Date of Award
Summer 2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Transformative Education and Social Change
Committee Chairperson
John Elmore, PhD
Committee Member
Jason Wozniak, PhD
Committee Member
Dana Morrison, PhD
Abstract
This thesis shows how contemporary U.S. schooling reproduces domination and erodes freedom by examining education as a mechanism of social reproduction, disciplinary control, surveillance, and neoliberalization. I draw on Foucault, social reproduction theory, Freire, Vygotsky, and anarchist philosophy while using a critical action research lens to name the structural forces that condition obedience, normalize hierarchy, and individualize responsibility. In response, this thesis asks how anarchist pedagogy functions as an antithesis to these forces. This framework leads me to articulate how anarchist education could emerge through prefigurative community building. Educators are capable of helping to create new worlds both within and against the state.
Recommended Citation
Berlet, Paul B., "Creating Worlds: Anarchist Education Within and Against the State" (2025). West Chester University Master’s Theses. 353.
https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/all_theses/353
Included in
Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons