New Social Movements in Times of Conservatism and Austerity: Analysis of the political process of educational mobilisation in The Balearic Islands (2013-2015)

Authors

  • Lluís Parcerisa Universitat de Barcelona
  • Antoni Verger Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Abstract

During the 2011-2015 legislature, the education sector in The Balearic Islands was shaken by
root-and-branch proposals for educational reform that combined draconian austerity policies and an
ambitious plan that questioned the existing linguistic model. Efforts to push through these reforms
led to the emergence of new collective actors and networks, and disputes that culminated in the
calling of an open-ended strike in the education sector. This paper analyses the path of and
reasons for the success of the social mobilisation against said reforms. At the theoretical level,
the research is guided by the political process approach, which considers the ideas and structural
factors driving collective action. Methodologically, the case study follows the process-tracing
approach and is based on 20 semi-structured interviews with key actors and on document analysis.
The findings show that frame-bridging, together with the combination of diverse collective action
repertoires, played key roles in
the social movement’s success.

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Author Biographies

Lluís Parcerisa, Universitat de Barcelona

Doctor in Sociology by the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). Currently, he is a lecturer at the
Department of Didactics and Educational Organization of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and member of the research ESBRINA-Subjectivities, visualizations and contemporary educational environments (2017SGR 1248). Your main research interests include educational policy, political sociology, international education and comparative, the effects of digital platforms on socio-digital inequalities and the rights of
Early childhood, data-dating and critical data studies.

Antoni Verger, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Professor of Sociology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and researcher associated with the Catalan Institution of Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA). With an interdisciplinary background in sociology and education, its research examines educational reform processes from a comparative and global perspective. In recent years, the years, has specialized in the study of educational privatization reforms, school autonomy and
of accounts.

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Published

2023-12-13 — Updated on 2025-03-25

How to Cite

Parcerisa, L. and Verger, A. (2025) “New Social Movements in Times of Conservatism and Austerity: Analysis of the political process of educational mobilisation in The Balearic Islands (2013-2015)”, Debats. Journal on culture, power and society, 2023(8). Available at: https://revistadebats.net/article/view/6423 (Accessed: 3 April 2025).

Issue

No. 8 (2023): Annual Review

Section

SPECIAL ISSUE 2

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