Michael Doblmair, BA BA MA MA

Working Title: Zur Bildung des Aktionismus. Eine diffractive analysis eines Protest von Lehrer:innen

Supervision: Michelle Proyer
Time period: Jänner 2024 – Jänner 2026
Contact: michael.doblmair@univie.ac.at

During a retreat held in April 2022 by teachers who have joined forces as an initiative, one teacher asks the room: "We should actually think about what education means to us. We criticise the entire education system, but what kind of education do we actually want?" This statement was ultimately to serve as the starting point for my dissertation project.
The Schule Brennt initiative came together in October 2021. It was and is made up of teachers who - as decided at that retreat - want to learn to defend themselves against the gruelling and stressful working conditions in schools. Since then, these teachers have been active as Schule Brennt to network, organise and activate teachers. As part of my dissertation, I am working together with my colleagues on this project and, depending on the possibilities, I am trying to work out the concept of education that emerges from this activism.
In addition to campaigning for better working conditions, Schule Brennt has also spoken out in favour of "people-friendly, inclusive schools" and education "against racism and classism". Through detours and diversions, two thematic focuses have emerged from the Schule Brennt initiative. While one group has taken a (quasi-)trade union approach and is trying to activate teachers through the concept of organising (for more information on organising, see: organizing.at/), another group, concerned about the increase in anti-Muslim racism and anti-Semitism in Austrian schools following the attacks on 7 October 2023 in Israel and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, has set itself the task of developing ways and means of education critical of racism and anti-Semitism. The aim of the dissertation is to (re)write a concept of education from the perspective of these two thematic directions.
Methodologically, I mainly draw on concepts of participatory action research (cf. Fine & Torre, 2021: Critical Participatory Action Research) and attempt to underpin these methodologically with a concept of diffractive analysis (cf. Barad, 2007: Meeting the Universe Halfway).