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Mai Atta1
The Pennsylvania State University, United States of America
Kamil M. Gerónimo-López2
The Pennsylvania State University, United States of America
Javier Campos-Martínez3
Universidad Austral de Chile, Chile
John D. Holst4
The Pennsylvania State University, United States of America
María Alicia Vetter5
Northern Illinois University alumni, United States of America
A Comparative Study of Youth
and Adult Education in ree
Social Movement Contexts
Abstract: This article presents the results of a comparative study of learning and educati-
on in contemporary student movements in Chile, Egypt, and Puerto Rico, which arose
as responses to neoliberal economic grievances. The study uses an andragogical lens to
analyse these movements as examples of collective self-directed pedagogical practice by
and within social movements. Drawing on Santos’ (2006) sociologies of absence and
“emergence”, the study utilizes autoethnographic and secondary data analysis to voice
1 Mai Atta is a dual-degree doctoral student in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education, and Comparative and
International Education at the Pennsylvania State University (mm6173@psu.edu).
2 Kamil Gerónimo-López, MSW, is a popular educator from Puerto Rico, founder of Pueblo Crítico, and a
dual-degree doctoral student in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education, and Comparative and International
Education at the Pennsylvania State University (kmg6540@psu.edu).
3 Javier Campos-Martínez, PhD, is an Assistant Teacher at the Institute of Educational Sciences of the Univer-
sidad Austral de Chile. He is also the Education and Education Policy section co-chair at the Latin American
Studies Association (LASA), (javier.campos@uach.cl).
4 John D. Holst, PhD, is an Associate Professor at The Pennsylvania State University. John D. Holst is the
author of Social Movements, Civil Society, and Radical Adult Education, co-author with Stephen Brookfield
of Radicalizing Learning, and co-editor with Nico Pizzolato of Antonio Gramsci: A Pedagogy to Change the
World (jdh91@psu.edu).
5 María Alicia Vetter, PhD, is an Independent Researcher and Adult Education scholar with a doctorate in
Adult Education from Northern Illinois University (mavetter100@msn.com).
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66 M. A, K. M. G-L, J. C-M, J. D. H, M. A. V
social movement-based learning alternatives. We argue that, despite the different contexts
of each movement, they still share many commonalities in organizing and educating in
response to global neoliberalism.
Key words: social movement learning, comparative adult education, Chile, Egypt, Puerto
Rico, andragogy, neoliberalism.
Andragogy and Social Movements
In the last few decades, we have seen a major upsurge in social movements across
the globe. Almeida (2019) cites several social science researchers who have em-
pirically demonstrated what many of us subjectively feel and understand: there is
an increasing level of collective action being taken by the people in our countries
and across the world. This increase in social movement activity has not gone un-
noticed by educational researchers. According to Niesz, et. al (2018), it is the field
of adult education that has the most coherent research program on the relation-
ship between learning and education and social movements. Increasingly, we are
seeing more-and-more studies in the field framed by the term social movement
learning (SML). The field of adult education has shown that social movements
are an important area for understanding the nature of learning (Holst, 2018;
Walker & Butterwick, 2020).
Nevertheless, the interest in SML is not taken up evenly across the sub-
fields within adult education. Based on a review of literature across the major
adult education journals, we find that there are very few studies that relate andra-
gogy to learning or education in social movements. Keefe’s (2015) andragogical
approach to a study of Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School is perhaps
unique in its effort to specifically analyse social movement-based adult education
from an andragogical perspective.
The dearth in andragogical research on SML could be explained by the oft
cited critique (e.g., Kruszelnicki, 2020; Pratt, 1993; Raymer, 2020) that andrago-
gy focuses predominantly on the individual at the expense of the social; thereby,
orienting any andragogical research toward individual learning and not learning
that takes place in social or collective contexts, such as social movements. While
this may be true, there are adult educators who have taken up the central andra-
gogical tenet of self-directedness and detailed how it can easily be framed as a
fundamental aspect of education for social change. Brookfield and Holst (2010),
for example, show how self-directedness, when framed as self-determination for
oppressed sectors of societies, becomes essential for understanding adult educa-
tion for social change. Raymer (2020) shows how a social and transformative
A , / 67
andragogy of hope is a central aspect of The Global Network of Learning Cities
that emphasizes adult education for social change.
It is our view that andragogical studies can and should join the efforts to
understand the nature of learning and education in social movements. In this
article, we present comparative research on three contemporary social movements
in three countries. All three cases are examples of how sectors of society engage
in social movement-based, collective self-directed learning and education, which
can help us explore the andragogical aspects of social movement-based or social
change-oriented education.
Methodology
Our research is a qualitative, interpretive, and comparative case study of the col-
lective self-directed learning and education taking place in specific periods of mo-
bilization within three social movements in three countries. Our study is interpre-
tive because we are interested in developing conceptual and theoretical insights
(Merriam, 1991, pp. 27–28) into the nature of collective self-directed learning
and education within social movements, more specifically within student move-
ments arising from the struggles against neoliberal policies. The authors who par-
ticipated in these movements used data drawn from autoethnographic analysis of
their own participation in the movements, data from secondary analysis of the
movements, and data from artifacts such as social media, videos, and interviews
produced by the movements themselves. Moreover, the interpretive and compar-
ative nature of our inquiry is based on Santos’ (2006) concepts of a “sociology of
absences” and a “sociology of emergences” that are a part of his broader project of
epistemologies of the South. Considering these two sociologies as dialectically re-
lated, we find Santos (2006) to be particularly informative for our methodology;
his work on the World Social Forum movement of the early 2000s was specifical-
ly focused on the then emerging social movement-based alternatives to neoliberal
globalization, and on the alternative Global South-based epistemologies founda-
tional to these alternatives. Furthermore, Santos’ work emerges contemporary to
the movements we are analysing. For Santos, a sociology of absences focuses on
social entities which are purposely produced as non-existent in dominant ways of
understanding the world. In other words, the absences refer to that which does
exist, but is absent in mainstream and, particularly, in Western perspectives; these
are sites where subaltern pedagogies arise.
The sociology of “emergences” is future oriented. In revealing and high-
lighting the absences, a sociology of “emergences” looks to identify the latent pos-
68 M. A, K. M. G-L, J. C-M, J. D. H, M. A. V
sibilities for alternatives to the dominant ways of being in and understanding the
world. We see the movements we are investigating as sources of alternative ways
of being, understanding, collective self-directed learning, and educating that are
generally absent in and made absent by mainstream notions of adult education,
but that are emergent possible alternatives to these very same mainstream ap-
proaches to adult education.
The above appears particularly relevant in the context of the struggles
against Neoliberalism, an economic model that has not only subjected the field
of education to market forces, but most relations as well. Starting with its early
implementation in Chile under dictatorial conditions (Letelier, 1976), the model
was quickly promoted all over the Global South, and in societies as distinct as
Egypt (Beinin, 2016) and Puerto Rico. The student movements presented here
emerged, first and foremost, in response to the conditions the global neoliberal
agenda imposed in all three countries.
e Student Movement in Chile (2006–2019)
Neoliberalism in Chile was first implemented during the military dictatorship
(1973–1988), and further developed under transitional governments (1989–to
present). While in the 1980s students fought against the dictatorship, in the more
recent uprisings they have organized against the economic model itself.
The years following the dictatorship did not change, but rather expand-
ed the socio-economic neoliberal model. This economic model permeated all
spheres of social life by introducing new widespread privatizations that, through
processes of accumulation by dispossession, as Harvey (2005) has pointed out, re-
duced public investment, and transferred these funds to the private sector. In the
area of public education, this meant the deterioration of state provisions and the
exacerbation of social and economic barriers to the exercise of the right to educa-
tion at all levels of the educational system (Assaél Budnik et al., 2011). Students
have persisted in social mobilization processes throughout the post-dictatorship
period (1989–present); both university and high school students have been rel-
evant actors in the struggle for better and just living conditions in the country
during this period (Aguilera Ruiz, 2012; Thielemann, 2017).
Historically, student protests took place in April and May each year, when
the presidential “state of the union” address was delivered. Students organized to
have their demands be included in the general announcements made in the ad-
dress each year. During the 1990s, the students achieved remedial measures that
did not go beyond the neoliberal framework, such as an increase in the scholar-
A , / 69
ship fund, or greater direct allocations to public universities. All this changed
in 2006, when the high school students’ protests directed against the cost of
transportation and the school pass escalated to a national uprising lasting almost
a semester. This movement installed in the country’s ethos the idea that collective
transformations could dismantle the advances of neoliberalism and turn society
towards a progressive direction (Bellei & Caballin, 2013; Campos-Martínez &
Olavarría, 2020; Inzunza et al., 2019).
The May of the Penguins
The mobilization of high school students during the first semester of 2006 was
a lesson in organization, self-management, and construction of political subjects
within a youth movement. Initially, the students used the traditional forms of
protest — street blockades, demonstrations in the centre of the cities, etc. But
the repression they suffered from the police forces forced them to change their
protest strategies. That is when they began to occupy their schools in what is
known as a “toma”, or occupation. During the mobilization, a total of 20 schools
were occupied. The “toma” is the occupation of the students’ own educational
establishments; in this way, the students establish spaces for self-education and
political awareness building. The main spaces for this have been the student as-
semblies, which are non-hierarchical structures of participation and dialogue that
function at the level of each school. Each school had its own assembly, which
elected spokespersons. The spokespersons represented the voice of their peers in
inter-assembly meetings at the regional and national levels. The spokespersons
could not vote in these spaces without first consulting their base assemblies; this
way, after each meeting, they returned to report points of agreement and disa-
greement, and new dialogue was generated from which a mandate emerged and
was then taken by the spokespersons to new assemblies coordinating committees
(Campos-Martínez & Olavarría, 2020; Domedel & Lillo, 2008).
In this reflective process, two phenomena took shape. On the one hand,
the meaning of the demands was expanded from concrete local demands to more
complex national demands. The local demands called for better teaching condi-
tions, greater relevance of the curriculum, decent infrastructure, teaching materi-
als, decent bathrooms, etc. The national demands questioned the essence of neo-
liberalism and its impact on the nature of the education system. Two of the most
central and heartfelt demands were the end of for-profit education and the end of
educational segregation between schools for the rich and schools for the poor. This
was protested by both private and public-school students. They questioned the
70 M. A, K. M. G-L, J. C-M, J. D. H, M. A. V
role that market education had played in making social mobility practically impos-
sible for most students, thus dismantling the myth of meritocracy, and strength-
ening the movement in the process. The students became aware of the unequal
conditions that ruled their lives, and of the precarity of their survival in a country
where state control had been delivered into the hands of the private sector.
On the other hand, within the “tomas”, the students also developed cul-
tural activities and activities linking the school occupations with the immediate
communities; they also used the space to continue studying and training among
peers. There was a process of political education that permeated an entire genera-
tion, launching waves of protest that overlapped over the years and shared aims
and means in the struggle to put an end to neoliberalism and its impact on the
educational system.
