Practice of Equality

Stephen Cowden is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Coventry University. He has a long standing interest in the area of Critical Pedagogy and is one of the editors of the «New Disciplinary Perspectives in Education» series. In 2013 he co-authored the book Acts of Knowing: Critical Pedagogy In, Against and Beyond the University. He also writes on Social Work theory and practice and on the sociology of Religious Fundamentalism.David Ridley is an independent researcher and journalist who has also taught various subjects at Coventry University for the last six years. In the field of education studies, as well as his work on Jacques Rancière, David is also currently finishing a book on John Dewey, and, inspired by the Lucas Plan, on the idea of a «socially-useful university».

«This book will be hugely helpful for anyone thinking about what equality and emancipation mean in the context of education, and how Jacques Rancière’s polemical interventions can be made sense of in relation to more familiar thinkers in the field, such as Foucault and Freire. It is a vital resource for developing ideas about what critical pedagogy means today.»(Dr Caroline Pelletier, Reader in Culture and Communication at UCL’s Institute of Education)«Around the world, educators, students, and community activists are filling the streets in resistance to the marketization of education and other neoliberal policies and practices that have functioned for more than 30 years to exacerbate inequalities across societies. Never has there been a better time to read Cowden and Ridley’s The Practice of Equality, where they beautifully compile a set of insightful essays that brilliantly reinvigorate the revolutionary ideas of French philosopher Jacques Rancière. The volume skillfully ushers in a much needed new wave of critical pedagogical disruption for our times.»(Antonia Darder, Leavey Endowed Chair of Ethics and Moral Leadership, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Education, University of Johannesburg)

• CONTENTS: Sarah Galloway: Rancière, Freire and Critical Pedagogy – Oliver Davis: «Glearning» from Rancière – Jeremy F. Lane: Neither «Sociologist» Nor «Republican»: The «Singularity» of Rancière’s Intervention in French Education Debates – David Ridley: Flipping for Profit or Equality? Rancière and the Marketisation of Higher Education – Jones Irwin: Alternative Genealogies of Resistance – Lyotard, Rancière and ’68: Before and After – Mark Howard: The Positive Project of the Radical Political Subject: Self-activity and Verification of Intellectual Equality – Mike Neary: Reading Rancière Symptomatically.