XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

797

Social Movements and Resistances Against the Neocolonial, Neoliberal University

RC47 Social Classes and Social Movements (host committee)

Language: English

Teachers’ and students’ movements are among the most lively and most significant of the last decades in all regions of the world. The twin legacies of colonialism and neoliberal globalisation, as they have played out on university campuses around the world, have sparked significant student protests and fierce debate about the role of the university in the twenty-first century and its potential – as an agent of socialisation – to bring about social change. As it stands, the neocolonial, neoliberal university serves merely to entrench existing inequalities. Debates and struggles that have centred either on decolonising or decommodifying education, although valuable in their own right, have tended to overlook the closely intertwined nature of race and class oppression that continues to contradict the idea of the university as a public good and detract from its role as the critic and conscience of society. This panel welcomes novel insights into movements and resistance against the neocolonial, neoliberal university that challenge the boundaries of anti-racist and anti-capitalist praxis.