David R. Cole (ed.): Surviving Economic Crises through Education
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2012. 288 pp.
Global Studies in Education. Vol. 11
General Editors: Michael Peters, Cameron McCarthy, Athlone C. (Tina) Besley and Fazal Rizvi
Print: ISBN 978-1-4331-1478-6 
pb.
SFR 35.00 / €* 26.20 / €** 27.00 / € 24.50 / £ 22.00 / US$ 36.95
Order online: http://www.peterlang.com
This book comes at a time of increasing anxiety about the repercussions of financial instability and the probability of widespread market volatility. The educators and researchers whose work is collected here have considered these factors deeply when constructing their responses to prevailing financial conditions. These views guide the reader through economic crises as a mode of survival and as a means to deploying education at its most meaningful and intense. The approach aligns practice with theory and takes the empirical evidence from these studies as a means to determining the economic influence on education. This book will be a valuable asset for teachers and professors, as well as an excellent textbook for undergraduate and graduate classrooms.
Contents:
Stephen J. Ball: Foreword. Crisis and Attentiveness
David R. Cole: Introduction to Surviving Economic Crises through Education
Michael A. Peters: ‘Knowledge Economy’, Economic Crisis and Cognitive Capitalism: Public Education and the Promise of Open Science
Jim Crowther/Mae Shaw: Education for Resilience and Resistance in the ‘Big Society’
Mike Cole: Capitalist Crisis and Fascism: Issues for Educational Practice
Gustavo E. Fischman/Victor H. Diaz: Teach for WhatAmerica? Beginning Teachers’ Reflections about Their Professional Choices and the Economic Crisis
Patrick Carmichael/Kate Litherland: Transversality and Innovation: Prospects for Technology-Enhanced Learning in Times of Crisis
Silvina Gvirtz/Ana Laura Barudi: When the Sun Does not Shine after the Rain: The Effects of the 2001 Crisis on the Education System of Argentina
Ana Inés Heras: Struggle for Agency in Contemporary Argentinean Schools
Silvia Grinberg/Eduardo Langer: Education and Governmentality in Degraded Urban Territories: From the Sedimented to the Experience of the Actual
David R. Cole: Doing Work as a Reflection of the Other: Notes on the Educational Materialism of Deleuze and Guattari
Robert Haworth/Abraham P. DeLeon: The Crisis of Mutative Capitalism: Holey Spaces, Creative Struggle and Educative Innovations
Torill Strand: The Current Dynamics of Professional Expertise: The Movable Ethos, Pathos, and Logos of Four Norwegian Professions
R. Scott Webster: Educating the Person for Democratic Participation
Jason J. Wallin: Remachining Educational Desire: Bankrupting Freire’s Banking Model of Education in an Age of Schizo-Capitalism
Marcus Bussey: Afterword. When No Crisis Is the Real Crisis! The Endless Vertigo of Capitalist Education.
The Author:
David R. Cole received his PhD in education from the University ofWarwick. He is an Associate Professor in English and pedagogy at the University of Western Sydney. David has edited three books (two with Darren Pullen) and has published a novel. His latest monograph is Educational Life-Forms: Deleuzian Teaching and Learning Practice.
Reviews:
“At last, we have a book that not only attempts to chart the crucial relationship between education and the crisis of economics, but one that explores critically and insightfully what that crisis may tell us about how to proceed in both opening up new understandings of pedagogy, education, politics, and charting a notion of hope that is as militant as it is realistic. We live at a crucial time, when the ethos of surviving has replaced the possibility of imagining a decent life and the promises of a real democracy. The discourse of surviving for the authors in this book does not suggest a retreat into cynicism or a life stripped of possibility. On the contrary, it suggests a new beginning, a new sense of struggle, and a new sense of hope. ‘Surviving Economic Crises through Education’ puts education back into politics, and in doing so puts politics back on a footing that makes individual and collective struggle possible again.” (Henry Giroux, Global Television Network Chair, English and Cultural Studies,McMasterUniversity)
“The recent huge hiccup of capitalism (‘global financial crisis’) and its continuing gurgles of pain have profound implications for education, teacher training, and the role of knowledge for human betterment (given that claims to knowledge and expertise were no protection from the cataclysm itself). This collection shows us why this is so, framing an imperative for rethinking education as a process of self-knowing and empowerment in a period of enormous economic and ontological insecurity. David R. Cole has brought together a significant set of theorists whose empirical evidence flows through to insights and indications of what is to be done. One hopes, as some of the authors propose, it is the very depth of the crisis that may force the shedding of the most deeply entrenched (mis)beliefs about education, enabling thereby a new if wobbly space for innovation and growth.” (Andrew Jakubowicz, Professor of Sociology, Director of the Institute of Cultural Diversity, University of Technology,Sydney)
“In times of economic crisis politicians often present their policies by claiming that ‘there is no alternative.’ This book unmasks such claims by providing critical readings of the politics of contemporary crisis talk and by presenting a range of generative educational responses that provide real alternatives for educational thought and action. This is a timely and inspiring collection that affirms the crucial role of education in the struggle for democracy in uncertain times.” (Gert Biesta, Professor of Education and Director of Research, School of Education & Laboratory for Educational Theory,Universityof Stirling)
“This book represents a kaleidoscope of views on the roles of education in a world rapidly changing since the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of the Western world economies. Ideas mushroom from each chapter challenging the role of education in a capitalist society. A mustread for those from various disciplines who care about education.” (Arnaud Chevalier, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Royal Holloway,UniversityofLondon)
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski, 13/01/12
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