The National Faces of Neoliberalism in Education in Rich and Developing Countries
Author(s):
Dave Hill Andrea Beckmann
Charlie Cooper
Ahmad Mukhtar
Jill Pinkney Pastrana
Angela Siqueira Terry Wrigley
Conference:
ECER 2009
Network:
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Format:
Symposium

Session Information

23 SES 09 B, The National Faces of Neoliberalism in Education in Rich and Developing Countries

Symposium

Time:
2009-09-30
10:30-12:00
Room:
HG, HS 7
Chair:
Dave Hill
Discussant:
Jill Pinkney Pastrana

Contribution

This symposium critically examines neoliberal capitalist globalization policies relating to education in five different countries, three in the Developing World, and two in The Rich World- Chile, Brazil, Pakistan, England and Wales, and Scotland. These present different models of neoliberal education “reform” developments. There are differences, but there are important global similarities in education policy developments. The papers ask a series of important questions, such as: “What neoliberal changes have taken place in education (e.g., privatization, vouchers, marketization, commercialization, school fees, new brutalist public managerialism, and the assault on critical thought, and on the comprehensive/ common school principles and on democratic control of schools)?” The papers examine four types of impacts: on (1) equality, equal opportunities and access to schooling and education (as experienced by groups differentiated by social class, race/ethnicity/language, gender, rural/urban location); (2) democracy/ democratic control of schools and education; (3) critical thinking, and analytical skills among students; (4) the rights/pay and condition of education workers- in particular those in private sector schools and universities in spaces vacated by state provision. This symposium comprises papers written to contest the legitimacy of neoliberalising government policy and its subordination to and participation in the neoliberal project of global capital, a project that Harvey (2005) calls “the class war from above” —the diversion and appropriation of welfare funding and wages into the pockets of a small minority of the superrich, `the masters of the universe’, the capitalist class. This ‘diversion of wealth and increasing differentiation in (e.g. education) p0rovision, have, of course, been thrust into the public limelight by the current crisis of capitalism and exposes of bankers’ and CEOs’ massive pay, pensions and benefits packages. The current crisis of capital accumulation, as predicted by Marx & Engels (1977 [1847]), will have impacts such as reductions in public expenditure (the social wage, including public/ state educational provision) as well as reductions in the actual wage of workers. The current, it is argued, will lead to the intensification of the extraction of surplus value, the progressing global immiseration of workers, by increasing inequalities in education provision, and the intensification of control of populations by the ideological and repressive state apparatuses (such as schools, vocational education and universities) indentified and analysed by Althusser (Althusser, 1971; Hill, 2004; Greaves, Hill and Maisuria, 2007). The symposium examines the current and possible future states of public/ state education.

Method

The various papers utilise a wide array of methodologies, from literature search of books, articles, government reports, international organisation reports (eg the ILO, EI/IE and PSI) and reports from anti-neoliberal groups and organisations such as trade unions and social movements. In addition, several of the papers use qualitative methodologies such as interviews with government and trade union/ social movement actors, as well as shop-floor workers such as teachers and lecturers and others impacted by neoliberal restructurings and `reforms'. Some papers have also used quantitative methodologies such as questionnnaires. Thus, the symposium engages with and utilises a wide range of methodologies.

Expected Outcomes

The findings, drawn from critical analyses of the forms and impacts of neoliberalisation of schooling and education, and drawn (inter alia) by significant actors in policy processes in international and national policy arenas, are intended to, and likely to, build and inform understanding of and resistance to neoliberalisation of education. In their own countries, these chapters will contribute, to varying degrees, in addressing such critiques and proposing alternative policy scenarios, to a variety of audience, from international and national policy makers, to national labour movements/ trade unions and their international organisations such as the ILO, EI (Education International) and the PSI (Public Services International).

