Destabilizing the Ideal Neoliberal Subject: An Examination of Educational Institutions, White Supremacy, and Meritocracy

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Neoliberalism imagines an ideal educational subject as independent, rational, and self-governing. The ideology claims these characteristics are race neutral, but neoliberalism actually depends on framing Whiteness as inherently bearing the qualities of rationality and self-sufficiency. When educational institutions seek to develop skills that allow racially minoritized youth and families to navigate education successfully, they often reproduce notions of ideal neoliberal subjectivity and meritocracy. This panel examines how educational institutions may challenge and reinforce racist, neoliberal logics. The papers destabilize neoliberal assumptions about a de-racialized, self-sufficient, and rational educational subject by examining how this notion has been co-constructed with White supremacy. The panel contributes to conversations about how building anti-racist educational institutions also requires dismantling the neoliberal logics that permeate them.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Sociology of Education

Chair

• Eujin Park, Stanford University

Papers

• Critical Pedagogy in a Southeast Asian Community-Based Program - Linda Marie Pheng, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Resisting Policies and Practices of Exclusion: Undocu/DACAmented Youth Build Collective Belonging - Julissa Ventura, Marquette University

• "Work Smart and Work Hard": Crafting Neoliberal Model Minorities at an Asian American Supplementary Academy - Eujin Park, Stanford University

• College Preparation and the Neoliberal Subject: Reinforcing Racism and Meritocracy at an Urban Magnet School - Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong, Trinity College; Robert Cotto, Trinity College

• Diversity as Development: Neoliberalism, Governmentality, and Difference in Higher Education - Kirk Anderson, Dickinson College

Discussant

• Lesley Bartlett, University of Wisconsin - Madison