Non-formal education, personhood and the corrosive power of neoliberalism

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to explore the extent to which non-formal education is being corroded by neoliberal values. Given non-formal education is frequently used to develop young people’s notions of citizenship, and that non-formal education providers are increasingly forced to operate within the free-market paradigm, it is significant to consider what forms of personhood are being championed. Qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and observations with coaches and young people from a youth sports charity in the UK. Focusing on a core aspect of non-formal education – caring relationships (as understood by Nel Noddings and Carl Rogers) – the findings suggest that the quality of coaches’ care for young people was conditioned by the extent to which adolescents re-shaped their personhood to align with neoliberal values of individual responsibility and discipline. Thus, the meanings of ‘care’ and ‘good citizenship’ were corroded by a neoliberal rationality.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-formal education
• personhood
• neoliberalism
• care
• young people
• charities

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank SportHelp, the coaches and the young people for their willingness to participate in his research. He also thanks the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on an earlier version of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Formal education encompasses ‘highly institutionalised, chronologically graded and hierarchically structured’ (Coombes and Ahmed, 1974, p. 8) systems like school.

2. SportHelp’s financial and administrative approach has changed since its inception. At the start, the charity relied on the economic generosity of private donors who were either on the board of trustees or had close ties to the organisation’s founder. As the charity grew, it began attracting increasing amount of pro-bono work from major banks and consultancy firms. Currently, SportHelp’s fundraising model targets a range of revenue streams, such as government funding, national governing body funding, or individual donations.