On the Role of Teacher Unions in Social Justice: An Essay Review of Michael Charney, Jesse Hagopian, and Bob Peterson (Eds.) Teacher Unions and Social Justice: Organizing for the Schools and Communities Our Students Deserve. Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools, 2021.446 pp. ISBN: 978-0-942961-09-6

Abstract

In an earlier essay in the Reviewing Policy section of this journal, I examined many of the major arguments for social justice teacher unionism. This combines both more traditional union concerns over wages, working conditions, professional autonomy, and respect with a much more concerted focus by unions on social justice issues in schools, communities, and the larger society. The importance of such a commitment and what it actually looks like is evident in the book under discussion here. Teacher Unions and Social Justice is one of a deservedly well-respected and growing series of volumes published by Rethinking Schools. The entire series constitutes substantive contributions to some of the most significant and contentious issues facing deeply committed educators. Through books such as Teacher Unions and Social Justice and other important publications, Rethinking Schools provides us with ways of combining the professional, political, and personal aspects of our lives and of coming together to build thicker forms of critically democratic education to defend a more robust vision of the common good.