How education researchers have colluded in the rise of neoliberalism: what should the role of academics be in these Trumpian times?

Abstract

The Trump administration represents less a break from the Bush and Obama administration education reforms than an expansion of those reforms. I argue that academics have been complicit in these reforms through the depolitization and privatization of their scholarship and their adherence to a technological framework of knowledge production, dissemination, and utilization. I call for education professionals in universities and schools to build alliances to co-generate knowledge, find ways to place it at the service of the common good and advocate for more equitable public schools.

Keywords:

• Privatization
• depolitization
• advocacy