The globalization and corporatization of education: the limits and liminality of the market mantra

Abstract

What are some of the ways in which neoliberalism is impacting the practice and experience of education? People worldwide are being forced to negotiate their identities for survival in a globalized world. How are ideologies of national identity and belonging negotiated in educational contexts across the globe? In what ways are teachers and their curricula perpetuating, as well as resisting, the corporatization of education and its resulting inequities? Academic capitalism has entered classrooms at all levels, redefining everything from the interaction between teachers and students to the existence of academic disciplines. This special issue is grounded in the ethnographic analysis of specific educational formations that are simultaneously social, cultural, political, economic, historical, and transnational. In this introduction, the authors offer ways to think about how the market mantra has been internalized in communities worldwide, along with the ways in which it is questioned, resisted, and ultimately, transformed.

Keywords:

• globalization
• education
• neoliberalism