The New Educational Structures of Neoliberalism: Pitfalls and Possibilities of Charter Schools and Other “School Choice” Arrangements

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session examines the multiple and contradictory modalities of school structures that neoliberalism has created and interrogates the failures and possibilities that they pose. Using Foucault’s view of neoliberalism as an ideology of governmentality, and utilizing the theoretical lenses of master narrative theory, critical race theory and social capital, this panel examines the struggles of charter school teachers to become unionized, presents rich counter narratives of students and teachers after their large inner city school was “reconstituted, and analyzes the paradoxical situation that the school choice movement offers to historically disadvantaged students. This panel provides an opportunity to engage in a dialogue about neoliberalism and the diverging role of reconstituted schools, as they have become the insidious remedy to fix inner city schools.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Section 5: Social Context of Research on Schools and Communities

Chair

• Marta P. Baltodano, Loyola Marymount University

Papers

• Becoming Unionized in a Charter School: How Charter School Teachers Navigate the Culture of Choice - Elizabeth Montaño, University of California - Davis

• The Manufacture of a School Reconstitution: Counternarrating the Master Narrative of a “Failing” School - Beth Trinchero, University of California – Los Angeles

• Neoliberal Remodeling of the High Schools of the Bronx: Trying to Save an Urban School District - Jessica Shiller, Towson University

• Neoliberalism as a Form of Governmentality: The School Choice Movement and the Decline of Public Education - Marta P. Baltodano, Loyola Marymount University

Discussant

• Pauline Lipman, University of Illinois at Chicago