Education for Human Possibility or Human Capital?

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium draws on complementary methodologies to analyze the purposes of education in the context of privatization and global labor markets. There exists a compelling historical narrative in the United States describing the essential nature of an inclusive educational system that has been predicated on an idea that in a democracy, education for all children is as an indivisible public good. The reality of that narrative, however, is clearly questionable, as democratic aspirations have always been in tension with social control and social reproduction. Holistically, the presented papers explore the implications of the human capital model (and the tension between two visions of education) for the children, for the ways we educate (policies, curriculum), and for sustaining democracy.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies

Chair

• Frances Pate Deviney, Southwest Educational Development Laboratory

Papers

• The Human Capital Calculus: A Threat to Democratic Schooling - Linda McSpadden McNeil, Rice University

• Knowledge, Power, and a K-16 Continuum: Who Benefits? Who Is Harmed? - Catherine L. Horn, University of Houston

• Poverty Matters: Using Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Rather Than Deficit Thinking to Move Students Into Interstitial Spaces of Power and Knowledge - Judy A. Radigan, University of Houston

Discussant

• Geneva Gay, University of Washington