A Critical Ethnography of Education in the Edmonton Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

This study asks how members of the Edmonton Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) are learning to challenge capitalist hegemony.;A critical ethnographic method is used to explore the question. A history of education in the IWW and related movements provides a foreground to findings and analysis in this contemporary study.;A rich practise of workers‘ education is found in the Edmonton and wider IWW which—aided by actions of solidarity—influences working-class struggles beyond membership.;A combination of organic and traditional intellectuals engage in a revolutionary praxis of anarcho-syndicalism and related theories reinterpreted through struggles that attempt to challenge capitalist hegemony pre-figuratively in the workplace and on the picket lines of Edmonton.;Key words include: adult education, anarchism, ethnography, hegemony, organic intellectuals, Marxism, revolutionary praxis, social class, social movement learning, syndicalism, union organizing and workers‘ education.