Elite Policy Networks and the Politics of Education Reform: Researching the Social Geography of Power

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

In this symposium, researchers chart the formation of elite policy networks locally, nationally, and globally, and examine the effects on public education and the state more generally. They reveal that educational policies are not simply the result of research or evidence-based decision-making, but rather the product of powerful actors whose well-financed, collaborative efforts impact the contours of school reform. Importantly, they likewise analyze the troubling marginalization of poor and working-class communities, especially communities of color, in the process of education decision-making. Ultimately, they argue, scholars cannot presume the power of research, but must instead understand critically the social geography of power and the ways this power erodes the promise of educational equity as well as democratic governance.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Section 4: Social Context of Educational Policy, Politics, and Praxis

Chair

• Kristen L. Buras, Georgia State University

Papers

• The New Market Bureaucracy in Public Schooling: Charting the Circuit of Venture Philanthropy and Privatization - Kenneth J. Saltman, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth

• Entrepreneurial Networks and Charter School Reform in New Orleans: Researching the Ecology of Racial-Spatial Power - Kristen L. Buras, Georgia State University

• Global Venture Philanthropy and Education Policy: Processes of Neoliberalization - Stephen J. Ball, Institute of Education - London

Discussant

• Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin - Madison