Battleground education: activism, protest and campaigning in diverse educational contexts

This Special Issue throws a spotlight on educational activism. It brings together an international collection of papers offering insights into struggles over education in a variety of contexts. Collectively, the papers capture the breadth and diversity of educational activism. They document battles fought by a range of different actors and illustrate how educational settings can become important sites for collective mobilisation and active citizenship. Beyond introducing the contributions to the collection, this opening paper serves two further purposes. First, we survey recent research in the field to build a picture of prominent areas of conflict in public education systems. And second, we present a novel conceptualisation of educational activism designed to aid further understanding and development of this important area of educational enquiry. Our ambition is for the collection to inspire further research in the field and encourage closer collaboration with campaigners engaged in struggles for educational and social justice.