“Making a Stand” Against Neoliberalism: Connections Between Critical Pedagogy and the “Green Tides” Movement for State Education in Spain

Abstract

The global economic crash of 2007, the “structural reforms” and “austerity” policies, together with neoliberal processes have led, in recent years, to the emergence in Spain of a number of social movements, which are demanding greater democracy. One such movement is the “Green Tides” for the State Education in Spain, which has developed a series of proposals, from critical discourses in education, in the form of practices of resistance against neoliberal logic. In this article, we analyze this initiative, in particular in connection with some of the basic dimensions of critical pedagogy. Based on a critical analysis of discourse approach, we link the Green Tides’ manifesto and beliefs to dimensions of critical pedagogy. In addition, we show how these groups have developed what Flesher Fominaya calls practices of “prefigurative politics,” which aim to find social alternatives to the mantra of cuts in social rights, austerity policies, and other neoliberalization processes.

Keywords

critical pedagogy social movements neoliberalism active citizenship “Green Tides” for state education

Introduction

Over the past decades, economic globalization and neoliberal processes have impacted deeply on the welfare states of Western countries. This has led to a significant change in national policies within the context of a new supranational governmentality (Ball, 2007, 2008; Bonal, 2003; Brenner, Peck, & Theodore, 2010; Dale, 1989, 1999, 2000; Robertson, Bonal, & Dale, 2002; Robertson & Dale, 2013). Along with the New Public Management (NPM), and the so-called processes of “endoprivatisation” (Verger, Fontdevila, & Zancajo, 2016), nation-states have assumed a new identity, generalizing—in different degrees and intensities, depending on the country—the “mercantilising” logic within public institutions. This includes state educational systems (Griffiths, 2012; Keddie, 2016; Slater, 2015; Tarabini & Bonal, 2011).

The economic crash of 2007 served to intensify neoliberal practices in a large number of the European countries through the implementation of well-known “policies of structural adjustment” and “austerity,” which have led to the most significant cuts in social rights known to date. According to Guy Standing (2014), “For the first time in history, governments are reducing the rights of many of their own people while further weakening the rights of more traditional denizens, migrants” (p. 1). Neoliberalism is in permanent change and evolution and, in a similar way, the state is mutating with it, hybridizing and restructuring itself through “innovations” and forms of governance (Ball, 2013), which are debilitating, impoverishing, and criminalizing working classes (Jones, 2011). In short, all this is fostering the birth of what Standing (2011) calls the “precariat.”

Against this background Slater (2015, p. 2) speaks of “precarious neoliberal futures,” and argues that “violence and dispossession of neoliberal crisis compounds the already tenuous conditions of many in an era marked by unhinged financialization and a brand of ‘revanchist state politics’ that works to dissolve any collective basis for social welfare” (p. 1). This has brought millions of people onto the streets in numerous countries worldwide, resulting since 2010 in crucial mobilizations and citizen protests, ranging from the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and Egypt, to the Indignados Movement in Spain and the Occupy Movement in the United States. These events were symptomatic of a historical phenomenon which was to be of deep importance, in addition to fostering the emergence of a number of social movements, aimed at challenging neoliberal practices.

Numerous citizen groups, which articulate practices of “resistance” against neoliberal logic and defend the common good, have resulted from the 15M-Indignados Movement in Spain. This movement has also been the germ of the so-called “Mareas Ciudadanas” in Spanish (or Citizens’ Tides). These “tides” are categorized by color to identify which section of the public sector they defend in the face of neoliberal austerity policies and “structural adjustment” programs. There is, for example, the “Yellow Tide,” which fights against the privatization of the public justice sector; the “Blue Tide,” which struggles against the privatization of water, defending it as a basic public good; the “White Tide,” which aims to defend public health and opposes privatization; and the aforementioned “Green Tide,” which aims to defend a system of inclusive state education in addition to fighting the privatization of state education.

Starting from this context, we analyze, first, and on a more global level, how outstanding social and citizen initiatives have been set up in recent years. These include the Indignados Movement in Spain, which strongly opposes the prevailing neoliberal worldview. In the field of education, these movements are aiming to establish synergies between progressive, critical intellectuals, and the wider educational community. Through a series of socioeducational practices of “resistance,” they are trying to construct a new subjectivity outside that of the neoliberal performativity. Second, on a micro level, we analyze the so-called “Green Tides” for the State Education in Spain, connecting them to some of the basic dimensions of critical pedagogy. For this, we focus our article on the work of Kincheloe (2007, 2008) and other critical theorists. Based on the critical analysis of the discourse approach, we establish a series of connections between the Green Tides’ manifesto and beliefs, on one hand, and the dimensions of critical pedagogy on the other. We show how the Indignados, in general, and the Green Tides, in particular, have developed what Flesher Fominaya (2014) calls practices of “prefigurative politics,” while looking for visions of a society which presents an alternative to the mantra of cuts in social rights, austerity policies and other neoliberalization processes.

We conclude this article with some final thoughts. Among other issues, we defend the necessary miscegenation between academics and social movements such as the Green Tides in education. Critical pedagogy can become a truly transforming practice in conjunction with these social movements. Likewise, critical pedagogy could progress more rapidly due to the drive of social movements and these, in turn, could be enriched by the contributions of critical pedagogy. From our point of view, there has been an important connection between the discourse of critical pedagogy and the practice of these Green Tides for the State Education. In this respect, we are facing an authentic example of how the dimensions of critical pedagogy can be applied to the aspirations and campaigns of social and citizen movements.

