Disciplining the Working Classes: Neoliberal Designs in Vocational Education

Abstract

This essay critiques the neoliberal reorganization of vocational education, finding that the notion of democratic schooling has been diminished as the differential needs of working-class students are unrecognized and unmet. Instead, these students are faced with the false promises of merit advanced in the middle-class discourses of college-for-all. Vocational education reforms support the privatization movement through the creation of charter schools, as well as the cessation of control to industries for work-ready testing, employability certification, and business-defined career clustering. Vocational institutions are expected to be entrepreneurial in this neoliberal climate of strategic global advantage, encouraged to enter into public-private partnerships for economic development, and asked to manage costs with declining support from the taxpaying public.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We are indebted to the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments in the preparation of this article.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Joe L. Kincheloe.