This stage of students’ protests and organizing was co-opted by the govern-
ment of Michelle Bachelet (2006–2010) through the creation of a broad space for
discussion with economic interest groups. Representatives of the student world
sat down with representatives of the political and business class and discussed the
bases that the new educational system should have. No meaningful agreements
were reached on this matter, and the movement lost strength until it disappeared
the same year (Cornejo et al., 2012; Inzunza et al., 2019). But discontent emerged
again with renewed strength in 2011, this time when most of the students of the
“Penguin” generation were already attending university. This new movement was
named the “Chilean Spring” (Campos-Martínez & Olavarría, 2020).
The Chilean Spring
In 2011, the student mobilizations started early; paradoxically that year, it was
the private universities’ students with a focus on the popular classes the ones who
started the demonstrations that escalated again to national levels. The leadership
of these demonstrations was entrenched in the CONFECH, an association that
groups the traditional universities’ student centres. CONFECH has a hierarchi-
cal structure, with representatives from the different universities, and a central-
ized structure for deliberation and planning. The structure facilitated the coordi-
nation between marches in some ways, and it was possible to gather multitudes
of people of different ages in these marches. Some of them surpassed one million
people; almost 10% of the country’s population marched in the streets, and 80%
of the population supported the students’ mobilization process (Campos-Martín-
ez & Olavarría, 2020; Inzunza et al., 2019; Figueroa, 2012).
A , / 71
The demands of this mobilization also occurred at the local and national
levels. At the local level, each college negotiated aspects that were important to
them, such as curriculum, modes of work, school fees, etc (Campos-Martínez
& Olavarría, 2020; Figueroa, 2012). At the national level, common demands
that continued the anti-neoliberal legacy of the “Penguins” were brought up. At
this point, the political understanding on the need to overcome neoliberalism
was shared transversally with the public through training and popular education
processes that students carried out in the streets, on public transport, in schools,
and in other community spaces (Sandoval Moja & Carvallo Gallardo, 2019;
Stromquist, & Sanyal, 2013).
Protest strategy during this period included massive marches with take-
overs and occupations of higher education institutions. As with the “Penguin
movement”, the occupations became important spaces for cultural development,
creativity, and sharing the political common sense of the times. In the “tomas”,
students met to deliberate and discuss their situation and discontent, but also
planned cultural and educational actions to educate the population as to the im-
portance of ending neoliberalism and its impact on the living conditions of the
whole society (Sandoval Moja & Carvallo Gallardo, 2019).
The marches were also multitudinous and took place in different regions
of Chile. Within the marches, different cultural manifestations took place. The
march was a place of joy, the foretelling of the possibilities of a new society. Stu-
dents came with their children, parents, and grandparents; multiple generations
marched for the idea of a society that would overcome neoliberalism (Figueroa,
2012). During this period the right-wing were in government (2010–2014) but
it was very difficult to maintain governability. In the Ministry of Education, three
different ministers took turns in less than six months. None of them was able to
channel the general discontent of the population (Campos-Martínez & Olavar-
ría, 2020; PalaciosValladares & Ondetti, 2019).
The aftermath of the mobilizations
President Piñera’s conservative government (2010–2014) was unable to address
the demands put forward by the waves of student protests, so the protests extend-
ed throughout his administration. While there were no gains in this period, there
were no major setbacks in areas such as privatization of education and profit-
making. But the neoliberal framework remained in place, this time supported
again by the so-called centre-left government under Michelle Bachelet (Cornejo
et al., 2012; PalaciosValladares & Ondetti, 2019). The student movement also
72 M. A, K. M. G-L, J. C-M, J. D. H, M. A. V
underwent transformations; one of the most important ones was the consolida-
tion of a feminist outlook in the organizational structures of the students (Agu-
ilera Morales et al. 2021). The first glimpses of this occurred, one more time,
among high school students, when an all-girls’ high school protested against the
chants made by their peers in an all-boys’ high school. Their banners read: “They
ask for quality and equality but, when they march, they shout without thinking”6.
In the universities, gender secretariats slowly came about under the auspic-
es of student federations, but with less than enthusiastic support. These secretari-
ats would be instrumental in what became the third major wave of protests and
strikes that affected the country (Aguilera Morales et al., 2021; Campos-Martín-
ez & Olavarría, 2020). The feminist mobilizations of 2018 paralyzed most of the
country’s campuses under the banner of greater equality, safe and harassment-free
campuses, and clear institutional actions to prevent violence and discrimination
against women and sexual minorities (Aguilera Morales et al., 2021; Campos-
Martínez & Olavarría, 2020). In terms of the internal politics of the universities,
it can be said that these mobilizations succeeded in establishing the need for pro-
found transformations; still, the greatest impact they had was to extend feminist
ethics and organizational outlook outside the university campuses.
On the other hand, the state was again in the hands of conservative groups,
with Sebastián Piñera (2018–present) as president once more. At the educational
level, the main task his government set for themselves was to dismantle student
organizations, particularly those in high schools (Sisto & Campos-Martínez, In
press). A new law was passed to facilitate the expulsion of student leaders. The
safe classroom law, Nº 21.128 (a.k.a. Safe classroom law), was used at least 52
times in 2019 to expel, without due process, those students who protested for
better learning conditions and equal education (Díaz & Spencer; 2021). Jointly,
the conservative governments at the local level relied on the police to unleash
repression, even inside the schools themselves. The students had no choice but
to look for new creative ways to demonstrate. This is how, in October 2019, a
new fare hike in public transportation inspired students to leave their schools and
protest in the subway stations. The form of protest was the evasion of fare pay-
ment by jumping turnstiles at the stations. The students encouraged the public
to do the same under chants such as “evade, don’t pay, another way to fight.” The
government’s response came in the form of repression inside the subway stations,
which eventually led to a stoppage of service due to the risk to students and
drivers. The collapse of the subway led to the collapse of the city, and so, on Oc-
tober 18, 2019, Santiago exploded in a social protest that paralyzed the country
6 https://noticiasyanarquia.blogspot.com/2016/05/la-marcha-feminista-del-liceo-de-ninas.html
A , / 73
for several weeks, and which dealt an important blow to neoliberalism (Sisto &
Campos-Martínez, In press).
