How Do You Learn How to Change the World?: Learning and Teaching in Australian Protest Movements

Abstract

This paper explores the learning that occurs in social protest movements, in particular' the 'ecopax' movement in Australia. The authors bring to bear on their own experiences some of the insights of the academic fields of adult education and peace studies, drawing in particular on the ideas of popular education. They catalogue some of the enormous variety of learning that they themselves have observed and experienced as activists, analysing it in terms of Newman's (1995) categories of instrumental, communicative and emancipatory learning. They argue for more attention to be paid to social movements as important sites of learning; and for greater recognition within education institutions of the knowledge and understandings which people gain for their involvement in protest politics. The paper concludes by linking learning and teaching in the contemporary 'ecopax' movement to the much longer traditions of radical adult education tied to movements for social change.