The University and Social Justice: Struggles Across the Globe

Higher education has long been contested terrain. From student movements to staff unions, the fight for accessible, critical and quality public education has turned university campuses globally into sites of struggle.

Whether calling for the decommodification or the decolonisation of education, many of these struggles have attempted to draw on (and in turn, resonate with) longer histories of popular resistance, broader social movements and radical visions of a fairer world. In this critical collection, Aziz Choudry, Salim Vally and a host of international contributors bring grounded, analytical accounts of diverse struggles relating to higher education into conversation with each other.

Featuring contributions written by students and staff members on the frontline of struggles from 12 different countries, including Canada, Chile, France, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Occupied Palestine, the Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and the USA, the book asks what can be learned from these movements' strategies, demands and visions.

Aziz Choudry is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Social Movement Learning and Knowledge Production in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT), University of Johannesburg. He is editor of Activists and the Surveillance State (Pluto, 2019) and co-editor of Just Work? Migrant Workers' Struggles Today (Pluto, 2016).

Salim Vally is Professor and Director of CERT, Faculty of Education, at the University of Johannesburg and the National Research Foundation - South African Research Initiative's Chair in Community, Adult and Workers Education. He is co-editor of Education, Economy and Society (UNISA Press, 2014), and Reflections on Knowledge, Learning and Social Movements: History's Schools (Routledge, 2018).