Educational Change and Teachers Strike

From West Virginia to Chicago, teachers – the country’s largest sector of unionized workers – are striking. What are strikes and why do teachers use them? What do they mean for schools and communities? In this course we will examine teachers’ strikes as a way to understand the collisions of race, class, gender, and the state in education. Focusing on episodes of intense friction and controversy, this course will chart liberal, radical, and conservative tendencies in labor and educational history. Using theoretical, historical and contemporary texts about the politics of labor and education, students will critically examine the possibilities and limits for teachers’ organizing.