Finally, the students have achieved what they fought for so many years,
but, paradoxically, in the process of organizing, their protagonism made them
citizens, who, allied with other citizens and diverse generations, joined together
in territorial, neighbourhood, and community assemblies to plan for a country
we all dream of. The organizational drive followed the groundwork laid down by
the 2006 assemblies; the analysis of the consequences of the neoliberal model also
rescued the learnings of 2011; and feminism has made an important contribution
to the general understanding that neoliberal patriarchal capitalism is not only
based on the precariousness of the lives of workers, but also on the profit from
and the invisibility of care work, in other words, of those conditions that ensure
the reproduction of life and that are often under the sole responsibility of women.
The process has now led to the writing of a new constitution by a democratically
elected constituent assembly, with results we hope to see soon.
Scenes from the Student Movement in Egypt
Universities in Egypt have historically been known as social movement territo-
ries and spaces for resistance against a government that does not allow students’
political participation. In the 1970s and 80s, Egypt had more than half a million
students in Higher Education. The student unions and the “families” (a small
group that created on-campus student engagement around various topics) were
the drivers of the student movement at the time. The university administration
tried to build obstacles for these forms of collective actions. Students called for
improving student welfare on campus and demanded their right to engage in po-
litical participation. The government’s stance towards these demands and actions
was reflected in President Sadat’s words at the time: “I am saying that strikes, sit-
ins, disruption of studies are forbidden...It shouldn’t happen in the universities...
The mission of educational institutions is Education. Those who wish to engage
in politics should find a political party outside” (Abdalla, 2008, p. 228). This
state of affairs did not change in the years that followed.
Neoliberalism and socio-economic grievances
By the end of the 1980s, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund
(IMF) became strong advocates for neoliberal thinking. They began demanding
the Global South implement neoliberal policies in exchange for debt refinancing
74 M. A, K. M. G-L, J. C-M, J. D. H, M. A. V
(Beinin, 2012). Egypt was one of the first countries to implement these neo-
liberal policies. Mubarak’s economic reform and his neoliberal project required
dismantling old systems and establishing a new state. These reforms resulted in
both a discontent that catalysed resistance and social movements and discontent
that led to building alternative non-formal educational spaces.
Egypt had been under emergency law7 since Mubarak came to the presi-
dency in 1981, which gave him the right to act without requiring the backing of
the supreme court. The law extended Mubarak’s presidential powers and central-
ized the Egyptian political system. Additionally, state security and the ruling par-
ty interfered to systematically create obstacles and prevent people from political
participation (Dorio, 2016; Mirshak, 2020a). Abuaita, A. (2018, p.39) captures
Mubarak’s mindset about education in light of neoliberal reforms: “Education is
the major pillar for our national security on a broad scale...It is our way to world
competition in markets”.
In 2002, the ruling party (NDP) announced a new education reform pol-
icy as follows:
1. Decentralizing the education reform process and involving the com-
munity in decision making.
2. Equipping the universities with the needed infrastructure, whether
human or physical.
3. Improving the quality of the faculty and administrators in Higher
Education (Kozma, 2005).
Student mobilization before 2011
On the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada in 2003, Egypt’s historical
conflict with Israel led to waves of public mobilizations that had no precedent
in the Mubarak era (Joya, 2011). The government did not strongly oppose these
protests so as not to look unpatriotic. Egyptians from different backgrounds con-
tinued to organize themselves to provide various forms of aid to the Palestinian
people. At this point, Egyptians could not overlook the inequalities in their own
society, particularly not those students on campuses faced with reform policies
failing to bring about change.
In 2004, there was a collective effort to organize a two-fold front: anti-
war and anti-neoliberalism, as implemented in the universities. Several student
groups from a wide range of ideological backgrounds, including communists,
liberals, and Islamists, supported the “Kefaya (translates Enough) movement”
7 The emergency law has been lifted as of October 2021.
A , / 75
(Joya, 2011). The “Kefaya movement” mobilized and organized on the streets,
taking political education from textbooks to the ground practice for the first time
in decades (Ezzeldeen, 2010). The movement’s activities started by organizing
mass demonstrations to break the taboo against political participation and to
announce the beginning of a new era of resistance (Abdelrahman, 2015). “Ke-
faya’s manifesto” clearly stated its demands for the ending of the emergency law
and of the constraints over collective and individual rights and freedom; it also
demanded the end of state’s control over syndicates and unions; and, finally, it
manifested its rejection of Gamal Mubarak’s presidency. These demands were
extended to university demands for a police-free campus.
Students became aware of the contradiction in this era’s educational re-
form. Mubarak’s privatization of universities did not mean letting go of his con-
trol on the content offered by these institutions. For example, political education
was only allowed, whether in schools or universities, under state control and in
a very superficial manner that would not provoke opposition, but build a taboo
around political participation (Mirshak, 2020a). The reform expected youth to
take responsibility and engage in specific and predefined aspects of the public
sphere while being censored from political participation. At that time, it was ac-
ceptable to organize a fundraiser or a charity event to help workers who lost their
jobs, but it was not allowed to hold a protest in solidarity with those workers (El-
Mahdi, 2011). Education reforms came with the mantra that every individual’s
responsibility is to search for knowledge online to advance their education and
equip them with the needed skills to match the labor market demands. These
reforms were “well-suited to the neoliberal agenda” (Milana, 2012, p. 111).