Constructing New Subjectivities Outside Neoliberal Logic: Citizen Mobilizations and Resistance in Education

The Arab Spring, the protests in Syntagma Square in Greece, the Indignados Movement in Spain, Occupy Wall Street (OWS), the challenge of citizens revolutions in Latin America, refusing follow the guidelines of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), among others, all represent a new collective imagery on which critical pedagogy and critical theorists in education can help to rewrite the categories of what is real. Moreover, educational movements and protests against neoliberal privatization and austerity, such as the Green Tides for the State Education in Spain and the student protests in London, both of which took place in 2011, the Maple Spring student uprising in Québec, the Chicago teachers strike of 2012, and the Chilean Education Conflict of 2014, indicate that this same type of process is active within the educational environment (Means, 2014a).

Despite the increase in, and the growing international proliferation of, these social protests, Means (2014b) states that we are still far from what he calls “radical democracy.” However, he stresses the need to build new forms of educational organization from democratic and egalitarian perspectives. He insists that we should think about education from the perspective of new, creative proposals in which cooperation among professions in education and emerging citizen social movements can experience spaces of subsistence and cohabitation. After all, critical pedagogy, in its very essence, can become an important factor in mobilizing energy within social movements. As Flesher Fominaya (2014) says, “mobilizing critical ideas is crucial to mobilizing people and movements” (p. 86).

A good example of this vital connection between critical pedagogy and social movements is found in the recent work of Picower (2013), which is based on a series of interviews with seven teachers/activists from OWS. These teachers used five strategies aimed at fighting neoliberalism in education. First, “they unmasked the neoliberal narrative” based on meritocracy, the benefits of privatization, and so on. Second, these activist-teachers introduced the topic of educational justice as a specific section of OWS within the practices of their movement. Moreover, they gave a voice to people who had been previously silenced through practices of direct and participatory democracy, such as general assemblies in which traditionally marginalized groups had a voice. Fourth, they built a strong sense of solidarity by deconstructing those narratives which have divided people and groups, such as the gap between teachers and students, or parents and children. Finally, they empowered people by means of democratic action which gave the control of educational institutions over to citizens themselves. Here, critical pedagogy becomes a transformative practice (Giardina & Denzin, 2013).

It can be deduced from the above that the collective action of the different agents which make up the educational community, in addition to the common search for spaces of resistance, is fundamental in challenging neoliberal harassment. Anderson and Cohen (2015) appreciate the need “to build new alliances of educators, students, parents, and communities” (p. 8). Also there is the need to generate practices of resistance, revitalizing critical approaches in education (Segall, 2013) as a way of facing the discourses and practices offered by the NPM. This is the reason why Anderson and Cohen speak of “Critical vigilance,” “Counter-discourses,” and “Counter-conduct and reappropriation” as individual and collective practices of resistance which encourage critical thinking, change discourses and narratives, and look for alternative visions of life. This is a process of reconstruction of the individual which involves teachers, students, and families. In this respect, the connection which exists between the educational system and the community requires a type of educator who is committed to the idea of the public good; in other words, “Such resistance would insist on a professional ethos with the public good at its center” (Anderson & Cohen, 2015, p. 6).

The political dimension given to education by critical and progressive approaches (Giroux, 2007, 2011; McLaren, 2000) is a strategy aimed at the common fight against domination. This is because education is not, and never has been, neutral (Apple, 2012; Freire, 2001, 2003). For Ball (2016), constructing subjectivity outside neoliberal performativity involves a practice of resistance in itself. To realize how neoliberalism, in its different expressions, transforms and molds us is like perceiving subjectivity as “the point of contact between self and power” (p. 1131). This process of “resistance,” of the deconstruction of oneself, helps us to see ourselves with other eyes, to perceive reality through other lenses (Hauver, Zhao, & Kobe, 2017), which, in our case, transcend “mercantilising” logic. This kind of “metamorphosis” enables a critical vision of education which can be used as a tool for the transformation of social life. It favors synergies between professional groups in the socioeducational field in addition to citizen activists who advocate more democratic forms of social organization and, therefore, presents different ways of understanding the educational process (Giardina & Denzin, 2013). In this line, Tarlau (2016) writes about the importance of revitalizing counter-hegemonic experiences in the educational context and linking them to the transformative potential of social movements as a strategy of struggle against growing inequality in our societies.

In the following words of Flesher Fominaya (2014), we find a culture of critical consciousness which is aware of the social construction of its own subjectivity:

During the submerged or latent phases of movement activity, social movements experiment with alternative forms of deliberation and decision-making, generate new lifestyle and cultural practices, develop alternative solutions to social problems and, in some cases, engage in prefigurative politics. . . . The activities of social movements in latent phases are largely directed inward towards other social movement participants, crucially in the generation of shared or collective identities, which give a shared collective definition of the social movement that enables it to successfully resist or challenge authorities. (p. 9)

From this perspective, social movements perform practices of critical education when generating autonomy, care, respect, reciprocity, and equality (Connell, 2013), as well as for their critical capacity. This is the antithesis of unitary neoliberal thinking. They reconstitute themselves outside neoliberal logic, theorizing on possible ways of being with approaches which are more collaborative and integrated, and focused on a joint and shared vision of social reality (McLaren, 2007). Thus, it is precisely this aspect of the prefigurative politics in which we can find a very important link between critical pedagogy and social movements.

From the perspective of critical pedagogy, the fact that the Indignados movement mobilized massive numbers of people, who had previously not participated in political protests, makes it an outstanding phenomenon. This is because it performed a critical educational process of great significance among broad and diverse segments of the population. Moreover, the mere rejection of representative democracy brings with it a prerequisite. Asara (2015) pointed out, “profound education processes are an indispensable precondition for steering the cultural change needed to wean people from a system of representative democracy” (p. 102). In this way, the squares became open schools of citizenship where social and political knowledge was constructed in a collective and participatory way through assemblies, and where heterogeneous meanings were (re)constructed through real and virtual interactivity (Hernández, Robles, & Martínez, 2013) (re)constructing subjectivities beyond the neoliberal dogmatism.

