This project explores the potential role of low-wage service unions to use their organizing and political skills to promote educational justice. It considers whether the participation of low-wage sector unions in educational reform can: (1) build the power and capacity of both the union and its members and (2) expand educational opportunity for the children of union members. (more…)
Philadelphia’s students have long been a major force in the battle for public education, and for the past decade and a half they have fought valiantly against the encroachment of neoliberalism, the idea that market-based logic can solve non-market problems more efficiently and effectively than governmental or public sector agencies. Leading this charge have been two prominent youth organizing groups, the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) and Youth United for Change (YUC). Both PSU and YUC have been at the forefront of recent organizing efforts to protest and propose alternatives to the shuttering of 23 schools, the firing of 3,859 educators and support staff, and the elimination of extracurricular programs and arts education from the public schools for the 2012-2013 school year. (more…)
Community-engaged research on environmental problems has reshaped researcher–participant relationships, academic-community interaction and the role of community partners in human subjects protection and ethical oversight. The authors drawn on their own and others’ research collaborations with environmental health and social justice movement organizations to discuss the ethical concerns that emerge in community-engaged research. This paper introduces the concept of reflexive research ethics: ethical guidelines and decision-making principles that depend on continual reflexivity concerning the relationships between researchers and participants. (more…)