The Conservative Industrial Complex and Educational Reform

• In Event: Measured Response to Policy Changes

Abstract

This study examines the rise and growing influence of a highly coordinated network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and media organizations we term the “Conservative Industrial Complex” (CIC). Using an anthropology of policy approach, this paper employs nonlocal ethnography and social network analysis to highlight a detailed picture of this interconnected, robust network. Organizations and individuals within the CIC manufacture outrage around DEI in an effort to promote the defunding of public schools by way of school choice mechanisms (e.g., vouchers, charters, and homeschooling). Leveraging fear and false characterizations of public schools helps the CIC facilitate its desired aim of reimagining education as a private commodity rather than a public good.

Authors

• Elena Aydarova, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• T. Jameson Brewer, University of North Georgia

• Emily M. Hodge, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Serena J. Salloum, Ball State University