SPOKE: Education in / for the capitalist world-system in transition

SPOKE LEADER:
Tom Griffiths

RESEARCH QUESTION:

How can systems of education be constructed in ways that prepare citizens with the knowledge, capacities and dispositions to respond to the crisis of the contemporary capitalist world-economy and influence the construction of an alternative world-system?

 

PROJECT SUMMARY:
Griffiths’ spoke examines policy from two contexts in the periphery and semi-periphery of the world-economy (Cuba and Venezuela) developing overt socialist political projects, with education to support (to varying degrees) alternative conceptualisations of development, democracy, and the means to achieve these. This spoke will explore the ‘subaltern’ nature of these educational projects in these terms, and assess their potential contribution to a wider anti-systemic social movement challenging the fundamental logic of the existing world-system and ideas of development. This spoke will include subaltern readings of policy in the core (Australia) historically within a radical education movement. The research plan here is focused on elaborating the theoretical and methodological case for world-systems analysis (WSA) in comparative research. This will include compiling empirical data examining the secular trends of the world-economy and how they are experienced in different locations, coupled with investigation of challenges to established educational policy in these contexts through a WSA lens. It will also set out a case for the inclusion of WSA within the fields of critical pedagogy and post-colonial studies.