Educating for (whose) success? Schooling in an age of neo‐liberalism

Abstract

In western nations, the social and economic changes of the past 30 years have facilitated a reorientation of the focus of educational institutions. Global capitalism has placed education at the forefront of national competitiveness, and governments have responded with education policies primarily designed to serve the needs of the market. Such neo‐liberal economic imperatives have been supported by a variety of neoconservative social forces calling for schools to become sites of cultural and moral restoration. This paper draws upon current theoretical debates about the consequences of such changes and employs ethnographic data from a small qualitative study of Australian youth to argue the case for a more democratic and student‐centred approach to educational reform. It contends that in the interests of all young people, it is time for schools to resist systemic impulses to make them producers of human capital and claim their role as transformative institutions of human possibility.

Keywords:

• neo‐liberalism
• school reform
• youth ethnography
• critical pedagogy
• democratic schooling
• social justice

Notes

1. Student participant. All names have been changed.

2. Twenty‐one boys and 11 girls aged 16–17 drawn from my English and history classes.

3. According to school records.

4. The year in which I commenced my doctoral research.

5. The State in which the research was conducted.

6. Pseudonym

7. None of the students received the best possible school exit score of an Overall Position ranking of one. However, one boy received the lowest possible ranking of 25. Of the others, results were scatted along the 1–25 continuum. Post‐school destinations included universities, the workforce, a family‐based communal farm and volunteer environmental work. Many remained active in student politics.

8. Twenty‐two of the 32 students.

9. The work of seven students has been cited directly, with many indirect references to other students.

10. Original syntax and spelling retained throughout.

11. Not used in this paper.

12. Many of the students carried notebooks in which they wrote down their thoughts and poetry.

13. Main character from Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

14. Absurdist play by Samuel Beckett.