The Indignados did a great job in creating both critical awareness and the social construction of new subjectivities. As Antentas (2015) holds, “15M has had what Giugni calls a strong ‘awareness impact,’ that is, the dissemination of a particular worldview and of what we could call in Gramscian terms an alternative common sense” (p. 155). Forging alternatives to alienation, developing social skills for participation in a real democracy, but, above all, questioning neoliberal “common sense,” the 15M led to

A collective learning on the practice of democracy and self-organisation. It taught us to begin to “learn to unlearn” to get rid of the hegemonic ideas about reality. It has helped to spread, in the Gramscian sense of the term, an “alternative common sense.” (Antentas & Vivas, 2012, p. 132)

The Indignados questioned concepts of democracy, citizenship, education, information, communication, and the prevailing political discourse. At the same time, they laid out a “expansion and extension in the practice of these concepts in order to reconstruct, in a more public way, educational vision and renewed politics in accordance with modern society and its information and communication possibilities” (Hernández et al., 2013, p. 67).

It is in these areas the confluences between critical pedagogy and the Indignados movement are seen to have reached their most significant dimensions, in the prefigurative politics which characterizes this movement and satisfies, in one way or another, all of the dimensions set by Kincheloe, as we will see below.

According to Flesher Fominaya (2014, p. 12), “prefigurative social movements” are those which “attempt to embody through practice an alternative vision of society.” Prefigurative politics aims “at creating the (vision of) alternative society, both in the present, but also through a future-oriented perspective through the creation of alternatives” (Asara, 2015, p. 119). Prefigurative politics, processes, and personal transformation are inseparable from structural political change. This implies a profound educational process “of living and practicing relationships and political forms embodying and prefiguring the desired society, and the view of revolution as an ongoing process of social and personal transformation” (Asara, 2015, p. 120).

That said, we move on to the analysis of a movement which is clearly prefigurative: the Green Tides for State Education in Spain, which is strongly connected to critical discourses in education in addition to working toward alternative ways of living in a fairer society.

Contextualizing Critical Pedagogy and the Green Tides for the State Education in Spain

Where does the Green Tides movement come from? As has been outlined in the introduction, it stems from the 2007 global economic crash, the cuts in social rights, symptomatic of an attack on the welfare state, and the eruption of the Indignados Movement in Spain which has created the appropriate breeding ground for the birth of citizen collectives aimed at defending the common good. For the first time in history, the neoliberal reforms of recent years, in the form of “social cuts” (started in 2010 by the social-democratic Partido Socialista Obrero Español [PSOE], and maintained by the neoconservative Partido Popular [PP], mainly since December 2011 to October 2015), have given rise to great mobilizations on the Spanish streets. These demonstrations and protests, seeded by the Indignados Movement, were organized by the public sectors, resulting in the so-called “Mareas Ciudadanas” (“Citizens’ Tides”).

When these “tides” appeared, they were categorized according to different colors. Each color represented the area of the public sector which they intended to defend against the series of privatization initiatives implemented by neoliberalization practices in Spain. As a result, the following collectives have emerged: Yellow Tide (against the privatizations in the public sector of justice and public libraries), Blue Tide (against the privatization of water, defending it as a basic public good), White Tide (against the privatization of the public health), Maroon Tide (fighting against forced emigration and its causes), Brown Tide (against the speculation and privatization of public forests and in defense of the environment as a public good), Orange Tide (against the privatization of the public social services), Black Tide (against the cuts in the number of civil servants and in favor of guaranteeing decent and acceptable public services), Red Tide (in defense of good public employment services, adequate social benefits and against unemployment), Green Tide (against the privatization of state education and in defense of an inclusive state education), and Violet Tide (in defense of equality policies and against restrictions in women rights).

Using this amalgam of collectives and Citizens’ Tides which fight privatization against the backdrop of neoliberal policies, we focus on a critical analysis of the discourse of the Green Tides movement which aims to defend state education in Spain. In addition, we aim to connect this to some dimensions of critical pedagogy. However, we start from the view that there is not just one single approach within critical pedagogy. It is a field which is in constant transformation arising from various sources and perspectives, some of them in opposition. Taking into account the multiformity and heterogeneity of critical pedagogy, our objective is not to generalize, much less to be categorical when it comes to marking its key points. In line with this, the critical analysis of discourse carried out on the dimensions of critical pedagogy has taken into account those dimensions which are closest to the praxis observed within the Indignados Movement and, specifically, the Green Tides for the State Education. Thus, the dimensions presented by Kincheloe (2007) have a strong connection with the practice of “raising awareness and with transforming potential,” as expressed by the Indignados.

On the contrary, supporters of critical pedagogy want to dispense with the label of it being just a “language of critique” (Cho, 2010, p. 310). The idea of a “pedagogy of hope” has taken root among critical theorists (Nikolakaki, 2012), on the basis of it being a form of resistance to a deterministic logic of reality and the possibility of alternative visions. This discourse analysis is not just a critique of ideology; it also seeks a transformation of knowledge to understand the global power relations which dominate the world. The “counter-hegemonic” discourse has been traditionally used in the face of the long-established inequalities based on class, race, and gender (Liasidou, 2012). It holds that knowledge is loaded with ideology, which is neither neutral nor objective. In line with this and according to Giroux (2003),

Interrogating how power works through dominant discourses and social relations, particularly as they affect young people who are marginalized economically, racially, and politically, provides opportunities for progressives to challenge dominant ideologies and regressive social policies that undermine the opportunities for connecting the struggles over education to the broader crisis of radical democracy and social and economic justice. (p. 13)

Critical pedagogy speaks of empowering students, creating an emancipatory culture, overcoming those relationships which reproduce and maintain the economic and cultural marginalization of the exploited (Darder, Baltodano, & Torres, 2003). These aims, which are present in the discourse of critical pedagogy, connect with a number of the claims made by current social movements, such as the 15M/Indignados in Spain. A central line of critical pedagogy is the democratization of knowledge, a fact witnessed in the public assemblies and the Indignados Movement camps which gathered, over a number of months, in Spanish squares and streets.

