Finding solidarity in the teachers’ lounge

MIT PhD candidate Elizabeth Parker-Magyar finds close workplace networks among educators drive their activism even outside of democracies. In the United States, social institutions from church organizations to sports leagues occupy key roles in shaping political life, with unions perhaps the most familiar player, affecting change in realms from protest movements to elections. But while these civil society institutions draw little notice in a democracy, they turn heads in settings where political life is more constrained. Elizabeth "Biff" Parker-Magyar , a sixth-year doctoral candidate in political science at MIT, is investigating this phenomenon.   "It's quite puzzling when some organizations manage to form and exert influence in a setting where civil society movements face high barriers to independence," she says. Her dissertation is focused on the small Middle Eastern nation of Jordan. She locates civil society there in an unexpected setting: public-sector work spaces.