ABSTRACT
The lessons to be learnt for engaging in research, education and action for social justice are very much to do with how public powers are constrained by elites and vice versa. Since research and education are critically shaped by the resources provided by their funders, it then matters how the research and education agendas are controlled and shaped. There is a wide range of areas under which open approaches to research and education can be undertaken: economic, social care, learning, entertainment, and security. Democratically committed teachers and researchers have a key subversive role in the interface between the official institutions of the political and social order and the people. After several years and under the relentless pressures of neoliberal policies along with staff leaving through retirements or to go to new jobs, the schools as experiments in democratic social learning had to end.
