Deconstructing Education for All: discourse, power and the politics of inclusion

Abstract

The UNESCO World Declaration on Education for All from 1990 sets in motion the new agenda for educational reform that provides basic education for all disadvantaged children and adults in the global context. Since its formulation, a set of consecutive policy texts has been issued by international agencies to monitor, evaluate, and strengthen the capacity of governments to ensure that the goals of Education for All are met by 2015. This paper applies critical theory and discourse theory to provide an in‐depth analysis of the hegemonic ideologies of this global policy framework through the deconstruction of policy texts and discourses. It is argued that Education for All is a modernist project of the new imperialism, structured through the selecting, assembling and underpinning of policy discourses, to expand the ideological project of new capitalism in the global context. Discourse of inclusion is discussed both at the educational and political levels to portray the tensions of the global community in grappling with the issues of justice at the international, national, and local context.

Keywords:

• Education for All
• discourse
• power/knowledge
• modernity
• imperialism

Acknowledgements

The author sends special thanks to Professors Claudia Mitchell, Steven Jordan, Aziz Choudry, and Nancy Heath, Faculty of Education, McGill University, for their thoughtful comments, discussion, resources, and encouragement to the completion of this paper.