Resuscitating Justice in Neoliberal Times: A Critical Race Theory Critique of School Reform Discourses

• In Event: 52.041 - Working Toward Justice: Examining Different Contexts in Educational Research and Praxis

Abstract

Objectives:

Discursive configurations of justice have varied over time and space (Fraser & Honneth, 2003). The resulting policy prescriptions historically have, in many instances, been shaped by Eurocentric liberal regimes of truth that obfuscate radical departures from injustice, toward symbolic, not material, remedy, which either provides incremental change followed by retrenchment, or reproduction of inequality (Bell, 1987; Crenshaw, 1988; Dixson, Royal, & Henry, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 2007). As such, notions of justice must perpetually be examined by “shifting the frame” and “looking to the bottom” (Crenshaw, 1989; Matsuda, 1995). The perspective advantage of the “minority criticism” (Ladson-Billings, 2000; Tillman, 2006; Wynter, 1987) affords scholars and practitioners the ability to disenchant the discourse and attempt to reconstitute the discursive cartographies and material realities that map onto, shape and organize educational policy, schools, and society. Current calls by educational reformers and policy makers, saturated in a (neo)liberal system of reasoning, invoke social justice discourse and allude or explicitly connect rightist reforms to the Civil Rights Movement, devoid of its criticality and emancipatory zeal (Apple, 2006; Scott, 2011, 2013). In effect, becoming an instantiation of white supremacy (Gillborn, 2005). This project’s aims are twofold: (1)to interrogate justice-focused discourses of neoliberal “reformers” by juxtaposing it with the effects of neoliberal educational reform, using critical race theory (CRT) as a framework; (2), to illuminate CRT’s utility to and connection with justice centered research and praxis.

Theoretical Framework:

Critical race theory’s (CRT) critique of liberalism (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000), whiteness as property (Harris, 1993; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), and expansive and restrictive notions of equality (Crenshaw, 1988; Dixson 2011).

Modes of Inquiry:

Critical Race Discourse Analysis (Briscoe & Khalifa, 2013)

Data Sources:

Relevant discourses, literature, and artifacts including historical documents, policy reports, state level achievement data, and discourses from policy makers and educational reformers were reviewed.

Substantiated conclusion:

The reviewed data suggest that master narratives of choice reform construct restructurings as neutral, democratic, and as a progeny of the Civil Rights Movement. This interrogation suggests these reforms are nothing more than neoliberal ventriloquism, which abrades democracy and corrodes justice. These reforms often add to and exacerbate marginalization and racial suffering of communities of color (Dumas, 2014). While many neoliberal reformers espouse a discourse of justice, the effects of those reforms illuminate the dysconscious racist orientations undergirding them (King, 1991). How inequality is marketed and maintained, as illuminated in such discourses and its resulting material effects, underscores our continuing need to read and write the world critically (Freire & Macedo, 1987). This paper concludes by offering implications, to resuscitate justice in neoliberal times.

Scholarly Significance:

While research on school reform highlights the role of neoliberalism in educational restructuring (Apple, 2006; Lipman 2011), this paper elucidates the contradictions in such reforms and the co-opting of justice. Though prior studies (Scott, 2011, 2013) explore school reform discourses connection to the market masked as civil rights, this paper contributes to this scholarship by explicating the racial tensions and dynamics operating in such initiatives.

Author

• Kevin Lawrence Henry, University of Wisconsin - Madison