Transforming education through solidarity and collective representation

Abstract

In the spirit of solidarity, critical activist scholarship and collaborative critical inquiry, this article calls for adoption of a counterhegemonic, transformative education strategy by proposing the development of an alternative vision to current neoliberal education projects and standardization. The political economy of education is driven by the economic imperatives of neoliberalism promoting new modes of governance in the university space. Education, once positioned in the public domain and constructed as a place of intellectual thought and progressive pedagogy, is reframed and reconstituted into the knowledge economy and social enterprise. The article draws on Thomas Piketty’s concepts of educational convergence, institutional change, and collective representation to embed transformative strategies that reclaim democratic academic thought and collective action. Piketty’s concepts are supplemented by narratives from service users from a large non-government organization helping people transition out of poverty, which has an early childhood center as part of the support. Such an emancipatory strategy through the use of critical pedagogy helps reconnect links between learning, knowledge, and social change.