Introduction to Surviving economic crises through education

It's a sad Everyplace, where citizens are always getting fired from their jobs at the 7-Eleven and where kids do drugs and practice the latest dance crazes at the local lake, where they also fantasize about being adult and pulling welfare-check scams as they inspect each other's skins for chemical burns from the lake water. (Coupland, 1991, p. 45). This quote from the novel Generation X is a provocation for some educationalists, who might perceive their job to be a corrective one in terms of the social ills as listed above. However, Coupland (1991) describes an aspect of reality in which we now find ourselves. The point that will be advanced in this book is not to valorize or negate such social realities, but to un derstand how these interconnected phenomena are comprehendible from a perspective where social life is not categorized or othered through the imposition of ideal (educative) thought. On the contrary, this book examines social life from the perspective of complex and entwined material practices- sometimes unconscious. This means that one cannot cordon off aspects of social life because on e finds them disagreeable, or because they do not correspond to the socialities of an educated and well-organized elite (Cole, 2010). The collection of essays that is represented here derive from responses to surviving economic crises through education that accept multifarious social activities and mores. Furthermore, the use of Justin Bower's cover image, called the Architecture of Infection, signals the ways in which this book will examine how one is conformed and compromised by present social tendencies, rather than presenting ideal solutions in terms of learning, education, or by ignoring the negative underbelly in contemporary society.