Corporate Elites and the reform of public education

Educational Theory, 2004

All four of the texts reviewed here focus on the ways that contemporary capitalism intersects with education. Accordingly, we begin with some description of key themes in the four texts, but we finish with a substantive critique of them and with a call for a more grounded critical theory and practice. Three of the four books, those of Kenneth Saltman, Henry Giroux, and Alex Molnar, make a highly similar argument that contemporary capitalism, with its hyperconsumerism and market culture pervading all aspects of society, is in substantive ways dangerously undermining democracy, especially the teaching of democracy in schools. Saltman calls his effort Collateral Damage: Corporatizing Public Schools-A Threat to Democracy and includes chapters on privatization of schooling, the damage to democracy, the Coca-Cola commercialization of schooling, and a rather oddly disconnected chapter on the constructed crisis of the predatory teacher as pedophile. 1 Giroux calls his book Stealing Innocence: Corporate Culture's War on Children, and it includes sections on ''corporate power and the culture of everyday life'' and on ''cultural politics and public pedagogy,'' the latter of which includes a discussion of how Antonio Gramsci, Paulo Freire, and Stuart Hall's work relates to the corporate culture's war on schools and children.

Revista de Estudios Teóricos y Epistemológicos en Política Educativa

Increasingly, on a global scale, education policy is being done in new ways, in new spaces by new actors, and many of these new spaces are private. Here some examples of these changing arts of government-the politics of 'not governing too much'-that are intrinsic to competition state, are explored. The concomitant processes of the financialisation of education and particularly the role of equity investment are also addressed. That is, the activity of global corporations and private equity companies funding and investing in the provision of schooling and other educational services, both in competition with state services, or on contract to and funded by the state, to provide alternative forms of public education. The paper concludes by arguing for the need for researchers to change their focus and methods to attend to these new forms of provision and government.

Praxis Educativa, 2014

The essay aims to overturn much conventional (and generally critical) thinking which emphasises neoliberal prominence in policy and policy making. Two main policy making processes are noted: (1) a rational, systematic process or (2) an incoherent, incremental version. The latter account is perceived as more realistic model and accounted for by making use of particular perspectives regarding the nature and role of the state in today's globalised world. Using Dunleavy and O'Leary's Theories of the State (1987) and its update, Theories of the Liberal Democratic State (2009) by Dryzek and Dunleavy, four main theories are identified: the pluralist/neopluralist, Marxist, elitist and New Right/market liberal. Three perspectives on globalisationthe neoliberal, radical and transformationalist-are analysed with the latter providing insights into the varied impact of globalisation on the policy making process and its outcome. The essay concludes with an appeal for future research to acknowledge the complex nature of policy making, thereby using more nuanced analysis.

Journal of Education Policy, 2018

Current policy environments worldwide are heavily influenced by corporatism, neoliberalism and their companion, New Public Management. These are discussed here. This article also wrestles with such concepts as individualism and collectivism, nationalism, and competition and collaboration, among others, as foundational concerns. This article presents a discussion of current educational reform initiatives and the lessons learned from them through their analysis.

EDITORIAL Andrew Wilkins: Pedagogy of the consumer: The politics of neo-liberal welfare reform ARTICLES Kevin J. Burke: Strange bedfellows: The new neoliberalism of catholic schooling in the United States Christopher G. Robbins, Serhiy Kovalchuk: Dangerous disciplines: Understanding pedagogies of punishment in the neoliberal states of America Jon Frauley: Post-Social politics, employability, and the security effects of higher education Magnus Dahlstedt, Fredrik Hertzberg: Schooling entrepreneurs: Entrepreneurship, governmentality and education policy in Sweden at the turn of the millennium Susan M. Martin: Education as a spectral technology: Corporate culture at work in Ontario‘s schools Glenn C. Savage: Being different and the same? The paradoxes of ‘tailoring’ in education quasi - markets Panayota Gounari, George Grollios: Educational reform in Greece: Central concepts and a critique

Policy Futures in Education, 2017

In this interview with David Hursh, Bob Lingard comments on his current and/or recently completed research projects in respect to new modes of global governance in schooling and the complementarity between international large scale assessments and national testing. He also looks at a project that, in conjunction with school leaders, teachers, students, and community, developed an alternative mode of educational accountability to the currently dominant, simple, top-down, test-based mode. Here schools and their communities would be enabled to give an account of their multiple achievements of various kinds and draw on qualitative, as well as quantitative data. Another project has focused on the ways in which datafication in education opens up spaces for profit-motivated edu-businesses. Here data infrastructures are seen to actually structure schooling systems in particular ways and also work in networked governance across edtech companies and state actors. The final project considered ...

This paper offers considerations of how political discourse is intertwined with education. Utilising Foucault's (1987) notion of discourse we explore its usefulness for producing an analysis of discursive formations which shape education for driving the economy, developing human capital and as a product. Using Foucauldian theory and terminology we follow the maxim of 'will-to-knowledge' to illuminate some of the current pressures on the subject of Education Studies. Our discussion develops the notion of discourse to theorise and articulate the ways in which education has been co-opted by political ideologies and infused by the specific economic philosophies which have created 'neoliberalisations' in education. The extent to which neoliberalisation has shaped Education Studies is explored and illustrated, with reference to particular discursive formations. The paper argues that in particular the changing and multidisciplinary nature of Education Studies make it vulnerable to the changes brought about by the neoliberalisation of education. The first part of the paper discusses the notion of discourse and its usefulness in analysing educational change and the second section critically narrates some of the political discourses which have resulted in particular discursive formations through which education becomes co-opted by government agendas. The final section offers some insights into how these productions of discourse in education impact on the subject of Education Studies.