In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary

You Can't Padlock an Idea examines the educational programs undertaken at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and looks specifically at how these programs functioned rhetorically to promote democratic social change. Founded in 1932 by educator Myles Horton, the Highlander Folk School sought to address the economic and political problems facing communities in Appalachian Tennessee and other southern states. To this end Horton and the school's staff involved themselves in the labor and civil rights disputes that emerged across the south over the next three decades.

Drawing on the Highlander archives housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Avery Research Center in South Carolina, and the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee, Stephen A. Schneider reconstructs the pedagogical theories and rhetorical practices developed and employed at Highlander. He shows how the school focused on developing forms of collective rhetorical action, helped students frame social problems as spurs to direct action, and situated education as an agency for organizing and mobilizing communities.

Schneider studies how Highlander's educational programs contributed to this broader goal of encouraging social action. Specifically he focuses on four of the school's more established programs: labor drama, labor journalism, citizenship education, and music. These programs not only taught social movement participants how to create plays, newspapers, citizenship schools, and songs, they also helped the participants frame the problems they faced as having solutions based in collective democratic action. Highlander's programs thereby functioned rhetorically, insofar as they provided students with the means to define and transform oppressive social and economic conditions. By providing students with the means to comprehend social problems and with the cultural agencies (theater, journalism, literacy, and music) to address these problems directly, Highlander provided an important model for understanding the relationships connecting education, rhetoric, and social change.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title page, Copyright
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. List of Illustrations
  2. p. vi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Series Editor's Preface
  2. Thomas W. Benson
  3. pp. vii-viii
  4. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgements
  2. pp. ix-x
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Introduction: The Highlander Folk School, Movement Halfway Houses, and Rhetorical Education
  2. pp. 1-18
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 1. The Kairos of Educational Opportunity: The Development of the Highlander Idea
  2. pp. 19-47
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 2. Labor Drama: From Collective Action to Collective-Action Frames
  2. pp. 48-79
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 3. Labor Journalism: Shop Papers, Yearbooks, and Collective Identity
  2. pp. 80-110
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 4. Literacy Education: Citizenship Schools and Community Organization
  2. pp. 111-141
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 5. Music Education: Framing Processes as Direct Action
  2. pp. 142-169
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Conclusion: Rhetorical Education as an Agency for Social Change
  2. pp. 170-178
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Works Cited
  2. pp. 179-192
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 193-198
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.