The student movement aimed to educate the middle class and the work-
ing-class students to create social and political change. It also ensured that its
educational activities included marginalized voices such as women. Working with
“Kefaya”, the movement began workshops and seminars to shed light on Egypt’s
economic difficulties and give people more political contexts and reasons to mo-
bilize (Ezzeldeen, 2010). At the time, “Kefaya” undertook the unveiling of the
government’s propaganda about neoliberal economic growth and educational re-
forms and endeavoured to educate about how these reforms and changes affected
the labour market. In 2006, the student movement supported and worked with
the “March 9th group” against police intervention on several university campuses
and advocated for academic freedom.
In 2010, student activists were an integral part of cycles of protest, which
led to the emergence of new modes of mobilizing calling for quality education
and economic justice. These organizations succeeded in attracting inactive and
apolitical youth, who had not been previously involved in the public sphere,
76 M. A, K. M. G-L, J. C-M, J. D. H, M. A. V
through educating about civic and public engagement (Ramzy, 2018). They had
flexible structures and were highly decentralized and based mainly on electing a
steering committee. Moreover, they were “trans-ideological” and included youth
from various backgrounds that could reach compromises that enabled them to
work together.
Abdelrahman (2015) argued that “Kefaya” represented an umbrella for
those movements. However, those movements were rhizomatic in nature as per
Evans’ (2012) definition, which means they were all non-centred and non-hier-
archical. These movements included student organizations8 such as “youth for
change,” which organized toward pro-democracy and political participation. The
“9 March” Faculty group also emerged on several university campuses against
the police and state security intervention and advocated for academic freedom.
Each movement had its agenda; however, they still shared the same anti-neo-
liberal stance and maintained solidarity ties. The student movement pre-2011,
depended on: 1) new technologies for communication, such as email groups,
social media networks, and blogging, to educate, organize and mobilize people,
2) building non-formal education spaces on campus to educate towards employ-
ability and civic participation, and 3) strikes and demonstrations, believing that
being present on the streets was an essential tool for building consciousness and
contesting state hegemony (Oweidat et al., 2008; Ramzy, 2018).
This era did not witness movements that had a stable institutionalized
structure. This was due to the very firm repressive nature of the Egyptian regime,
with full control over the economic, political, and social aspects. This setting en-
couraged movements to become less structured and more flexible to manoeuvre
around the tools of repression.
Post Arab Spring
With few openings for mobilization and limited resources, the students survived
within very minimal organizing resources. The students’ organizing witnessed
several changes in terms of structure, and the resistance became a non-formal
education space where people learned by doing. It started from socio-economic
grievances and extended to the Arab Spring. The role of students and their modes
of organizing affected the general population’s response to the government of
Mubarak. The students were an essential part of the Tahrir Square protests and
even of the elections that followed.
8 We use the term »student organization« to refer to any student group on campus. These groups could include
“families” (Abdalla, 2008), student activities (Ramzy, 2018), student unions, or student political parties.
A , / 77
Between 2011 and 2013, we witnessed an exceptional openness in the
political space; many student organizations engaged in different forms of col-
lective action across the country, with various causes and political affiliations.
The uprising also led to a boost in the number of operational political parties.
Most political parties had student branches in universities. These branches taught
about the party’s vision and goals or outsourced educators who shared the same
vision. In general, the students extended their non-formal education spaces be-
yond employability skills to indirect and sometimes direct political education
(Mirshak, 2020b).
For example, one of the liberal political parties, Misr El Qaweya (trans-
lates, Strong Egypt) held several workshops for students in different universities
across Egypt. The goal was to educate participants about the different types of
elections and the voting process. The January 2011 uprising helped expand the
traditional definition of learning and education beyond schools and universities.
Informal learning experiences occurred when participants started reflecting on
and expanding their educational tools and pedagogy. Student-led organizations
started to create educational tools such as board games, or experiences such as
retreats and educational camps available to a broad public, preferably for a public
that would not otherwise have access to them. The content of these educational
tools was mainly related to community participation, redefining citizenship, and
political education.
Educating within those student organizations, whether affiliated with par-
ties or not, did witness some shifts post-2011. Previously, the groups engaged in
organizing and education adopted the same ways they were taught within the
formal education system. This meant replicating the power dynamics and offer-
ing corporatized methods of teaching. Before 2011, student organizations used
to have a human resources management unit responsible for recruiting and train-
ing incoming volunteers. After 2011, some of them changed their practices and
adapted language to meet our work’s needs and nature. They started to recruit
volunteers and encourage members’ participation. We stopped using the vertical
matrix structure in our work and changed those to horizontal structures. And
thus, this reflected on how we were educated. This distinction required address-
ing political affiliations and navigating ideological representations.
To create spaces for these discussions, we started a series of reading groups
and workshops to study sociological and pedagogical aspects of community or-
ganizing. We read from Gustave Le Bon to Malek Bennabi, Fanon, and Freire.
The students’ experiences were part of a larger-scale collective action that did not
last long because of the closure of spaces where the educational work took place.
Several spaces where students used to gather were closed; and, due to the violence
78 M. A, K. M. G-L, J. C-M, J. D. H, M. A. V
at that time, sustaining the work in smaller groups in individuals’ homes could
not last long.
e Puerto Rican Case
Gerónimo-López and Tormos-Aponte (2021) analysed the experience of organ-
izing in the national student strikes of 2005, 2010, and 2017 at the University of
Puerto Rico, the island’s only public institution of higher education. This section
parts from their study to focus on how students reinvented their participation
structures and modes of organizing as a result of those strikes.
Student activism has been a recurrent phenomenon in the history of the
University of Puerto Rico since 1920 (Negrón, 1976). Different waves have
mobilized against the consequences of globalization, neoliberalism, and United
States’ colonial rule over Puerto Rico over educational policies, such as the Amer-
icanization of education, privatization of educational institutions, and tuition
hikes. Each context has influenced the students’ response with different organ-
izing outcomes in participation structures, articulation of common interests, and
educational approach inwards and outwards.