According to Cho (2010), there exist three great projects within current critical pedagogy. She calls the first of them “the project of experience” (p. 313). For example, in the face of the “imposition,” of the neoliberal hegemonic discourse as the only worldview, critical pedagogy presents, from this perspective, counter-hegemonic experiences. In the words of Cho, “critical pedagogy focuses on the subject (lived experiences and genuine voices) from which ideology critique, resistance, and alternatives are to be realized” (p. 313). She calls the second project “the project of anti-system” (p. 314), in which nonhierarchical forms of authority and participatory democracy are sought. As we have seen, the Indignados also reflected and practiced these “anti-system” approaches in public squares (from a Foucauldian position, to understand how power constructs us, how it creates our vision of reality). Taking into account these difficulties—practically, a kind of “unattainable” utopia—Cho prefers to talk about “anti-systematic changes” (p. 314). This is because, for her, “instead of pursuing systemic changes, the only viable option left is local grassroots democracy movements from bottom up” (p. 314). The Indignados Movement perfectly illustrates the nature of a local movement stemming from grassroots citizens’ concerns, and especially following the initiatives developed by the various Citizens’ Tides and, in our case, by the Green Tide.

In this same line, Cho (2010) refers to the third project as “the project of inclusion” (p. 315). She starts by suggesting that we need to build more inclusive social and educational institutions. This is a claim expressed very early on by the 15M/Indignados and also, as we will see, by the Green Tides in relation to education. These are modes of resistance based on the redistribution of power at all levels to create different patterns of organizing life in society. Thus, we are talking about decentralized grassroots movements (that is movements not controlled by any political party or institution) which practice with examples of participatory democracy. They reject a centralized, hierarchical leadership and struggle not simply against neoliberal capitalism, economic exclusion, and exploitation forms but also against a way of understanding a system based on exclusion. Hence, the defense of the redistribution of power is one of their key beliefs, an aspect which has also been addressed within the Indignados Movement.

Critical Analysis of the Discourse: Connecting the Green Tides for the State Education With the Dimensions of Critical Pedagogy

Taking the previous context as a starting point, we analyze the essential dimensions which lie behind the practice of critical pedagogy in its attempt to build alternative spaces to neoliberal logic. We then connect this to a critical analysis of the discourse, which is the message behind the manifesto of the Green Tides for the State Education in Spain. In this vein, Kincheloe (2007) presents eight key dimensions that guide the evolving practice of critical pedagogy in the face of those problems arising from indoctrination, alienation, and oppression from the dominant neoliberal ideology. The analysis of these dimensions allows us to get a glimpse of the links between critical pedagogy and citizens’ mobilizations. Surely, there are connections where critical educators and social movements can combine to build a real, participatory, and active democracy.

For a Creative Sociocultural Imagination

The first dimension Kincheloe raises is the development of a sociocultural imagination, which relates to the construction of new forms of self-realization and social collaboration leading to the emancipation of the subjugated. It calls for new modes of conscience, knowledge construction, and citizens’ education (Freire, 2001). It also calls for critical education as a means of fighting against domination (Freire, 2003), a transformative pedagogy capable of inquiring and examining the existing connections between the practices of everyday life and the broader structures of social domination (Coté, Day, & De Peuter, 2007). It demands a critical pedagogy, which rethinks our current subjectivity which has been kidnapped by neoliberal ideology to deconstruct it and set a new collective identity based on social justice.

Analyzing the content of the document “Carta por la Educación Pública” (“Charter for the State Education,” issued on September 6, 2015; Mareas Verdes, 2015), published by the Green Tides for the State Education in Spain, we find that they describe themselves as

a space for the coordination of the different movements, tides, assemblies, collectives and individuals which have as their aims the sharing of information, exchange of experiences, and the coordination of joint actions in order to defend state education at the state level. (p. 1)

Within this discourse, we observe signs of the rising awareness of its members and expressions of struggle against “social domination,” all in an attempt to educate active citizenship and taking as a reference point the defense of state education:

We denounce the savage cuts which are being imposed by public administrations, both at state and regional levels—and independently of their political tendency. This is making us all pay for this social scam which they call an “economic crisis.” All of this supposes an unprecedented aggression towards state education in Spain. We will not permit it, since it means the imposition of a private organisation model on all levels of state education and one which follows the neoliberal model. This model is unfair, and not in tune with social needs. It is also at the service of those economic powers which impose new laws and carry out legislative offensives in order to adapt the educational system to their business interests. All of this is being carried out behind the backs of the people and imposed without debate or consultation. Furthermore, this is not explicitly included in any electoral programme. (p. 1)

A hidden creative and critical process of knowledge construction lies behind this discourse, in which the subjects critically analyze the “cuts” to state education and the neoliberal policies which support them. The Green Tide movement articulates both deliberative and collaborative processes, which explore the connections existing between, for example, the interests of supranational organizations like the IMF, the WB, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with the privatization processes taking place in the state education. Here we can see how they collectively deconstruct the neoliberal discourse, while taking the steps toward the recreation of an alternative subjectivity.

