Social Protest and Education

Dissent is as old as human existence and social inequality. The evolution of ethnic, racial, class, and gender domination has been accompanied by individual and societal protest. Social protest has characteristically been concerned with issues of discrimination, poverty, access, hunger, property, fairness, and justice.

The waning days of medievalism and feudalism witnessed particularly sharp objections to hereditary governance and the maldistributions of wealth, power, privilege, land, and opportunity. The 18th-century Enlightenment rekindled discourses on rationality, science, democracy, freedom, and reason that had been introduced earlier in ancient Egyptian, Greek, and other civilizations. Religious dogma, divine rights, mass ignorance, aristocracy, and land peonage gave way to mercantilism, exploration, inquiry, and incipient democracy.

Alongside power and wealth, discovery, technology, and knowledge guide the modern world. Now associated with social capital, privilege, and status, education has become politicized and connected to public policy deliberations. Education is a topic of ongoing debate, with policymakers, politicians, and researchers asking questions such as how will education be funded, how will it be parceled, who will have access, and who will learn what? The motion of history has given education new importance and coveted status. In modern society, which is stratified by wealth, power, and often ethnicity, knowledge, notably literacy, has assumed a gatekeeping function.

Beyond social capital, education has now been connected to social remedy. Viewed by the underserved as a vehicle for uplift and democracy, education has evolved in the modern period as central in protest thought. In the United States, education protest has been integral to various intellectual and social movements.