Contours of neoliberalism in US empirical educational research

ABSTRACT

Neoliberalism has an enormous influence on P-12 education in most industrial societies. In this integrative, theoretical literature review, we surveyed the journal articles on neoliberalism in US-based educational research to better understand how neoliberalism has been conceptualized in this body of work and to offer implications for future research on neoliberalism and education. We drew on Foucauldian discourse theories to conduct an analysis of peer-reviewed studies of American P-12 contexts to consider how researchers' depictions of neoliberalism have shaped the discourse of neoliberalism in education and contributed to particular ways of thinking and responding to neoliberalism in the U.S. The resulting analysis describes the topics addressed in the data, the definitions of neoliberalism presented across the studies, the application of neoliberalism to phenomena, and the depth of attention to neoliberalism in the research. The authors contend that future research must consider and document how historically situated and contradictory elements of a “rascal” discourse like neoliberalism interacts with existing discourses to impact life in ways that subjugate but may also create recuperative spaces for hope and creative resignification.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• discourse
• P-12 education
• literature review
• educational research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Some of the articles include descriptions and discussions of multiple forms of data and topics: in these cases, we categorized the study by the type of data or topic that received the most attention.

2. We deliberated extensively about whether textual studies of documents other than curricular materials and standards met our criteria for inclusion, but ultimately chose to include them in our analysis because they: (1) focused on P-12 schools rather than higher education, (2) described how data was used and analysed, and (3) focused on attempting to describe specific instances of how the discourses of neoliberalism had been deployed in particular contexts.

3. There was one article in the data in which neoliberalism was not defined.

4. This is particularly important in terms of understanding how the neoliberal practices in education have been sold as commonsense solutions to constituents outside of the education community.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mardi Schmeichel

Dr. Mardi Schmeichel is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Theory & Practice in the College of Education and Affiliate Faculty in the Institute of Women's Studies at the University of Georgia. Her research interests focus on the examination of neoliberalism and gender across a variety of educational contexts and the impact of sports culture on education.

Ajay Sharma

Dr. Ajay Sharma is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Theory & Practice at the University of Georgia, Athens. His research centers on theoretical and ethnographic explorations of neoliberalism's impact on education, and implications of Climate Change for science education. Email: [email protected]

Elizabeth Pittard

Dr. Elizabeth Pittard is a clinical assistant professor at Georgia State University. She draws from poststructural and feminist theories to examine the working lives of women elementary school teachers, teacher education and the manifestations of neoliberalism in education. Email: [email protected]