Education in Revolutionary Struggles introduces us to the fascinating world of Latin American educational thought in the third quarter of the 20th century. It discusses the contributions of three of the most distinguished intellectuals of the period – Iván Illich, Paulo Freire and Ernesto Guevara – and more specifically their answers to the eternal challenge: What is – or should be – the role of education in the profound structural and/or revolutionary transformation of our societies? The first part of the book identifies the cultural, economic and political context of the revolutionary years in Latin America. This historical framework is of particular interest because it is the setting for the intellectual and educational debates in which these three thinkers took part. The second part, the heart of the book, expounds in depth how Iván Illich, Paulo Freire and Ernesto Guevara contributed to understanding of how education is linked to the transformation of society. The third and final part highlights the most fertile dimensions of the educational thought of Iván Illich, Paulo Freire and Ernesto Guevara – deschooling, liberation education and revolutionary education respectively – and analyses the points where their conceptions of "education in revolutionary struggles" converged, complemented one another or diverged.

Revolutionary Struggles and Girls' Education: At the Frontiers of Gender Norms in North-Ethiopia argues that at the base of girls’ poorer performance than boys at secondary school level when puberty has set in, is the “symbolic violence” entailed in sanctioned femaleness. Informed by the modesty of Virgin Mary in Orthodox Christian veneration, it instructs girls to internalize a “holding back” which impinges on her self-efficacy and ability to be an active learner. Neoliberally-informed educational policies and plans which have co-opted liberal feminism also in Ethiopia, do not address “hard-lived” gender norms and the power and domination dynamics entailed when parity between boys and girls in school continues to be the dominant measure for equity. Despite women’s courageous contribution at a literal “frontier” during the Tigrayan liberation struggle (1975-91) where they fought on equal terms with men, and despite the tendency that girls’ outnumber boys at secondary level in the present context, sanctioned femaleness constitutes a “frontier” for girls’ educational success and transition to higher education. In fact, when teaching-learning continues to be based on memorization rather than critical thinking, the very transformative potential of education is undermined - also in a gendered sense.

Revolution in Mexico sought to subordinate church to state and push the church out of public life. Nevertheless, state and church shared a concern for the nation's social problems. Until the breakdown of church-state cooperation in 1926, they ignored the political chasm separating them to address those problems through education in order to instill in citizens a new sense of patriotism, a strong work ethic, and adherence to traditional gender roles. This book examines primary, vocational, private, and parochial education in Mexico City from 1917 to 1926 and shows how it was affected by the relations between the revolutionary state and the Roman Catholic Church. One of the first books to look at revolutionary programs in the capital immediately after the Revolution, it shows how government social reform and Catholic social action overlapped and identifies clear points of convergence while also offering vivid descriptions of everyday life in revolutionary Mexico City. Comparing curricula and practice in Catholic and public schools, Patience Schell describes scandals and successes in classrooms throughout Mexico City. Her re-creation of day-to-day schooling shows how teachers, inspectors, volunteers, and priests, even while facing material shortages, struggled to educate Mexico City's residents out of a conviction that they were transforming society. She also reviews broader federal and Catholic social action programs such as films, unionization projects, and libraries that sought to instill a new morality in the working class. Finally, she situates education among larger issues that eventually divided church and state and examines the impact of the restrictions placed on Catholic education in 1926. Schell sheds new light on the common cause between revolutionary state education and Catholic tradition and provides new insight into the wider issue of the relationship between the revolutionary state and civil society. As the presidency of Vicente Fox revives questions of church involvement in Mexican public life, her study provides a solid foundation for understanding the tenor and tenure of that age-old relationship.

Revolutionary Education, Theory and Practice for Socialist Organizers Promoting socialist consciousness is one of the central tasks of building a revolutionary movement in the U.S. This requires the organized and intentional efforts of an expansive base of militant organizers equipped to intervene in a variety of campaigns and movements. Such organizers are not only activists but also educators. Revolutionary Education will help facilitate the training of such revolutionary organizers and educators. The chapters in this book address a range of themes in Marxist educational praxis, touch on diverse historical movements and provide examples of how they can inform our own practices today in pre-revolutionary times. Two appendices provide a series of tactics for facilitating the study, discussion and teaching of revolutionary ideas. Teachers and organizers strike a common stance: one foot grounded in the mud and the muck of the world as it is, the other foot striding toward a world that could be, but is not yet. When we knock on a door, organize a meeting or encounter our students, we see, not a collection of deficits and deficiencies, but sparks of meaning-making energy, agents with the power and the potential not only to understand the world, but, if they choose, to collectively transform it. Revolutionary Education - part credo and manifesto, part road map, part strategy and tactics - connects the dots. An indispensable text. - Bill Ayers, author of "Demand the Impossible," "Public Enemy" and "Teaching Toward Freedom" Revolutionary Education is an incredible book for activists and educators alike, especially those looking for concrete tools to organize in classrooms, community centers and shop floors. In pulling together this book, Liberation School has done a great service for the socialist movement. - Wayne Au, Professor, University of Washington Bothell; Editor, "Rethinking Schools"

A Revolutionary Subject: Pedagogy of Women of Color and Indigeneity is a call to radical educators, grassroots organizers, and others on the left to recognize the enormous historical legacy of and potential for revolutionary praxis that exists among Women of Color and Indigeneity. This book revitalizes Marx's dialectics to challenge class-reductionism, highlighting a class struggle that is also necessarily anti-racist, anti-sexist, and against all forms of oppression.

While white residents of antebellum Boston and New Haven forcefully opposed the education of black residents, their counterparts in slaveholding Baltimore did little to resist the establishment of African American schools. Such discrepancies, Hilary Moss argues, suggest that white opposition to black education was not a foregone conclusion. Through the comparative lenses of these three cities, she shows why opposition erupted where it did across the United States during the same period that gave rise to public education. As common schooling emerged in the 1830s, providing white children of all classes and ethnicities with the opportunity to become full-fledged citizens, it redefined citizenship as synonymous with whiteness. This link between school and American identity, Moss argues, increased white hostility to black education at the same time that it spurred African Americans to demand public schooling as a means of securing status as full and equal members of society. Shedding new light on the efforts of black Americans to learn independently in the face of white attempts to withhold opportunity, Schooling Citizens narrates a previously untold chapter in the thorny history of America’s educational inequality.