Teacher Power in the Digital Age: The Fight for the Soul of American Public Education in the Early 21st Century

This book is an examination of the confluence of social, political, and communicative forces animating the teachers’ uprising of the last decade: beginning with the accession of a militant slate to the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) in 2011 and continuing with myriad strikes, walkouts and other protest actions taken throughout the country since then. During this time, thousands of teachers have participated in protest actions in dozens of states and jurisdictions throughout the country, thus ending a lengthy period of relative dormancy on the part of teachers’ unions as a political organizing force. This movement is situated amongst the other digitally-enabled ＂movements of the squares＂ that have occurred in recent years, including the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring, which all emerge out of the ongoing crisis of neoliberal capitalism, though this book argues that the teachers’ movement has been central to this wave of contestation due its institutional grounding. This book will be of interest to readers with a background in Political Sociology, Education Policy, Political Communication and related fields.

Matt Reichel is an assistant professor of instruction in the Department of Journalism and Digital Communication at the University of South Florida, USA, with a research focus on how social movements (especially teachers’ movements) interface with digital communication technologies and social media platforms.