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U
ndergoing Political Experience.
A Book Review of Educational Politics for Social Justice
Becky L. Noël Smith (California State University, Fresno)
I
dicult to make
sense of the complexity of experience
while it is occurring, and as John Dewey
(/) explained so many years ago, not
only must we come through experience but oen
we must struggle through it, working through
series of “undergoings” in the process of
attempting to alter our path, such that life makes
it evident to us that “...our active tryings are
trials and tests of ourselves” (p.). Once we
come through an experience, and if we feel
inclined to construct some sense of meaning of both our eorts and
the uncertainty, then we must take up the struggle yet again as we
reect and inquire in our attempt to construct meaning. As I sit
here writing this— amid the enduring ambiguity of COVID- , the
deluge of imagery and stories documenting the traumatization of
and brutality against this generation of Black and Brown people,
the swell of love and protest in response, and the mounting
dehumanization as circumstance is used to justify a proliferation of
technological enforcements upon educational spaces— I have never
been reminded more in my life that we beings are incapable
of making sense while in the midst of the churn and chaos of
experience.
I have spent a fair portion of the last decade immersed in
circles of educational activism, and I am assuredly one of those
people who attempted to make sense of the apparent contradictions
of education policy while she was jumping in. My gut told me I
would learn the most about the modes of power, the means for
change, and the intricacies of school politics if I surrounded myself
with people who had a history of “ghting the good ght” along the
picket lines, in the classrooms and school
board meetings, and by navigating through the
channels of our many and sometimes indis-
tinct governmental systems. I do not believe I
was wrong in this presumption, as it has
provided me with a type of practical experi-
ence that I nd invaluable when speaking to
my current students about how they might
imagine and then join others in doing the
dicult work of making schools more just and
humane places for children and communities.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the combination of the current political
climate and my recent reading of the book Educational Politics for
Social Justice (), has caused me to reect on my early years as a
teacher and parent and to recall what it felt like to be snapped to
consciousness by the disorientation of a progression of increasingly
bad policies— No Child Le Behind, followed by Race to the Top,
and then the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Catherine Marshall, Cynthia Gerstl- Pepin, and Mark Johnson
initiate readers to the fact that, though the U.S. education system
B L. N S has been involved in the eld of education
since . As a former public school teacher, a mother, a commu-
nity organizer, and through her academic work, she advocates for
democratic policies and practices in the public’s schools. She now
has the privilege of putting to use her teaching and learning
experiences in her work with future teachers in the Department of
Liberal Studies at California State University, Fresno.
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has evolved out of a long and contentious history replete with
overlapping aims, purposes, and forms of power that work with
and against one another simultaneously, the public schools remain
sites where groups of people and entities converge and engage in
contested battles over what should become of our children and this
society. e authors provide just enough historical examples in
their text to give context for how forms of power have played out
over decades through what they identify as the micro, district,
state, federal, and global political arenas. As they explain, “Educat-
ing children oen involves navigating a complex web of govern-
ment services, special interest groups, the criminal justice system,
business interests, medical services, community contexts, policies,
and politics” (p.). Clearly one of the things that makes U.S.
education policy so dicult to understand, much less to navigate
mid- experience, especially for students or community members
just learning to slog through the channels, is that each school,
district, and state can vary so signicantly in how they function.
So, to say that we have “a system” of public education in the U.S. is
too simplistic of a statement given the multitudinous variations.
us, one of the points of value with this book is how it provides
several modes of analysis for each of the ve political arenas such
that these can be utilized to help individuals and groups identify,
critique, and work more strategically within their unique set of
governmental structures. In addition to dening the varying
dynamics of each arena, they make the argument that “...the
realities of social and cultural inequities are oen missing from
mainstream policy and policy analysis,” and they thereby provide
what they call “a social justice framework” to help readers develop
critical modes of policy analysis such that they can locate the
resulting disparities of the many forms of institutional oppression
(racism, classism, sexism, etc.) that aict public schooling
experience in the U.S. (p.). Said simply, the groups and entities
who vie to shape education policy do not always have the best
interest of public school children in mind, and equity is not
always the aim or the result of those battles. But it does not have to
be this way, and it can be otherwise if the institution’s historical
tendencies and the multitude of policy arenas are each understood
as expressions of power.
As stated earlier, this book is a sound introduction into the
complexities of education policy, especially for those who genu-
inely want to work toward equity. ough, in order to be truly
eective on both fronts, this reading would need to be supple-
mented with extensive examinations into the many forms of
institutional oppression, as the authors touch on them only very
briefly in this piece. Educational Politics for Social Justice would be
an ideal choice for introductory graduate level courses because it
provides a good lay of the land, so to speak. I am sure it would leave
the newly initiated reeling from learning about all the existent
channels, networks, and divots that they may not have considered
prior to their reading, and as a result, I anticipate that it could
then provide an excellent springboard into deeper historical and/
or localized analyses and lines of inquiry about power in schooling
and struggles for change. Also, I do think this book would be a
benecial resource for those family members and teachers not only
who feel baed by the absurdities and contradictions they see in
schooling spaces but who yearn to get involved in undoing them by
joining and organizing grassroots eorts. In my work with teachers
and families, I have noticed how easy it is for people to become
quickly overwhelmed as they learn more about these political
arenas, not to mention also the webs of power and the national and
global policy networks that all ght for the ability to inuence,
manipulate, and/or deculturalize their own children and students.
