Doing counterwork in the age of a counterfeit president: resisting a Trump–DeVos education agenda

Abstract

In this article, we explore and conceptualize counterwork in education as a critical element for resistance and progressive social change in the era of Donald Trump’s presidency. We first discuss education in the context of a Trump–DeVos administration, and how this milieu necessitates activist research and counterwork. Grounded in a sense of critical hope and part of a larger anti-hegemonic project, we describe our conceptualization of counterwork in education as unfinishedness and the critical imagination, human agency, and transformational resistance for liberation. This approach to education is committed to sustaining an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and a critical social justice agenda in education across the P-20 spectrum

Keywords:

• Counterwork
• activist research
• critical social justice