Populism and education

The purpose of this event is to explore the consequences of surging political populism for social justice in education with a focus on the politics of knowledge and the relationship between knowledge and social inequality. Our speakers will consider populist challenges to institutionalised knowledge, the role of education as a site for populist political contestation and resistance, and the relationship between populism and differently positioned young people’s identities. The event is inspired by a range of public debates and social contestations, including the way that gender, sexuality and race are approached and contested in educational settings, changing relationships between public trust and expertise, and moral panics connected in which student identities are made into focal points for populist political projects. In this context, our aim is to open up a discussion about how populist politics within and outside of official policy circles is impacting on education, the role that education can play in shaping the outcome of public debates about social inequalities, and the project of social justice through education.

The event will include presentations from two speakers, and collective discussion afterwards:

Professor Jessica Gerrard, University of Melbourne

Across national contexts – including Australia – a rise in authoritarian right-wing populist politics has seemingly disrupted the settlement of liberal representative democracies. In this paper, I seek to resituate right-wing populism as an underpinning current within liberal democracies, lying at their centre and in their invariable gaps, exclusions and violences. I examine and address the ways in which contemporary right-wing politics is expressed through a claim to what is ‘natural’ (gender, family, social inequalities, a white settler colonial state), drawing on historical research from the 1970s and 1980s as well as contemporary trends. I demonstrate how education is central to these politics through the cultivation of conservative networks of expertise and reflect on what this means in the current day.

Dr Roz Ward, Deakin University

This presentation will explore how populist backlash against programs such as Safe Schools has been animated through claims to ‘defend the family’. It explores how gender and sexuality are contested in education through moral panic and the politicisation of ‘parental rights’.

The session invites reflections on the implications of these forms of populism and ideology for education, educational research, and hopes for social justice through education.

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