The 2005 strike context
The student strike of 2005 responded to the implementation of neoliberal poli-
cies in Puerto Rico (Atiles-Osoria, 2013). The student body held an amalgam of
different positions with respect to neoliberal changes. Most students voiced their
personal perspectives in the hallways, while others carried forward the narratives
of the political organizations and parties they belonged to. The student regular
assembly was the place to come up with a unified position regarding an imminent
33% tuition hike. Those in favour, those against it, and those who had no idea
what was going on attended the fall student assembly of 2005 seeking to have
their concerns heard, or form an opinion based on other students’ analysis of the
context. Assemblies are an informal place of learning where students can perfect
their argumentation, switch perceptions, or get their facts straight about any ru-
mour of a strike or stoppage — a default tactic that increases the uncertainty and
exasperation. In the 2005 assembly, student activists and nonactivists considered
voting against the motion to strike because they understood that the strike had
not been adequately prepared; but, in the end, the strike motion passed because
“something had to be done immediately, and they could only think of the strike
as the immediate tactic” (Roberto, 2017).
A , / 79
Though the assembly remained as the legitimate participation space, stu-
dents resorted to the creation of a new body, a committee that would provide
organized students greater organizational autonomy when compared to the lim-
ited powers granted by the official student council. More importantly, the com-
mittee would be agile in communicating with the administration and get back to
the assembly for feedback and next steps. Carrying a class struggle analysis that
defended the working-class’ access to the public university, the members of the
Comité Universitario Contra el Alza (or University Committee Against Tuition
Raise) gained the students’ trust and support to carry on. But the procedures were
far from ideal in terms of diversity. Students faced the patriarchal, homophobic,
and sexist positions from the committee’s members, resulting in the withdrawal
of support from feminists’ groups and the LGBTTQIA+ (Tormos, 2019). Fur-
thermore, the committee skipped crucial democratic deliberation processes and
approved unilateral agreements with the administration, without bringing it to
the plenary bodies that expected a participatory representation (Gerónimo-López
and Tormos-Aponte, 2021). The strike ended after 26 days with the implementa-
tion of a yearly phased tuition hike. The relevance of staying organized was put to
the test but prevailed (Roberto, 2017). Students kept participating in assemblies
over the next academic years, but learned to be vigilant of pseudo participatory
alternatives proclaiming autonomy under any representative democracy structure
and procedures, student councils, and committees included.
The 2010 strike context
The student strike of 2010 responded to Certification 98, a policy initiative that
threatened thousands of students’ access to higher education by eliminating tui-
tion exemption for honour students, athletes, work-study program students, and
university employees’ children (Gerónimo-López & Tormos-Aponte, 2021). In
the spring, 3,000 students passed a motion for an immediate 48-hour stoppage,
followed by an indefinite strike, unless the university administration dropped
Certification 98. The strike started on April 19, when students shut down opera-
tions and barricaded the gates. It was the longest strike ever held, lasting 62 days.
Participation structures and procedures changed again. New college-based
action committees increased student direct participation; intentionally so, they
lacked hierarchical structures, but were loaded with collective accountability. Ac-
cording to Tormos-Aponte (2020), this form of student agency attracted students
unaffiliated to political organizations, giving them an opportunity to engage with
aspects of mobilization for the first time. Common interests were articulated at
80 M. A, K. M. G-L, J. C-M, J. D. H, M. A. V
a national level, with 11 campuses advocating for free and quality public educa-
tion, and emphasizing public investment, multisectoral participation of univer-
sity community, and the relaxation of admission standards to grant access to
marginalized populations (Gerónimo-López & Tormos-Aponte, 2021). During
the many nights that students camped at the gates, they discussed the institution’s
academic offerings, teaching methods, and pedagogy. They questioned formal
education, but also the informal and non-formal learning opportunities of the
strike. Students strengthened their critical thinking, conceived outreach educa-
tional efforts, and ran a community radio station from scratch (Reyes, 2021).
The strike turned into a school and the encampment at the gates operated as
outdoor non-traditional classrooms for open lectures, workshops and capacity
building sessions run by students, alumni, and allied staff and faculty. Conflicts
became learning opportunities as well, grappled with during night-long interac-
tions which impacted the students’ non-formal political education during the
strike and had long lasting repercussions in further organizing experiences.
The 2017 strike context
The implementation of Law 114th by the United States Congress created the Fi-
nancial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico (PROMESA). Puerto
Rico’s colonial status opened the door for this type of neoliberal structural adjust-
ment program which ensures the collection of the national debt, accrued by the
national hegemonic political establishment and their respective elites along with
corporate interests, and expedites procedures for infrastructure projects under the
pretence of combating the Puerto Rican debt crisis; this, at the expense of social
welfare, education budgets, and workers’ rights. At the time of its implementa-
tion, the student movement had already more than 5,000 active members march-
ing in the streets under the banner of the newly constituted National Student
Confederation.
In April 2017, the student assembly approved an indefinite strike (Melén-
dez, 2017). Participation structures and positions changed once again; high
school students from two public schools joined the mobilizations and it became
common for Black and queer organizers to be elected as movement speakers. Di-
versity also influenced the articulation of common interests; students forefronted
a gender perspective education discussion in their assembly agenda. Several is-
sues, such as the lack of inclusive language, gender violence, and sexism inside
the movement, were highlighted in educational efforts to better address internal
disputes. The “pleno” (plenary), a relatively new structure for direct participation
A , / 81
before and after assemblies, approved the creation of the Activism Committee to
develop educational efforts inwards and outwards. The committee’s methodology
followed Popular Education and connected what was happening in the university
with the colonial and capitalist national context (Gerónimo-López & Tormos-
Aponte, 2021).