Working for an “Authentic” Individualism

The reconstitution of the individual outside the boundaries of abstract individualism would be the second dimension. Peters (2012) argues that

Neoliberalism as a political philosophy involves a return to a primitive form of individualism: an individualism that is “competitive,” “possessive” and construed often in terms of the doctrine of “consumer sovereignty.” It involves an emphasis on freedom over equality, where freedom is construed in negative terms and individualistic terms. Negative freedom is freedom from state interference that implies an acceptance of inequalities generated by the market. (p. 136)

To move away from this “negative individualism,” from this distorted vision of individual wisdom, critical education aims to create genuine form of individualism. This is an individualism which has political rights and connects to economic, social, and cultural dimensions. By rejecting the abstract and selfish individual, typical of neoliberal capitalism, this authentic individualism promotes harmony within the wider social and democratic context in which the subject is inserted. It is actually about respecting the individual, provided that the individual’s rights do not endanger the common good.

Thus, against the idea of a competitive individualism, more typical of the neoliberal model, the Green Tides for the State Education propose, in their document “Bases para una nueva Ley de Educación” (“Bases for a new Education Law,” September 2017, made by the “Networks for a New Educational Policy” within the Green Tides; Mareas Verdes, 2017), a nondiscriminatory form of education which guarantees the inclusion of all citizens. They hold that inclusivity is inherent to state education. On the basis of equal rights, they advocate allocating more public resources to those who need them the most. Furthermore, under this redistributive principle applied to state education, they defend the right “to configure the curricula from an intercultural and inclusive approach, promoting the recognition of students from migrant and minority families, sexual diversity and gender equality” (p. 29).

Advocating an inclusive approach to state education reinforces the idea of working for an authentic individualism. Starting from the principle that everyone has the same right to a “quality” state education moves away, at least theoretically, from approaches focused on the competence of both resources and results. The participants in the Green Tides are fully aware that not all students start from similar family, economic, and social situations. This situation, widely contrasted by the academic literature, conditions the concept of some alleged “equal opportunities” which is increasingly used to justify the social and economic inequalities which are clearly visible in society. Advocating inclusive models is to publicly defend more solidary positions, while moving away from a discourse which is biased in favor of a more competitive and possessive individualism.

Understanding Power and Its Effects

Another dimension noted by Kincheloe is the understanding of power and the ability to interpret its effects on the social and individual fields. Critical pedagogy seeks to understand how power configures a social order and a particular subjectivity; that is, how ideology is immersed in the consciousness of the individual shaping their behavior, making it amenable to the hegemony of the establishment (Wilkins, 2012). It studies this complex relationship in which individuals and groups are connected to power. In this sense, Morris (2012), pointing to the critical pedagogy project developed by Henry Giroux, argues that this

examines and analyzes politics and pedagogy not as confined to formal education but extended into the wider systems of social and cultural relations of power where the organization of material and ideological production and the governance of material and ideological distribution are carried out. (p. 648)

In this sense, and from the “Charter for the State Education” (Mareas Verdes, 2015), it is clear that, to understand the power structures and relationships which govern society, education must go beyond a technical, instrumental, and rote form of learning. Hence, “We consider that an ethical-civic, critical and emancipatory form of state education goes far beyond that of a mere transfer of content and facts, and must be demonstrated in practice” (p. 6). Due to this, they propose, “Developing a curriculum in the autonomous region which incorporates contents of ethical-political education and promotes the skills which are required to critically understand a society based on the market and that enables its transformation” (p. 6).

Here we come to the political dimension of education, a constant theme in the critical theories in education. Learning to decipher how neoliberal subjectivity is constructed, how power “makes us” and neoliberalism transforms us (Ball, 2016), is a core issue in the Green Tides discourse. Understanding power relations and what effects they have on the growing processes of precarization of a good part of the citizenship is a topic which is also addressed within these citizen collectives. The Indignados, who are part of the Green Tides, have carefully analyzed neoliberalism and its effects. As a result, they have arrived at the conclusion that it is “an unfair model, which does not uphold social needs, while being under the yoke of the economic powers which execute a legislative offensive in order to adapt the educational system to their business interests” (Mareas Verdes, 2015, p. 1). They have identified neoliberalism as a sophisticated tool which is at the service of powerful capitalist, business, and social groups, as Owen Jones (2014) argues in “The Establishment.” Beyond a mere ideology, they describe neoliberalism as an influential political and economic project, a novel form of cultural engineering supported by powerful media propaganda and a managerial, performative, and colonizing pedagogy of market ideology (Gaudelli, 2013). A number of members of the Green Tides movement also describe it in this way.

Providing Alternatives to Neoliberal Logic

The provision of alternatives to the individual alienation is another dimension of critical pedagogy which is well needed in a world obsessed with consumption and speculation. These alternatives are geared toward more healthy human relationships. But this is a goal which is also shared by many of the citizens’ movements. The important epistemological legacy that critical pedagogy has historically built can be adapted to meet the daily problems of citizens, making it their own, transforming it, and rebuilding it to make sense of their life expectations. To build knowledge from the local sphere—starting from citizens’ bases, taking into account the explicit and imprecise interests that are hidden behind the official neoliberal discourse—it is necessary to take steps for the reconstruction of citizenship and social transformation.

Regarding this, the Green Tides proposes “to implement programmes that facilitate schools working on curriculum contents which have, as their central axis, sustainability, contributing to the preservation of all living things, environmental philosophy and ecological ethics.” Moreover, they insist on the importance of promoting “the critical participation of students in the transformation of society, fostering in schools a kind of permanent relationship with agents and groups focused on the struggle for social justice” (Mareas Verdes, 2015, p. 7). To do this, they propose a series of new contents to school curricula, such as working for social justice from within the classroom but in direct connection with reality.

