Teachers and Students Languaging Constructions (and Disruptions) of Neoliberalism in Everyday Classroom Life

• In Event: Surveillance, Disruption, and Resistance in Schools

Abstract

Neoliberalism is made and remade at multiple scales, from educational policy to the daily classroom experiences of teachers and students. In this paper, we focus on how neoliberalism is constructed in classrooms through the making and remaking of ideologies, subjectivities, and practices. We bring a languaging lens to critical understandings of neoliberalism, examining discourse data from two teachers’ talk within and about their teaching to build theory on the languaging of neoliberalism. Findings demonstrate how neoliberalism constrains teachers’ imaginations of what is possible and creates individualized subject positions rife with anxiety. Yet, within these data we also found instances where focal teachers enacted resistance to neoliberalism—at times partially and tentative—by constructing more dialogic practices and collective subjectivities.

Authors

• Laura A Taylor, Rhodes College

• Michiko Hikida, The Ohio State University - Columbus