Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
This chapter maps the higher education (HE) arena three years after the 2021 military takeover. Inside the country, the State Administration Council (the new guise of the Tatmadaw) has not only halted the country’s HE reform but is also creating new conflicts and a politics of fear inside universities, reshaping HE access so it is once again only available to a select few (including students who can afford private colleges). Against this backdrop, various Spring Revolution actors are creating new HE opportunities for themselves and the young people trapped in Myanmar. New, alternative (in relation to the military-controlled universities) education providers are created with two aims. On one side, they are supporting the new Myanmar generations in continuing their studies and Myanmar teachers in maintaining their profession. On the other side, they seek to discredit the junta by proving that the military will not be able to effectively reinstate its old methods of control and fear-based repression. Creating new HE pathways is seen as a way to directly and effectively support the revolution.
This chapter shows how various actors cooperated and competed to shape the 2011–21 higher education (HE) reform during the Union Solidarity and Development Party (President Thein Sein’s party, which won the 2010 elections) and National League for Democracy (State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, which won the 2015 elections) governments. In doing so, it analyses the policy and legislative work leading up to the 2014 ‘New Education Law’ (NEL) and subsequent ‘National education strategic plan – 2016/21’. This chapter demonstrates that President Thein Sein advanced a vision of HE that was more transformative for society at large than the one advanced by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. Her approach coupled an elitist vision of education with a very carefully crafted policy meant to deter possible mass, collective action. What reform progress universities were able to make was thus due mainly to the space for agency opened by President Thein Sein and the resilient work of teachers and student activists. The chapter analyses occasions in which the views of student politics clashed with state authority, mainly the 2014/15 protest against the NEL and the 2019/20 protests against the University of Yangon centenary celebrations.
After having showcased the lived experiences of the actors who have built and contested higher education (HE) in Myanmar, the conclusion draws out the key considerations and patterns emerging from the book to fulfil its two main aims. On one side, the book has illustrated the historical and contemporary role of HE institutions in Myanmar, underlining that they represent some of most important and dynamic institutions in the country and a space of resistance against authoritarianism. On the other side, the example of the Myanmar HE arena shows how and why the global neoliberalist trends prevailing in HE are particularly dangerous when it comes to authoritarian contexts and conflict-prone countries: in these settings in particular, it is crucial that HE be left unhindered to make its social contribution of offering active spaces of resistance.
After decades of isolation, at the beginning of the decade of reform (2011–21) Myanmar saw a plethora of international actors and educational institutions re-engage with its education landscape, generating enormous pressure. The chapter shows how the economic rationales and policy-borrowing practices pushed by these international and donor partners shaped the 2011–21 higher education (HE) reform process in keeping with global neoliberal trends. Considering the progression of key policy landmarks, it is clear that, over time, the main point of the reform became the idea of granting the country’s universities ‘autonomy’ (organization, academic, staffing, and financial). In looking to render the HE landscape in Myanmar ‘stable’ and ‘up to regional standards’, international actors also limited its ability to be open and contestable. What ended up being sidelined was the ‘HE for a just society’ discourse championed by student politics, an approach that could have prioritized the broader societal benefits of HE beyond purely economic and status concerns.
The chapter frames the logic of the situation underpinning the protest movement sparked by the 2021 coup, branded as the Spring Revolution, and its intersection with higher education. While the 2021 coup might even be said to represent proof of the failure of the 2011–21 reform period, the Spring Revolution is the proof of its success. One of the factors motivating people to join the resistance was indeed a desire to not lose the benefits of the reforms, first and foremost education reforms. Mixing old and new repertories of contention, educated young people belonging to Generation Z are not only contesting the regime but also igniting the kinds of debates about social justice that had been granted limited space even under the State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy government.
The introduction sets the scene for readers’ understanding of Myanmar’s old and new struggles against authoritarianism in its key political phases. In a country that has experienced three coups d’état in its modern history, what are universities able to do? And what can universities tell us about the country’s long-lasting struggle with and against authoritarianism? To frame these questions, the introduction lays out the key elements of the scholarly debate on the politics of higher education (HE). Indeed, understanding the role played by universities in the complex history of Myanmar means recognizing clashes among discourses, functions, and actors in the (ambiguous) space of HE. Finally, presenting the research methodology used in this case, the introduction offers insights into how research can be conducted in times of polycrisis.
This chapter sheds light on the history of higher education in Burma/Myanmar, from the foundation of the Rangoon University in colonial times to the struggles of teaching and learning under military rule (considering both the General Ne Win and post-1988 juntas). Originally founded by the British as secluded and elitist communities, universities became laboratories for an anticolonial nationalism that went on to shape the political trajectory of the country. As spaces of resistance, universities were an unsolvable problem for the juntas: instead of using them to further their own ideological agenda, therefore, they actively emptied them out, gated them up, and deprived them of resources. Meanwhile, a military education was portrayed and valorized as the best possible path to secure social and economic status for ‘first-class’ citizens. For the rest of the student population, a highly accessible but low-quality system of distance education was built as the second-best option. In this context, university student movements have represented Burma/Myanmar’s ‘vanguard in the vacuum’, a nationwide underground political opposition to authoritarianism. The chapter analyses occasions in which student organizations clashed with the junta, including the 1988 uprising.
In February 2021, Myanmar experienced the third coup d’état in its modern history. Unprecedented strength was displayed by Myanmar civil society as it fought back against these new authoritarian drives. Where did this strength come from?
Fearing the loss of the benefits gained in the previous decade of reforms (2011–2021), students, teachers, professors, and activists fuelled the Spring Revolution. To understand what is happening in Myanmar, this book outlines the historical efforts by Myanmar universities to advocate for a more just society and offers unique insight into the long-lasting struggle of education against authoritarianism.
By exploring Myanmar’s social and political struggles through the lens of higher education resistance, the book offers a compelling narrative about the life of the country following the latest coup d’état, an event that continues to puzzle the international community.
This chapter focuses on education and participatory action research within the trade union and labour movement, with a particular emphasis on the role of ideas and the development of critical consciousness within social movements. The trade union movement has much to learn from its past engagements with colonialism, as well as from its past and more recent engagements with movements for decolonisation and racial justice.
The chapter draws from a case study of participatory action research within a British trade union. However limited in themselves, and however pressured in the current context, such initiatives have potentially wider implications with particular relevance for the promotion of equalities and international solidarity within the labour and trade union movement and within communities more widely.
This chapter explores municipal strategies in Britain and US that work with communities and social movements to tackle the legacies of slavery and colonisation while promoting decolonisation in order to advance equalities and social solidarity agendas. Examples have included initiatives to enable women and Black and ethnic minority communities to access employment and training opportunities, as well as strategies and planning processes to improve the quality of both jobs and services for communities.
In addition, there have been innovative approaches to challenging structural inequalities on an international scale through the promotion of fair trade. And there have been initiatives to promote international solidarity more locally by welcoming refugees and asylum seekers.
