Socialism

Mariano, A. and Tarlau, R. 2019. The Landless Workers Movement’s itinerant schools: occupying and transforming public education in Brazil. British Journal of Sociology of Education 2019, Vol. 40, NO. 4, 538–559

This article explores how social movement co-governance of public education
offers an alternative to neoliberal educational models. The Brazilian
Landless Workers Movement (MST) is one of the largest social movements
in Latin America. We describe one of the many schools that the MST
co-governs, the Itinerant School Paths of Knowledge (Caminhos do Saber),
located in an occupied encampment in the state of Paraná. We analyze
three of the most unique pedagogical innovations in the school: the

Rebecca Tarlau. 2015. Education of the countryside at a crossroads: rural social movements and national policy reform in Brazil, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 42:6, 1157-1177

This contribution explores the strategies used by popular movements seeking to advance
social reforms, and the challenges once they succeed. It analyzes how a strategic alliance
between the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the National
Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) transformed the Ministry of
Education’s official approach to rural schooling. This success illustrates the critical
role of international allies, political openings, framing, coalitions and state–society

Tarlau, R. and N. Thapliyal. 2014. LEARNING, AND TRANSFORMATION: AN OVERVIEW OF EDUCATION WITHIN THE LANDLESS WORKERS’ MOVEMENT IN BRAZIL. Postcolonial Directions in Education, 3(1), pp.18-41

This article provides an introduction to the Brazilian social movement known as the Landless Workers Movement (MST). After a brief history of the landless struggle and the international organisation of the movement, the article discusses educational philosophy and practice in the MST. The MST actively cultivates a 'culture of study' within all the diverse spaces of the movement including (but not limited to) its schools and literacy programmes, political education, agricultural production, and culture and media communications.

Tarlau, R. 2013. The Social(ist) Pedagogies of the MST: Towards new Relations of Production in the Brazilian Countryside. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 21(41).

This article explores the social(ist) pedagogies of the Brazilian Landless Workers
Movement (MST), a large agrarian social movement that fights for socialism in the Brazilian

Diniz, A.S. and B. Gilbert (2013)"Socialist values and cooperation in Brazil’s landless rural workers’ movement." Latin American Perspectives 40(4): 19-34.

When the Movimento de Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra do Brasil (Movement of
Landless Rural Workers’ of Brazil—MST) occupies land and forms autonomous agricultural
communities, it aspires to achieve the supremacy of labor over capital and to embody
socialist values. However, a policy of organizing production cooperatives on its settlements
in the early 1990s was unsuccessful, principally because of a failure fully to respect
traditional forms of work and sociability. However, the MST learned from its early mistakes