The concept of sustainability and its implications. The most important ecological problems, such as the decline of energy, loss of biodiversity, over-urbanisation, climate change, pollution (of water, soil, food, air . . .), food crisis. Its causes and necessary corrective measures. The ecological economy, which explains the production of nature, the metabolism of the industrial society, the cycles of materials and energy, the relationship between economy and ecology. Decrease as a possible alternative. (Mareas Verdes 2015, p. 7)

These defenders of state education are aware of the need to move away from the instrumentalization of knowledge in the hands of capital. For this, they are actively promoting different modes of understanding public life, living in society, and seeing the role of humankind in the world. They perceive the wealth of cultural diversity and popular culture as important transforming forces and see contemporary forms of media, such as cinema, television, radio, theater, and magazines, as powerful educational resources at the service of popular culture with the aim of reactivating what Giroux (2014) calls “radical imagination.” Therefore, the Green Tides highlight the relevance of state education as a common good oriented toward the development of critical and radical political awareness. The purpose of this is to understand and learn how to analyze, and live, in the world as an active and politically aware individual, to create and recreate another possible world.

Developing Critical Awareness to Rebuild a New Subjectivity

Kincheloe also notes the cultivation of a critical conscience that is aware of the social construction of subjectivity. To understand the complexity of social practices, critical pedagogy encourages the development of individuals who are aware of the social environment they inhabit. According to Renner (2009), “teachers and students can critically examine their lives by crafting more nuanced lenses, seeking a deeper and critical consciousness, and continually developing a language of social justice with which to talk and think about the world” (p. 74). The social construction of reality in critical education enables citizens to overcome alienation and rebuild public space. Along these lines, Simmons (2016), paraphrasing Kincheloe, argues that “one of the key aims of critical pedagogy is to enable students to locate their learning within an explanatory framework which both promotes an understanding of structured inequality, and champions social justice” (p. 698).

At this point, the discourse of the Green Tides (Mareas Verdes, 2017) coincides with that vision of “a form of state education which requires that students be free-thinking, critical individuals, able to decide on issues for themselves” (p. 11). This is an education aimed at the “critical and creative promotion and participation in the social, cultural, political and economic world” (p. 19). It is necessary here to have a diversified and integrating curriculum that forms:

A critical citizenship of people who are aware. For this we need to include knowledge that is contextualised, meaningful and revisable, debatable and remains subject to criticism. The cultural challenge lies in providing an integral form of education which gathers and merges the knowledge of the sciences and their technological applications, with humanities, social sciences and arts, including popular knowledge and that common knowledge which makes up daily life, in a way that serves and supports the caring and nurturing of people, nature and community life . . . that facilitates the deliberation of controversial problems and helps to understand the environment in which they live. (p. 27)

In the document “Carta por la Educación que queremos” (“Charter for the Education We Want”), it is held that education also has a connection with the training for critical citizenship. From the Green Tides movement, one thing cannot be understood without the other. In other words, there exists a close connection between the development of a critical sense and a political vision of education as construction of a subjectivity. This is radically different from the neoliberal deterministic conception, as described by Ball (2016). So, the Green Tides movement (Mareas Verdes, 2015) supports

A state education for the development of the critical spirit, which supports active peace, social justice, citizen awareness, gender equality, in addition to the defence of the environment and the promotion of healthy living. In brief, this is a form of education focused on the integral development of the individual through the whole individual as well as by means of collective intelligences and capacities. We understand that the exercise of active and responsible citizenship is closely linked to the development of critical judgment and the capacity for deliberation. (p. 6)

Practicing Democracy to Community Cohesion

The construction of democratic relations among individuals toward community cohesion is another important dimension of critical pedagogy. Unlike the current global powers, which show an obvious rejection of community dimensions, critical education tries to find a balance between social space and individual action. Construction of democratic processes requires intellectuals committed to transformation and social justice (Fischman & McLaren, 2005), that is, people able to make a qualitative leap and go beyond the traditional discourses, practices, theories, and methodologies imposed by neoconservative and neoliberal forces in recent years (Mayo, 2012). The Green Tides insist on the importance of a democratic and participative form of education. So, from the foundations of these Indignados movements, it is argued that

One of the essential purposes of education is to promote democratic citizenship. Democracy involves participation, but this participation should be effective in the field of state education and it should go far beyond the formal aspects and agencies. It is impossible to reduce the democratic participation to the mere use of these elements and spaces. The construction of an education of all, and for all, aims to place special emphasis on democratic training. (Mareas Verdes, 2015, p. 5)

The critical analysis of the discourse used by the followers of Green Tides offers a passionate defense of the community sphere from a well-contextualized form of critical education. From this analysis, we can deduce that the members of the Green Tides are aware that the social contract has no defenders in the environment of the neoliberal agenda. Rather, they perceive a ruthless and unprecedented form of attack on the public sector from neoliberalism. In line with Owen Jones (2011), the Green Tides are exposing the neoliberal attempt to criminalize the poor, the unemployed, and the precarized, a process through which these groups are humiliated and despised. The neoliberal aim is to individualize that which is social in nature, so that social problems, and their consequences, are perceived as problems and failures created by individuals themselves; in other words, problems of the individual’s own making. Within this context those who have less, the vulnerable who are in need of social support and institutional work, are demonized.

Being aware of this, these Indignados struggle for the transparent self-management of state schools and universities in which professors, teachers, students, families, and social agents act together as a dedicated educational community. They perceive that the link between educational institutions and grassroots citizen movements is fundamental, as it allows individuals to reflect on what kind of school they want and for what model of society. These are issues which concern everyone, not only the dominant economic, political, and social powers. They are challenges which the Green Tides for the State Education constantly insist on confronting, and constitute the essence of this citizen movement. Once again, the discourse of critical pedagogy fits with the praxis which moves these social movements.

Avoiding the Conceptual Fragmentation of Reality

Kincheloe also includes within critical pedagogy the reconceptualization of reason. To understand that relational existence does apply not only to human beings but also to concepts. Critical pedagogy should avoid conceptual fragmentation of conventional reason. This reason tries to compartmentalize reality to distort the consciousness of individuals, so that they do not perceive the subtle power relationships, which are camouflaged by our contemporary civilization. With this, they try to isolate schools from society, and individuals from culture. The result of this is the negation of politics, the suppression of any possibility of discussion, to hide the existing power relations in society. Instead, Matthew Clarke (2012, 305) defends “the discourse of communicative rationality” which, from critical theories in education, seeks to displace and replace “the instrumentalism of neo-liberalism with a deliberative and consensual political realm informed by free and rational discussion.” Critical education offers a more realistic view of society, of the complex interactions between the different dimensions of human nature which take place within human beings. These cannot be understood separately, but should be seen as part of broader and complex interactive dynamics which are colonized by power self-interested power structures.

In this line,

An educational system cannot be built without analysing its historical context or considering the needs of the people and communities for whom it is destined. Reproducing or confronting the dominant culture is an ethical option which should be taken. This law will have to find ways of facing the deep social inequalities which surround us, the crisis of democratic values and the serious environmental crisis to which our culture is blindly heading towards. (Mareas Verdes, 2017, p. 36)

The Green Tides critically analyze the nature of social reality, establishing connections between what is happening within the classrooms and the complexities found in the wider social, political, economic, and cultural world. They reject fragmented “official” knowledge, characteristic of the big publishing houses which control the educational content of textbooks, and confer a kind of “natural sense” to official knowledge. For these collectives, the neoliberal view of knowledge is clearly decontextualized from the daily problems of the most disadvantaged students and their families. They debate and ask about the suitability of the sociopolitical interests which lie behind that theoretical natural social world. For all this, they maintain that social reality is much more complex, in that it cannot be understood as something fixed or static, but rather as a dynamic process in which multiple perspectives converge. These are the diverse points of view which far surpass the narrow margins imposed by that kind of “one-way thought” typical of neoliberal discourse.

Activating Participation for an Inclusive, Democratic Community

Finally, Kincheloe includes the production of the necessary social skills to enable participation in an inclusive and transformative democratic community, and this is insofar as critical pedagogy emphasizes the need for citizens to become democratic agents with a broader view of what is happening in social life (Denzin, 2009). Even recognizing the historical limitations of socialist and proletarian movements to eradicate social classes, Rexhepi and Torres (2011) do not fail to point out the potential of critical social theories to the necessary renewal of democracy. At this point, they emphasize the importance of emancipatory social movements for democratic transformation within the context of contemporary capitalist societies. According to these authors,

The creation of social imaginary implies (necessitates) a moral responsibility and a political commitment. A moral responsibility exists to imagine social scenarios through which people can deliberate and construct mechanisms of participation that may expand the workings of democracy and a political commitment to create an autonomous sphere of public debate, as suggested by Habermas, which is neither controlled by the market nor controlled by the State. (Rexhepi & Torres 2011, p. 690)

The Green Tides movement (Mareas Verdes, 2015) speaks of the “commitment to establish channels of participation between political parties and platforms with them and the educational collectives” (p. 2). They defend the much-needed connection between democratic education and citizen participation. They believe that “democracy is participation, but that this participation should be effective in the field of state education and go far beyond formal aspects and agencies” (p. 5). These collectives are aware of the importance of establishing real channels of participation between the educational system and society, seeing it as a necessary step toward the sociocultural reconstruction of their environment, and a means of activating community participation in the struggle against the hegemonic imposition of the one-way thought.

To activate participation in democratic life, these citizens and state education activists foster collective learning, deliberation on community affairs and ways of addressing those public problems which affect everyone. From this perspective, the practices developed by the Indignados connect with one of the central tenets of “civic education.” As Kahne, Hodgin, and Eidman-Aadahl (2016) hold, one of the core objectives is “enabling individuals to work collectively to identify, learn about, discuss with others, and address public issues” (p. 4). These authors highlight the importance of what they call a “form of engagement participatory politics” (p. 2) among the Indignados movements, as seen in the case of the Green Tides. This kind of politics clearly differs from institutional politics. Furthermore, these practices allow the Indignados activists to “democratize the conversation” (p. 2), thus favoring horizontal and democratic decisions-making.

By Way of a Final Reflection

The amazing phenomenon of collective organization, as seen in the streets and squares of many countries around the world since 2011, has involved a process of collective learning. By means of this process, millions of citizens have challenged existing power structures, have analyzed reality from a critical perspective, and collectively understood what aspects lie behind the current crisis. All this has also led to the articulation of meaningful processes of reflection, from an informational educational discourse to deepen social struggle. The fact that people from many different cultures and backgrounds as diverse as the youth of North Africa and the Middle East, Europe and the United States, Latin America and the Far East have created a nascent global social germ, fighting against the policies of inequality led by neoliberalism, is a sign of the times which we cannot dismiss. The increase in inequality due to austerity policies, the progressive impoverishment and gradual privatization of citizens’ rights and basic public services, and the increase in the precariat have mobilized very diverse and heterogeneous societies: Christian and Muslim societies, liberal and communist traditions, northern and southern countries. All of them, with seemingly different languages, values, and life paths have converged in the need for citizen mobilization as a form of collective learning, aimed at dealing with the harassment of markets. The deliberate attack on two of the basic pillars of society, together with the factors mentioned above, have created a breeding ground which, under a widespread discontent about state institutions, has led to the emergence of citizens movements such as the Indignados in Spain.

