The Quasi-Human Child: How Normative Conceptions of Childhood Enabled Neoliberal School Reform in the United States

• In Event: 14.045 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.045-13 - Teacher Beliefs in the Era of Accountability

Abstract

This paper argues that conceptions of the child as a quasi-human being enabled neoliberal school reforms to link school policies and practices that worked on the child, rather than with the child. In using Foucault's concept of governmentality, we first present how the child is constructed as a subject of the adult, then trace how the child comes to be known at the intersections of normative idealizations and material expectations of student. We then use Biesta's three domains of education: socialization, qualification, and subjectification as an organizing framework and draw from Common Core Learning Standards and policy reports to surface economic and political universals, a response that we argue does not regard the child as a subject worthy of recognition.

Authors

• Debbie Sonu, City University of New York (CUNY)

• Jeremy P Benson, Rhode Island College