The designed experiences allowed student activists to question their lead-
ership practices and how they affected student direct participation. Also, students
challenged their outreach messianic approaches, or the notion of “carrying a mes-
sage to the masses”, with open intergenerational dialogues with communities in
which they valued and critiqued public higher education. This process was no
longer unidirectional (from students to supporters and communities) but recip-
rocal; these learning experiences influenced organizing ideas and helped students
to envision a Student Federation and a multisectoral congress against austerity.
Learning and non-formal education were at the core of these newly attained goals.
Strikes as places of learning
The strike of 2005 affected the student movement’s perception on how to sustain
a movement, the relevance of movement diversity, and the risks of delegating
direct participation to representative democracy types of structures. Students car-
ried the lessons into the strike of 2010, when they generated new participation
structures, processes, articulated common interests more diversely, and into 2017
when they addressed internal disputes with an emergent educational approach
that helped students to organize and mobilize more coherently.
Mobilizations are an opportunity to learn something (Almeida, 2019;
Choudry, 2015; De Sousa, 2020; Foley, 1999; Paulo Freire & Faundez, 2013;
Mü ndel & Shugurensky, 2008; Peery, 2002). Informal learning and non-formal
education efforts come to life in the heat of these tensions; ignoring such op-
portunities leads student movements to reinvent the wheel at every opportunity
to mobilize.For Picó (1982) one of the most lasting results of the student move-
ment in Puerto Rico was the alternative political educational experience.
From an adult education perspective there is a relationship between social
movement learning and social transformations (Bierema, 2010), where action
and reflection, conscientization and transformation are two inseparable processes
(Merriam & Baumgartner, 2020). Students aimed to challenge hegemonic mean-
ings and practices, and identify, celebrate, criticize, and build democratic cultures
(Foley, 1999) through popular education. Learning and doing popular education
proved to be challenging. For example, the concept of conscientization would be
82 M. A, K. M. G-L, J. C-M, J. D. H, M. A. V
used to describe what happened at the gates and with outreach education. Yet, it
was often confused as strategic persuasion. Though conscientization is an essen-
tial objective of social movement mobilization, popular education and workers
union organizing (Carpenter & Mojab, 2017) are helpful to disconnect from an
instrumental notion that co-opts real opportunities for dialogue, methodologi-
cal reflection, self-determined mobilization, and movement sustainability. When
structured without being scripted, dialogues can disrupt banking education and
orthodox modes of organizing to foster critical participatory democracy. Wel-
coming intuition, emotion, pleasure, love, and joy, and other necessary wisdoms
(Freire & Shor, 2014) enriches dialogue beyond Cartesian mind/body divisions.
Some of the student educational activities of 2010 and 2017 pursued just that,
and how it affected systemic and relational structures was the lesson most of those
activists carried forward to places and communities they are working in today.
Discussion
The purpose of comparing the experiences of Puerto Rico, Chile, and Egypt was
to highlight their commonalities and prioritize the attention given to social move-
ment learning. The student movements of the 2000s and 2010s in Chile, Egypt,
and Puerto Rico started as reactions to the economic grievances produced by neo-
liberalism. In the three cases, student uprisings extended beyond campuses, gained
support, and incorporated marginalized populations and lower and middle-class
students. In general, all the uprisings in this comparative analysis were relatively
peaceful and faced police violence and brutality as well as resistance from the elites
and their governments. The Chilean, Egyptian, and Puerto Rican student move-
ments claimed to be “leaderless” and non-partisan at different points. Moreover,
they were sometimes proclaimed to be spontaneous movements. However, in all
of them, organizing efforts were ongoing in student organizations and political
grassroots organizations for more than a decade before the uprisings.
Learning to carve out new spaces for resistance
In these three experiences of student uprisings, students were continuously faced
with institutional pressure and sometimes state violence. This setting encouraged
the students to question existing participation structures. Additionally, collective
self-directed learning helped them move away from traditional protesting and
carve out the spaces needed to enact less hierarchical modes of organizing. The
A , / 83
“tomas” in Chile, “student activities” in Egypt, and “plenos” in Puerto Rico were
different forms of organizing adopted by the movements to respond faster and
manoeuvre around state repression. In Chile, there were also calls to evade paying
fares in the subway stations and calling other citizens to join in to protest the fare
surge. In Egypt, students utilized social media platforms, including Facebook and
WordPress, to expand their influence and political action methods.
Additionally, in all three cases, the students challenged hierarchical ways of
organizing among themselves. They moved from adopting vertical matrix hierar-
chies and roles to horizontal structures. In Puerto Rico, the movements replaced
student council structures with student committees that opened room for better
decision-making and diversity inside the movements. In doing so, the students
faced challenges promoting diversity and equality inside their movements. In
Chile and Puerto Rico, the uprisings seeded meaningful opportunities to ques-
tion sexist and political participation quotas. In Puerto Rico, the students had to
challenge racism and gender heteronormativity.
Extending influence beyond campus
Given the above evidence, and despite the limited resources and the repressive
political climate, the movements reached out beyond the educational institutions
and into the communities, and from the local demands to be part of the country-
wide debates. In Chile, the marches were multigenerational, and the movement
encouraged parents and event grandparents to participate. In Egypt and Puerto
Rico, students and youth who did not have any previous experience with organ-
izing or community engagement came to join the movements for the first time.
This allowed the movements’ influence to extend beyond the local demands of
improving education quality and tuition fees to anti-neoliberal and nationwide
democratic needs. In Chile and Egypt, movements went so far as to include de-
mands for their governments to resign and, in Chile to demand and achieve the
drafting of a new carta magna.