Asara (2015) observed that, when the tents were dismantled and squares had become empty, something had changed forever for millions of people. For a few days, they had lived the dream of a utopian society. Their lives would never be the same again, hence the movement could not cease to exist. It reached out and expanded to neighborhoods and villages, and became embodied in the daily life of hundreds of thousands of people who, over time, would continue building “the new” society, and would continue their struggle through the “Citizens’ Tides” and other endless initiatives and citizens projects which have developed in Spain in recent years. The Green Tides for the State Education in Spain are a clear example of this struggle. Professionals in the educational field, students, and families have joined forces to make a stand against the neoliberal harassment of state education. Cuts in education, such as the of reduction of teaching staff, tighter conditions for receiving student scholarships, budget cuts in research projects, and public funds at all levels of education, together with the approval of the most markedly neoliberal educational law in the history of Spain, in 2013 (Ley Orgánica para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa [Organic Law for the Improvement of Educational Quality] popularly known as LOMCE), have provoked the mobilization of the educational community as a whole. Within this context, the Green Tides for Education has become a catalyst for outrage and collective action in defense of the state education.

Although, 6 years on, no dramatic political changes can be observed, the 15M/Indignados, and more specifically the Green Tides for the State Education, have produced an historic change of great significance, in so far as they have created a recognizable cultural change—even recognized by many of their detractors. According to Flesher Fominaya (2014), for prefigurative social movements, like those analyzed in this work, “it would make little sense to evaluate their success or failure in terms of policy outcomes” (p. 13). To be precise, the objective of critical pedagogy would certainly be more in cultural—medium and long term—results, than in political—short term—results, given the nature of education itself. In any case, cultural change, in which critical pedagogy can enforce its strengths, would necessarily lead to eventual political change. Flesher Fominaya also acknowledges this fact when she says, “Following Gramsci, in order to transform politics you would need to challenge the hegemonic ideologies (transmitted through culture) that maintain systems of injustice and inequality in place. Many social movements aim to do just that” (Fominaya, 2014, p. 87).

However, we should be aware of the enormous difficulty of producing profound and radical changes within the current neoliberal capitalist system—this would be almost a utopia. But, given the difficulty of systemic changes, the most viable option in the medium to long term is for local, community-based movements, such as the Green Tides, to continue to develop “bottom-to-top” democratic processes, in the way they have done up until now. In the context of increasingly individualist and competitive societies, in which the structural problems of an unfair system are attributed to the individual failures of the subjects, collective action aimed to social justice is crucial, as argued by Jones (2011, 2014) and Standing (2011) among others. The socioeducational project defended by the Green Tides clearly relates to this, given that it is strongly based on the democratic principle of inclusion. This is an aspect which, as we have seen in this article, links perfectly with the third project of the critical pedagogy described by Cho (2010): “the Project of inclusion” (p. 315).

It is not by chance that, due to all this, a great number of academics from different fields have been involved in the Indignados and Green Tides movements, applying their best knowledge in this social experiment. This indicates a necessary miscegenation between academic intellectuals and social movements. Critical pedagogy can progress through social movements, and these, in turn, can benefit greatly from the contributions of critical pedagogy. This said, and taking into account the previous analysis, we can affirm that there is a connection between the discourse of critical pedagogy and the real praxis of social movements, such as the Green Tides, so that the former does not remain a mere cyclical discourse made by specialists for specialists. Likewise, those critical intellectuals involved have been able reflect on their practice in a particularly significant situation, as shown by the impact in massive layers of the population.

Education is present at the heart of these processes in which community strategies are articulated and where critical thinking and collective action are linked. A movement such as the Green Tides is learning from within the environment of social participation and shares the sociopolitical action for change with critical pedagogy in the sense that it perceives history as an unfinished process, one which has to be rethought and rebuilt by the social movements themselves. At this point, we see the need for “field work,” as a fundamental part of critical pedagogy. The experiences described above show the confluence of interests, methodologies, practices, and analyses of reality which exist between social movements and critical pedagogy. We cannot lose sight of this convergence if we are to construct new subjectivities which can facilitate a new kind of social reality, as suggested by the action of social movements.

As argued by Cho (2010): “The lived experiences and everyday modes of resistance are considered as evidence of possibilities against the totalizing reproductive nature of the system” (p. 318). To this, she adds, “The everyday and small, yet significant, forms of resistance are conceived and celebrated as sources of possible challenges to and eventual transformation of the system.”

Time will tell how far the Green Tides for the State Education in Spain progresses, and whether they will be affected by neoliberal logic. The truth is that, to date, this movement is vigilant, reflective, and horizontally organized. Moreover, it offers realistic alternatives in defense of a state education which can be defined as “of all and for all.” It is challenging the “mercantilising” vision of education by working from the ground up and by presenting critical theories for education which offer alternative ways of living in a society, deemed to be more democratic, fair, and inclusive. Here the movement connects with the essence of critical pedagogy.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Francisco Miguel Martínez-Rodríguez

Author Biography

Francisco Miguel Martínez-Rodríguez is a Doctor in Pedagogy from the University of Granada. Currently, he works as a lecturer at the aforementioned university in the Degrees of Social Education and Pedagogy, as well as in different Master Degrees. His main research lines are focused on: Critical Pedagogy, Neoliberalisation processes, Precariousness and practices of resistance in socioeducational contexts.

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