The (absent) politics of neo-liberal education policy

Bibliographic Data

ID12906320
AuthorsM Clarke (0000-0003-4693-248X, UNSW Sydney, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume53
Issue3
Pages297-310
Publication date2012-08-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Studies in Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1750-8487 • E-ISSN: 1750-8495
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17508487.2012.703139
OpenAlexW2028695438
LanguageEN
Citations received57
References cited32

Despite its ideological saturation, recent neo-liberal education policy has been deeply depoliticising in the sense of reducing properly political concerns to matters of technical efficiency. This depoliticisation is reflected in the hegemony of a managerial discourse and the decontestation of terms like ‘quality’ and ‘effectiveness’, as well as in the apparent consensus around the necessity of particular practices, such as the adoption of ‘standards’ and the implementation of high-stakes testing regimes. The reduction of the political to the technical is not only anti-political but also anti-democratic, with violence often unrecognised behind appeals to consensus, commonsense and ‘rationality’. This study draws on the work of political theorists like Mouffe and Rancière to critique the depoliticisation reflected in recent Australian federal government recent education policy, particularly its notion of an ‘education revolution’ that pre-empts politics through a utopian harmonisation of difference and a reduction of the political to the merely technical and instrumental. This article concludes with some potential starting points for crossing, or traversing, fantasies in education which, along with a recognition of the inescapability of social and political antagonisms, could serve as a basis for a renewed emphasis on the importance of the political in education policy

Democracy · Economics · Hegemony · Ideology · Law and economics · Neoliberalism (international relations · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Rationality · Social science · Sociology · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Law · Political theory and Gramsci · Public Administration

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