Historical Framework of Neoliberal Policy Laboratories in Chicago and Chile

• In Event: Neoliberal Education Reform: The Ongoing Laboratories in Chicago and Chile

Abstract

Objectives. This paper aims to examine commonalities and differences between two contexts of implementation of neoliberal educational policies. These contexts—Chile and Chicago—were prototypes or laboratories and therefore are used to justify the global spread of such policies in the context of capitalist development. They are also laboratories of resistance that struggle for a new education program.
Theoretical framework. The paper is grounded in critical global policy scholarship (socially situated, attendant to interests and relations of power, generative of social action) (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). The progress of processes of capitalist globalization has meant that states should embrace strategies of accumulation which result in the promotion or imposition of aligned educational reforms, also expressed under the name of Global Educational Policies (Draelants & Maroy, 2007). As such, the state takes an active role in the transformation of educational systems to serve market demands (Rizvi & Lingard, 29). However, this plays out differently in different contexts, particularly in relation to global South/North systems of domination beyond neoliberalism (Connell & Dados, 2014).
Mode of inquiry. We focus on two case studies from which we obtain dimensions of comparative analysis. This is a type of theoretical work (Martins, 2009) that gathers various information sources based on previous research by the authors.
Data sources. The analysis is based on authors’ interviews with policymakers in Chile and Chicago and archival documentation of processes of design, decision, implementation and evaluation of educational policies between 1982 and 2015 (Chile) and 1995-2015 (Chicago).
Results. The contexts of social, cultural and historical introduction of each of the laboratories are very different. This difference is considered a theoretical need (Oszlak & O’Donnell, 1995) for analysis and opportunity to connect disparate spaces to reveal common social processes (Robinson, 2011). We find some common traits which lead us to consider similar characteristics in the examination of neoliberal policy laboratories.
a. Transformation of the role of the state: The emergence of a model of regulatory governance policies that marginalizes teachers' unions and communities is evident. Likewise, we identify a strong authoritarianism that has been necessary for the installation of these reforms. In the U.S. this is imbricated with white supremacy (Lipman, 2015).
b. Configuration of a policymaker ethos: The economy becomes the regulatory science of decision-making processes, shifting pedagogical knowledge. Stakeholders involved in the implementation of experimental policies carry them out in other contexts (Ball, 1998).
c. Deepening of segregation in educational systems: The introduction of neoliberal educational policies has led to gentrification, segregation and deeper inequality (race, class, indigeneity).
d. Growing resistance movements: Laboratories of neoliberalism have increased grassroots student, teacher, parent resistance and alternative education programs. (Assael, 2011; Lipman, 2015)
Scholarly significance. This work advances understanding of the role that laboratories of educational policies play in dissimilar regions. This understanding furthers a critical analysis of Global Educational Policies and their social effects, and ways they are shaped by local contexts.

Authors

• Pauline Lipman, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Jorge Luis Inzunza, Delavan Darien School District