I.04. Higher Education Teaching Practices as Micro-spaces of Democracy and Resistance. What Does it Mean to be ‘Political’?

Stream I. Universities, Academic Freedom and Knowledge Politics
Convenor(s) Maila Pentucci (University "Gabriele D'Annunzio" Chieti - Pescara, Italy); Lorella Giannandrea (University of Macerata, Italy); Magda Pischetola (University of Copenhagen); Francesca Gratani (University of Macerata, Italy); Lorenza Maria Capolla (University of Macerata, Italy); Pier Giuseppe Rossi (University of Macerata, Italy)
Keywords Higher education, teaching, political

In an era of neoliberal governance, competitive academic performance and search for ‘best practices’, the social role of university students and teachers seems restricted to passive compliance to capitalistic structures. Parallel to the appropriation of concepts such as ‘critical thinking’ and ‘dialogical space’ in curricula, a culture of devalued content knowledge has spread in universities, in favour of individual human capital and occupational skills credentials.

In teaching, however, micro-spaces of resistance occasionally arise from discontinuities/voids in the system or from unexpected contingencies. These might become opportunities for generating sensibilities and processes that resist contemporary academic control-oriented logics, with teachers intentionally and creatively building democratic practices and counter-cultures.

The panel will explore what it means to cultivate micro-spaces of resistance and democracy in the contemporary landscape of higher education. It will give floor to debates around the relationship between resistance and democracy, exploring what it means for the teacher to be political (Freire, 1996; Furrey, 2023; hooks, 1994).

Contributions may address:

  • The situations from which micro-spaces of democracy and resistance emerge across different institutional and cultural contexts;

  • The expression of intentionality in the design and implementation of teaching choices as a way of resistance (multicultural, non-western, decolonial curricula and feminist methods);

  • The political declination of disciplines, their transposition and mediation, as elements that allow for more inclusive perspectives, rather than reinforcing the status quo;

  • Teaching-as-activism and research-as-activism as political practices of situated meaning co-creation and their role in reimagining democracy;

  • Students’ agency in occupying emerging micro-spaces of resistance/democracy in the classroom.

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