Event 

Re-thinking 'dissent' in Education

Monday 22 September, 2025 – Monday 22 September, 2025
4:30 PM – 7:00 PM

Main House, M111

Newton Park Campus

About this session

In education, ‘dissent’ is often regarded as being disruptive and disobedient. Yet dissent can also be seen as an essential element of meaningful democratic practice. This special talk and panel will aim to address some of the tensions at the heart of the ‘politics’ and philosophy of education on these complex and interrelated concerns.  

It will be lead by Professor Gert Biesta who will lead a special talk on dissent in education. Biesta has written extensively on this topic (Biesta, 2012, 2015, 2019a, 2019b, 2021, 2025). Biesta’s provocation will address a central concern in his 2015 paper, namely, the public role of schools and whether they should not just be a ‘function’ of society but also has an important duty in resisting what society desires from it. 

We will also have a discussant panel consisting of Professor Helen Haste and Dr Paul McLaughlin. Engaging directly with Biesta’s works on the topic, the discussions will pivot from their own research on these topics exploring distinct strands of thought on the nature of dissent in education. They will consider whether dissent might have a viable role in modern society and educational institutions, and if so, how we might re-envision the role of the school under the political pressures of 21st century education.   

Booking is essential. Food and refreshments will be provided.

About the speakers

Chair and discussant Dr Eri Mountbatten-O’Malley will chair the event. 

Following Biesta’s provocation talk, he will ask for responses from the discussants and the audience. He may also respond briefly some key principles from his recent work (Mountbatten-O’Malley and Morris, 2025), specifically what he terms as the ‘Educational Malaise’. This expands on a troubling trend within education towards managerialism, performativity and neoliberal market logic (cf. Ball, 2021).

Dr Paul McLaughlin (Bath Spa University) will consider Biesta’s thoughts in the context of the liberatory role of anarchic thinking on academics in higher education (HE).  He will explore the challenge for academics in supporting schools, teachers and educators in the context of academic deprofessionalization and what he has termed as ‘bullshit managerialism’. 

Professor Helen Haste (University of Bath) will explore Biesta’s thinking in the context of her recent work on ‘New Civics’. This describes a renewed impetus for the young to engage with social issues such as climate change and conspiracies. Her concerns will center on the role of educators in such a social climate. Adopting a historicist view through the lens of a series of ‘ruptures’ in social narratives, she will advance the need to develop new, beneficent stories for a flourishing future.   

Book your place