Why Pro-Market Educational Reforms Are Also Anti-Market? A Hayekian Reading

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Three
  In Roundtable Session: Moving Toward Equity in Current Education Policy Debates (Table 5)

Abstract

Despite the fact that Hayek is regarded as the intellectual father of neoliberalism and of pro-market (educational) reforms in critical studies in the arena of education, this paper argues that the so-called neoliberal, pro-market educational policies by states and development organizations could in fact be critiqued using Hayek’s own arguments and concerns. Hence, the paper posits that the seemingly pro-market educational policies are in fact, from a Hayekian perspective, anti-market. Through critical discourse analysis of educational reforms and policies that stressed privatization, rate-of-return calculations, and entrepreneurship education, this paper shows that the forms and the effects of these top-down policies as demonstrated in critical studies were indeed what Hayek had warned against and the reason he embraced “markets”.

Author

• Mariam Sedighi, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author