The document discusses using Erik Olin Wright's framework of "real utopias" to theorize open education. It outlines Wright's four tasks: 1) specifying moral principles like equality, democracy, sustainability; 2) critiquing existing educational institutions; 3) developing an account of open education as a viable alternative institutional form; 4) proposing strategies for transformation, such as ruptural, interstitial, or symbiotic change. The document argues that grounding open education in robust theory helps prevent dilution and guides emancipatory social change through education.

1. OPEN EDUCATION
AS A REAL
UTOPIA
JAMISON R. MILLER | miller.jamison@gmail.com | @MillerJamison
The College of William & Mary | Lumen Learning
Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier

2. Open education has the
potential to sustainably
transform existing
educational institutions
into more equitable and
democratic forms.
Public Domain Image: The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century

3. Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
OPEN EDUCATION IS
“UNDER-THEORIZED”
Bayne, Knox, & Ross, 2015
Deiman & Farrow, 2013
Edwards, 2015
Knox, 2013
Moe, 2015
Nyberg, 1975
Peters, 2008

4. Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
WHY THEORY?
● Without it, open education is
vulnerable to dilution and
cooptation
● Not just a lens, but also as a keel

5. REAL UTOPIAS
Sociologist Erik Olin Wright has built a theoretical framework for a critical
and emancipatory approach in social science most comprehensively
presented in Envisioning Real Utopias (2010).
“Real utopias” aims to contribute a “normatively grounded sociology of the
possible, not just the actual” (2012, p. 2).
Image: DV Ltd. / Sigtryggur Ari

6. REAL UTOPIAS
Image: DV Ltd. / Sigtryggur Ari
A contradictory term?
UTOPIAS are fantasies, morally inspired designs unconstrained by feasibility
REALists eschew such fantasies, condemning them as wasted time and effort
Wright proposes embracing the tensions between dreams and practice.
What is pragmatically possible is not independent of our imaginations, but is
shaped by our visions. (2010, p. 6)

7. Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
WHERE THERE IS A
WILL THERE IS A WAY.
Naïve optimism, perhaps, but without a will, many ways become impossible.

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THE ROAD TO
HELL IS PAVED
WITH GOOD
INTENTIONS.

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PLAUSIBLE VISIONS OF
RADICAL ALTERNATIVES,
WITH FIRM THEORETICAL
FOUNDATIONS,
ARE A CRUCIAL COMPONENT
FOR EMANCIPATORY SOCIAL
CHANGE.

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FOUNDATIONS
1) Many forms of human suffering and many deficits in
human flourishing are the result of existing
institutional and social structures.
2) Transforming existing institutional and social
structures in the right way has the potential to
substantially reduce human suffering and expand the
possibilities for human flourishing.
(Wright, 2012, p. 2)

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FOUR TASKS
1) Specifying moral principles
2) Diagnosis and critique of existing institutions
3) Developing an account of viable alternatives
4) Proposing a theory of transformation

12. Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
TASK ONE: Specifying moral principles
EQUALITY
DEMOCRACY
SUSTAINABILITY

13. Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
TASK ONE: Specifying moral principles
EQUALITY:
In a socially just society, all people would have broadly
equal access to the social and material conditions
necessary for living a flourishing life. (2012, p. 4)

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TASK ONE: Specifying moral principles
DEMOCRACY:
In a fully democratic society, all people would have
broadly equal access to the necessary means to
participate meaningfully in decisions about things
that affect their lives. (2012, p. 5)

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TASK ONE: Specifying moral principles
SUSTAINABILITY:
Future generations should have access to the social
and material conditions to live flourishing lives at
least at the same level as the present generation.
(2012, p.5)

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TASK TWO: Diagnosis and Critique
Critical Pedagogy
Dewey (1916)
Freire (1970)
hooks (1994)
Internet Theorists
Benkler (2006)
Castells (2010; 2013)
Floridi (2011)
Critiques of Higher Ed
(institutional)
Giroux (2014)
Slaughter & Rhoades (2004)
Newfield (2008; 2016)
Critiques of Higher Ed
(empirical)
Watters (2014, 2019)
McMillan-Cottom (2017)
Goldrick-Rab (2016)

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TASK THREE: Alternatives
Developing an account of open
education, evaluated in terms of:
Desirability - focusing ideal alone is merely utopian
Viability - could we stay, or are there too many
unintended consequences?
Achievability - how do we move from here to there?

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TASK THREE: Alternatives
Open education as an alternative
institutional form of education
Open things: OER, data
Open practices: Pedagogy, teaching, learning
Research
Organization and governance

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TASK THREE: Alternatives
Economic empowerment Social empowerment
Educational
Institutions
Educational
Institutions
Adapted from Wright, 2010; 2012

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TASK FOUR: Transformation
Three strategic logics towards social transformation:
Ruptural - revolution, a sharp break
Interstitial - building in the niches and margins
Symbiotic - achieving social empowerment that
simultaneously solves practical problems of
dominant classes + elites

21. Open education has the
potential to sustainably
transform existing
educational institutions
into more equitable and
democratic forms.
Public Domain Image: The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century

22. OPEN EDUCATION
AS A REAL
UTOPIA
JAMISON R. MILLER | miller.jamison@gmail.com | @MillerJamison
The College of William & Mary | Lumen Learning
Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier

23. Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
REFERENCES
Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Castells, M. (2010). The rise of the network society. In The information age: Economy, society,
and culture (2nd ed., Vol 1). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Castells, M. (2013). Communication power. London, UK: Oxford University Press.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education.
New York: Macmillan.
Floridi, L. (2011). The philosophy of information. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Freire, P. (2000 [1970]). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Giroux, H. A. (2014). Neoliberalism's war on higher education. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the price: College costs, financial aid, and the betrayal of the
American dream. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York:
Routledge.

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REFERENCES
McMillan-Cottom, T. 2017. Lower ed: The troubling rise of for-profits. New York, NY: The New
Press.
Newfield, C. (2008). Unmaking the public university: The forty-year assault on the middle
class. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Newfield, C. (2016). The great mistake: How we wrecked public universities and how we can
fix them. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets,
state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Watters, A. (2014). The monsters of education technology. Retrieved from
https://s3.amazonaws.com/audreywatters/the-monsters-of-education-technology.pdf
Watters, A. (2019). Teaching Machines. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wright, E. O. (2010). Envisioning real utopias. London, UK: Verso.
Wright, E. O. (2012). Transforming capitalism through real utopias. American Sociological
Review, 78(1), 1-25. doi: 10.1177/0003122412468882