I have seen several such people— some with no background in the
eld of education— evolve into inexhaustible bloggers as a result of
their awakening to the vastness of these webs. It can be very easy to
get caught up in the immediacy of the local, such that we some-
times neglect to look outward as well— that is, to think
glocally— and see how discourses and assumptions close to home
are also being shaped by the seemingly distant policymakers and
national and global interest groups. us, I believe education
activists, community organizers, and bloggers might also benet
from the authors’ analysis of the larger institutions of power.
ough I see this book as a survey text, this is not to say that it
is only benecial to those who are new to this aspect of the eld. As
someone who is familiar with what it means to struggle within and
to study most of these political arenas, I found the book to be
helpful especially because it articulated many of the dynamics that
I have experienced yet failed to conceptualize over the last decade.
One such example includes their comparative analysis of state
governance structures. at is, I have lived in three states in the last
seven years, each with signicant variations in political culture,
and seeing these frameworks helped me make some sense of my
diering political experiences and my understanding of each state.
Another example is their explanation of policy diusion and the
way that states, through competition and pressure, tend to
inuence one another to adopt and sometimes resist educational
trends and practices. Needless to say, this concept clearly articu-
lated what many of us witnessed with the roll out of the Race to the
Top grants as well as with the adoption, and then some states’
rejection, of Common Core State Standards. So, for readers who
may be involved in cross- state coalition building and grassroots
movements, the authors bring together numerous frameworks that
can help illuminate some of the nuances of state- based political
cultures, thereby opening up the possibility for organizers to
imagine what alternative strategies might look like and how we
might better utilize those dierences.
e nal chapter oers a range of suggestions for what can be
done to “center justice,” as the authors say, in our political arenas.
e authors also draw upon a few grassroots movements through-
out the book for inspiration and to illustrate the theories in
practice. ey make specic mention of the Moral Mondays
Movement, which sprung out of North Carolina and soon spread
to other states; the Opt Out movement, which was carried out in
many states by parents, teachers, and students who aimed to resist
high- stakes testing; and the School Strike for Climate environmen-
tal protests led by Swedish student Greta unberg that then went
global via social media. Each of these are wonderful examples of
grassroots eorts, and the Moral Mondays Movement has been
especially impressive given the span of social concerns driving
their platform and the victories they have won on so many fronts.
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For a book on education policy, though, I think it would have been
most benecial for the authors to explore with great detail at least
one grassroots movement that has (a) an enduring legacy beyond a
few years and (b) a specic focus on social justice in public
education. e Journey for Justice Alliance (https:// jjalliance
.com/) could be one such group, as they have been at this work for
nearly a decade— calling attention to and struggling against the
racism inherent to education reform— and are actively organizing
in over thirty major urban communities across the country.
Another example could be the decades- long struggle to ensure
that all students are guaranteed access to ethnic studies courses in
K– and college curricula. The longstanding efforts and broad
coalition work of youth, families, educators, and organizations
have ensured the successful passing of such legislation in several
states in recent years. California is certainly an exemplar in this
regard and demonstrates of how grassroots educational activism is
most eective when it involves many dierent stakeholders from
within the communities themselves (López, forthcoming; see also
https:// www .savecaethnicstudies .org/ and http:// www
.ethnicstudiesnow .com/). I would also suggest that the authors
turn toward students here in the U.S. who are also doing amazing
work on the ground— looking locally and globally— because they
too warrant not only our attention but our respect as innovative
and dedicated leaders of change. Groups like the Providence
Student Union (https:// www .pvdstudentunion .org/), the
Newark Students Union (https:// sites .google .com/ view/
newarkstudentsunion/ home), and the indigenous- led environ-
mental organization called Earth Guardians (https:// www
.earthguardians .org/) are just a few youth movements deserving of
our attention if we aim to inform our understanding of what it
means to undergo amid the chaos of political experience and to
genuinely engage in the lifelong struggle for a more humane and
just world.
References
Dewey, J. (). e need for a recovery of philosophy. In J.A. Boydson (Ed.), John
Dewey: e middle works, 1899– 1924, vol.10 (pp.– ). Southern Illinois
University Press. (Original work published )
López, P.D. (forthcoming). Latina/o/x teachers: History, policies, and politics. In E.G.
Murillo,Jr., S.A. Villenas, R. Trinidad Galvan, J. Sánchez Muñoz, C. Martinez, &
M. Machado- Casas (Eds.). Handbook of Latinos and education: eory, research,
and practice (nd ed.). Routledge.
Marshall, C., Gerstl- Pepin, C. & Johnson, M. (). Educational politics for social justice.
Teachers College Press.
