, and Challenges for Higher Education

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Student as Producer, as a form of curriculum development in higher education based on the practice and principles of research-engaged teaching. The paper provides an account of my experiences embedding and adopting Student as Producer within my own research and teaching at the University of Lincoln, an institution which is recognised as being a pioneer in research-engaged teaching. My work includes, the role as guest editor for a special ‘Student as Producer’ edition of the journal Enhancing Learning in Social Sciences (ELiSS), teaching Criminology in the Professions, and working on funded research projects at Lincoln around aspects of the undergraduate student experience, e.g. student as partners and student engagement. As well as this focus on my own teaching practice the paper sets out the theory and concepts which underpin Student as Producer and the way in which it has responded to current government policy, in particular the notion of student as consumer

Drama, Creativity, and Critical Pedagogy

This article focuses on the work of Paulo Freire and the social theory encapsulated within ‘Pedagogy of The Oppressed’ (1996) as applied to a professional educational context; A Year 11 GCSE drama class in preparation for their final assessment piece which was being moderated by an AQA assessor. Drama is a subject which allows for the key concepts of Freire’s theory to be explored due its creative nature. There is an explanation of how this theory has been applied in a professional context whilst drawing on the work of Boal (1992) and Nicholson (2006)