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Session 1 provided critical perspectives on neo-liberal approaches to schooling and discussed the potential of co-operative, democratic forms of schooling. This session addresses issues of the impacts of different kinds of pedagogical and organisational regime on health, values, identities, social justice and forms of political engagement whether from historical examples and/or current existing cases. 

In the context of neo-liberal market interventions in the public sector, the on-going global financial crisis what are the impacts on peoples lives and their opportunities to resist, challenge and make a difference to their personal lives and their communities? In order to explore the issues, radical approaches to research such as feminism, marxism, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, deconstruction are drawn upon by the different presenters to the symposium.    Interviews, observations, enthographies, documentary analysis, discourse analysis, psychoanalytic clinical analysis  are employed to ask in greater depth:

1. what is common concerning the influence of neoliberal policies and practices on school orgnisation, curricula, teaching and learning and power relations between teachers, students, parents, communities and policy makers

2. the implications of co-operative and democratic forms of organization for changing the power relations with respect to school governance, teaching, and learning

3. the differential social and psychological impacts on individuals and communities of neoliberal, co-operative and democratic forms of organisation

4. the differential implications for subjectivities, identities and the sense of being able to engage with others to make changes, create new forms of social organization that include cultural and individual differences

We pick up the common threads from Session 1 to explore in-depth in session 2.  In order to ensure this, the session discussants will make links and draw out from each session and from each paper  the methodological and substantive implications necessary for bringing about social justice through education and research. Thus contributions the overall aim is to draw out the implications for radical research methodologies designed both to critique and formulate the conditions for action (c.f. Schostak and Schostak 2008, 2010) In their different ways, the presenters in this symposium recognise the necessity for multidisciplinary approaches and dialogues in order to understand and formulate responses to  the social, political, ethical and economic complexities of peoples’ lived experiences. 

Schostak, J. F, and Schostak J. R. (2008) Radical Research. Designing, developing and writing research to make a difference, Routledge: London, UK

Schostak, J. F.,  and Schostak, J. R. (Eds) (2010) Researching Violence, Democracy and the Rights of People, Routledge: London, UK