Written by Derek R. Ford

In Encountering Education, organizer, and political and educational theorist Derek R. Ford develops new marxist pedagogical elements to advance the class struggle. Ford argues that the entire marxist project of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat and creating a classless society entails an educational praxis that builds up disinterpellative encounters. Through an inventive reading of Marx, Althusser, Glissant, and others, they advance two dialectical pedagogical processes of inquiry and presentation, developing both—and the political relations between the two—through a range of theorists and situations. Encountering Education both illuminates the historical, political, spatial, technological, and sonic conditions of our struggle and assembles new pedagogical forms of reading, writing, listening, and learning through which we can encounter and realize an alternative social formation and, through the guidance of the Party, a new mode of production.

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“As the crises of imperialist capitalism continue to worsen, Ford’s pedagogy of the encounter provides a key weapon for navigating the unknown gap between the current situation and a communist future.” 

–Curry S. Malott, Associate Professor of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

“Encountering Education is a powerful call for resistance which masterfully weaves together Ford’s ground-breaking theoretical work and his activist experience from the streets and picket lines. The result is a revolutionary book which calls to action and directs that action, through pedagogies of the class struggle.” 

–Petar Jandrić, Zagreb University of Applied Sciences, Croatia, and University of Wolverhampton, UK 

Derek R. Ford is Assistant Professor of Education Studies at DePauw University and an instructor with The People’s Forum. They’ve published six monographs, including Marxism, Pedagogy, and the General Intellect (2021). Ford is editor of LiberationSchool.org, education department chair at the Hampton Institute, and an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition.