Revisiting education for co-operatives: Exploring the value of signature pedagogies

Educational practices have always played an important role in developing approaches that reflect the plurality of forms of co-operative organisations. Arguably, education is fundamental to the endurance of the co-operative movement. While these practices are intended to reproduce the unique knowledge and social structures that inform co-operatives, they may not always reflect the intrinsic and distinctive values of the co-operative principles. In fact, inappropriate educational practices have had the effect of weakening the co-operative movement by perpetuating a mindset that fosters social and economic inequities. I explore key constructs from education theory and their relevance to pedagogical practices that are intended to support education for co-operatives. In this paper, I argue that education for co-operatives could benefit greatly from identifying and developing signature pedagogies.