WITHDRAWN: A Guarantee of Control: The Covert Purpose of Alternative Education

• In Event: 64.088 - Sheraton Roundtable 12 - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 64.088-4 - The Social Imaginary of Neoliberalism on the Public Discourse of Urban Education in Indianapolis

Abstract

This paper critiques how and why a purposive sampling of alternative schools throughout Michigan choose to define themselves as “alternative” by conducting a qualitative textual analysis of alternative school program overviews and mission statements, investigating what effects this definition and subsequent operations have upon those students who attend. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: What constitutes application of the term “alternative education”? What are overt and covert functions of alternative education? What is not present in definitions of alternative education? And, what are the effects for students who attend these institutions? This study concludes that contemporary alternative education is not different enough from traditional programs to warrant the negative implications and consequences that attending such a school entails.

Author

• David Jagusch, Detroit Public Schools