Emerging of subaltern pedagogies
From each resistance movement, subaltern pedagogies emerged to transit such
challenges and frame their outreach efforts in more dialogical ways with other
sectors of society that supported and joined the movements. The students im-
plemented their new pedagogies outside the universities. For example, in Puerto
84 M. A, K. M. G-L, J. C-M, J. D. H, M. A. V
Rico the students started educating at the gates and at the barricades of the stri-
kes, offering a non-formal school for their peers and supporters. In Chile and in
Egypt, the students used training to educate in the streets and on public transpor-
tation. Peers educating and transferring experience to one another was another
approach for building consciousness and contesting the administration. The stu-
dents used these tools of collective self-directedness and hands-on education to
educate about their movements and the need to bring on change. Additionally,
the Chilean students used cultural activities to educate about the repercussions of
neoliberalism on society.
In the three movements, students learned to allow for emergent spaces
where previously invisible actors could set the educational agenda. And they also
learned from their previous participation to refrain from engaging in activities
that entailed superficial political participation and would possibly distract them
from the real work that could be done. When the state closed spaces or built bar-
ricades around strikes, the students learned to find ways to engage people from
different ages, affiliations, and locations, in discussions around their shared socio-
economic grievances.
Conclusion
This study examined the self-directed learning taking place in three different
sites of student resistance movements. Although local, these struggles share
many commonalities. Returning to Santos (2006), we can say that each move-
ment is a local expression of resistance and all three pose alternatives to the
global phenomenon of neoliberalism. By highlighting both their local specifici-
ties and their commonalities we are, as Santos suggests, “reglobalizing [them]
as a counter-hegemonic globalization” (p. 26) to the neoliberal policies each
movement resisted and continues to resist. Moreover, what stands out to us
as adult educators in these movements is the way in which people, via their
involvement, learn to develop and practice ways of being and educating out-
side of the individualism at the heart of neoliberalism. In other words, there
is a collective self-directedness — a social andragogical practice — evident in
these movements as they question prevailing formal educational practices and
even long-standing hierarchical social movement organizational relations. By
conducting this research, our hope is that the rich, dynamic, and democratic
collective self-directive pedagogies we detail in these movements cease to be
absences and become possible futures for educators.
A , / 85
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Mai Atta9
Državni univerzitet u Pensilvaniji, Sjedinjene Američke Države
Kamil M. Gerónimo-López10
Državni univerzitet u Pensilvaniji, Sjedinjene Američke Države
Javier Campos-Martínez11
Univerzitet Austral u Čileu, Čile
Joh n D. Holst12
Državni univerzitet u Pensilvaniji, Sjedinjene Američke Države
María Alicia Vetter13
Alumnus Univerziteta Severnog Ilinoisa, Sjedinjene Američke Države
Komparativna studija obrazovanja
omladine i odraslih u kontekstu
tri društvena pokreta
Apstrakt: U ovom članku ćemo predstaviti rezultate komparativne studije učenja i ob-
razovanja u savremenim studentskim pokretima u Čileu, Egiptu i Portoriku, koji su na-
stali kao reakcija na nezadovoljstvo neoliberalnom ekonomijom. Ova studija primenjuje
andragošku perspektivu u analizi tih pokreta, koji su primeri kolektivne samousmerene
pedagoške prakse koju primenjuju ti pokreti i koja se primenjuje u okviru tih pokreta. Po
9 Mai Atta je studentkinja doktorskih studija za sticanje dvojne diplome u oblasti celoživotnog učenja i obra-
zovanja odraslih, kao i komparativnog i međunarodnog obrazovanja na Državnom univerzitetu u Pensilvaniji
(mm6173@psu.edu).
10 Kamil Gerónimo-López, MSW, narodni je nastavnik iz Portorika, osnivač organizacije Pueblo Crítico i
student doktorskih studija za sticanje dvojne diplome u oblasti celoživotnog učenja i obrazovanja odraslih,
kao i komparativnog i međunarodnog obrazovanja na Državnom univerzitetu u Pensilvaniji (kmg6540@
psu.edu).
11 Dr Javier Campos-Martínez je asistent pri Institutu obrazovnih nauka Univerziteta Austral u Čileu. Ujedno je
kopredsedavajući sekcije o obrazovanju i obrazovnoj politici u udruženju Latin American Studies Association
(LASA), (javier.campos@uach.cl).
12 Dr John D. Holst je vanredni profesor pri Državnom univerzitetu u Pensilvaniji. John D. Holst je autor publi-
kacije Social Movements, Civil Society, and Radical Adult Education, koautor publikacije Radicalizing Learning
u saradnji sa Stephen-om Brookfield-om i kourednik publikacije Antonio Gramsci: A Pedagogy to Change the
Wor ld u saradnji sa Nico-m Pizzolato-m (jdh91@psu.edu).
13 Dr María Alicia Vetter je nezavisna istraživačica i akademkinja u području obrazovanja odraslih, koja poseduje
doktorat iz obrazovanja odraslih sa Univerziteta Severni Ilinois (mavetter100@msn.com).
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uzoru na Santosov (2006) pojam sociologije odsustva i „nastanka“, u ovoj studiji prime-
njujemo analizu autoetnografskih i sekundarnih podataka kako bismo skrenuli pažnju na
alternative učenju koje počivaju u društvenim pokretima. Uprkos različitim kontekstima
svakog od tih pokreta, smatramo da se odlikuju brojnim sličnostima u organizaciji i po-
dučavanju u sklopu reakcije na globalni neoliberalizam.
Ključne reči: učenje u okviru društvenih pokreta, komparativno obrazovanje odraslih,
Čile, Egipat, Portoriko, andragogija, neoliberalizam.
