Out Of The Ruins: The Emergence of Radical Informal Learning Spaces

(Paperback)

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Contemporary educational practices are heeding the calls of Wall Street for more corporate control, privatisation and standardised accountability. In many cases, educational policies are created to uphold and serve particular social, political and economic ends. Schools, in a sense, have been tools to reproduce hierarchical, authoritarian and hyper-individualistic models of social order. The important news is that emancipatory educational practices are emerging. Out of the Ruins sets out to explore and discuss the emergence of alternative learning spaces.

Reviews

"How do we create spaces of learning that will help us to avoid the pitfalls of routine, hierarchy, and passivity In other words, how do we learn to change the world, together Those trying to figure this out will enjoy reading about the experiments, strategies, and logics of anarchist education in this rich collection."
--Lesley Wood, professor of sociology, York University

"Out of the Ruins provides a powerful critique of the current state of education--and teaching--by exploring a diverse range of radical pedagogical practices and liberatory educational theories, coupled with on-the-ground case studies of informal alternative learning spaces. Moving beyond simplistic calls for 'educational reform' each contributor challenges us in some way to rethink the entire social system as it relates to education, including the ways that inequality and capitalist values shape the prevailing hierarchical, market-driven approaches to learning, teaching, and students."
--Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, associate professor of sociology, California State University, Long Beach

"Out of the Ruins is a timely book that counters current narrow conceptions about the limits of education and challenges neoliberal hegemony within the way we conceive of educational possibilities and building new forms of educational communities that can think outside these parameters. The editors have called forth an international array of cutting-edge scholars that lay bare a powerful critique of narrow conceptions of teaching, learning and education. A must read!"
--Abraham P. DeLeon, associate professor, University of Texas at San Antonio

"Haworth and Elmore tell us that we have a right to a new utopia, a transformative vision of society and interconnectedness where learning supports justice, redefined relations with the rest of nature and the creation of healthy communities. They call this radical informal learning. We might call it the true purpose of learning. The passion, anger and commitment of the contributors can be found on every page."
--Budd L. Hall, co-chair of the UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, professor of community development, University of Victoria

Author Bio

Robert Haworth is an assistant professor in the Department of Professional and Secondary Education at West Chester University, Pennsylvania. He edited the book Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education. John M. Elmore is professor and chairperson in the Department of Professional and Secondary Education at West Chester University, Pennsylvania. His research and publications have focused on education for social justice, democracy, atheism, and antiauthoritarianism.