References

References Alderman, H.; Orazem, P.F. and Paterno, E.M. (2001) School quality, school cost, and the public/private school choices of low-income households in Pakistan. Journal of Human Resources 36 (2), 304–326. Althusser, Louis (1971) Ideology and State Apparatuses. In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. London: New Left Books. Apple, Michael W. (2000) Official Knowledge. New York: Routledge. Ball, S. (2007) Education plc: understanding private sector participation in public sector education. Abingdon: Routledge Carnoy, Martin (1998). National Voucher Plans in Chile and Sweden: Did Privatization Reforms Make for Better Education? Comparative Education Review, 42 (3). Compton, M. and Weiner, L. (Eds.) (2008) The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers,and their Unions: Stories for Resistance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Dumenil, Gerard and Levy, Dominique (2004) Capital Resurgent: Roots of the Neoliberal Revolution. London: Harvard University Press. Greaves, Nigel, Hill, Dave and Maisuria, Alpesh (2007) Embourgeoisment, Immiseration, Commodification - Marxism Revisited: a Critique of Education in Capitalist Systems. Journal for Critical education Policy Studies, 5(1).Online at http://www.jceps.com/index.php?pageID=article&articleID=83 Harvey, David (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Hill, Dave (2001) State Theory and The Neo-Liberal Reconstruction of Schooling and Teacher Education: A Structuralist Neo-Marxist Critique of Postmodernist, Quasi-Postmodernist, and Culturalist Neo-Marxist Theory. The British Journal of Sociology of Education, 22, (1) pp.137-157. Hill, Dave (2004a) Books, Banks and Bullets: Controlling our minds- the global project of Imperialistic and militaristic neo-liberalism and its effect on education policy. Policy Futures in Education, 2, 3-4, pp. 504-522 (Theme: Marxist Futures in Education). http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/viewpdf.asp?j=pfie&vol=2&issue=3&year=2004&article=6_Hill_PFIE_2_3-4_web&id=81.158.104.245 Hill, Dave (2004b) O Neoliberalismo Global, a Resistência e a Deformação da Educação. Curriculo sem Frontieras 3, 3 pp.24-59. (Brazil) http://www.curriculosemfronteiras.org/ Hill, Dave (2005) Globalisation and its educational discontents: Neoliberalisation and its impacts on education workers’ rights, pay, and conditions. International Studies in the Sociology of Education 15 (3), pp.257-288. Cole, Mike, Hill, Dave, McLaren, Peter and Rikowski Glenn (2006) Kızıl Tebeşir (Red Chalk: On Schooling, Capitalism and Politics). Istanbul, Turkey: Kalkedon Yayinlari. Hill, Dave (2008) Crisis, the Bankers’ Bailout, and Socialist Analysis/Strategy Radical Notes (Delhi, India) Online at: http://radicalnotes.com/journal/2008/11/24/crisis-the-bankers-bailout-and-socialist-analysisstrategy/ Hill, Dave (ed.) (2009) Contesting Neoliberal Education: Public Resistance and Collective Advance. London: New York: Routledge. Hill, Dave (ed.) (2009) The Rich World and the Impoverishment of Education: Diminishing Democracy, Equity and Workers’ Rights. New York: Routledge. Hill, Dave and Kumar, Ravi (eds.) (2009) Global Neoliberalism and Education and its Consequences. New York: Routledge. Hill, Dave and Rosskam, Ellen (eds.) (2009) The Developing World and State Education: Neoliberal Depredation and Egalitarian Alternatives. New York: Routledge. International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) The benefits of services trade liberalisation, Policy Statement Document 103/210, September. Paris: ICC. Khan, S.; Kazmi, S. and Latif, Z. (1999) The state of basic education in Pakistan:A qualitative, comparative, institutional analysis. SDPI Working Paper Series # 47.SDPI: Islamabad. Marx, Karl (1978) [1847] The Poverty of Philosophy. In Tucker, R. (ed.) The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: W.W. Norton. Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich (1978) [1848] The Communist Manifesto. In R. Tucker (ed.) The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: W.W. Norton. Niazi, Z. & Hameed, S. (2002) Privatisation in basic education: Pakistan case study, Raasta marketing research. Paper for Save the Children Alliance in South Asia, June. Patrinos, H. A. (2002) Promoting access to postsecondary education: meeting the global demand. Paper presented at US-OECD Forum Traits of a Global Market for Advanced Human Capital: Washington, DC: World Bank. Puiggrós, A. (1996). World Bank education policy: Market liberalism meets ideological conservatism. NACLA Report on the Americas, XXIX (No. 6, May/June): 26-31. Rosskam, Ellen (ed.) (2006), Winners or losers? Liberalizing public services. Geneva:, International Labor Organisation. Rosskam, Ellen (2009, forthcoming) Liberalizing Turkish education: Islam, secularism and the future of democracy, Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, D.C. Schiefelbein, E. (2004). The Politics of Decentralisation in Latin America. International Review of Education, 50. Schnall, P., Dobson, M. and Rosskam, E. (eds.) (In Press), Unhealthy Work: Causes, consequences, and cures. New York: Baywood Sears, A. (2003) Retooling the mind factory: education in a lean state. Aurora, Ontario: Garamond Siqueira, Angela (2001). The new economic global order and its effects on higher education policies. Tallahassee: Florida State University/ College of Education. (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation). Siqueira, Angela (2007) The regulation of education through the WTO/GATS. Journal for Critical Education Policy Stidies, 5 (2).Online at http://www.jceps.com/index.php?pageID=article&articleID=41 Whitty, Geoff (2003) Making Sense of Education Policy. London: Paul Chapman. Wrigley, T. (2006) Another school is possible. London: Bookmarks World Trade Organisation Introduction (WTO) (und.) Online at http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/gats_factfiction1_e.htm World Trade Organisation Introduction (WTO) (2003) Six benefits of services liberalisation. Inline at: http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/gats_factfiction3_e.htm

Author Information

Dave Hill
Univerity of Northampton, England
School of Education
Northampton
Andrea Beckmann
University of Lincoln
Policy Studies
Lincoln
Charlie Cooper
University of Hull
Social Sciences
Hull
Ahmad Mukhtar
Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the WTO
Geneva
41
Jill Pinkney Pastrana
University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire
Foundations of Education
Altoona
220
Angela Siqueira
Universidade Federal Fluminense
Education, Master and PhD Program
Niteroi- RJ
29
Terry Wrigley
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

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