Languaging Neoliberalism: Examining the Construction of Neoliberal Subjectivities and Ideologies in Everyday Classroom Life

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Considerations for Languaging in Classroom Contexts

Abstract

Neoliberalism shapes schooling at multiple scales, from large-scale educational policy to the daily classroom experiences of teachers and students. In this paper, we focus on how neoliberalism is constructed in classrooms through the making and remaking of ideologies, subjectivities, and practices. We bring a languaging lens to critical understandings of neoliberalism, examining discourse data from four teachers’ talk within and about their teaching practice to build theory on the languaging of neoliberalism. Findings demonstrate the ways that neoliberalism constrains teachers’ imaginations of what is possible and create individualized subject positions rife with anxiety. Yet, within these data we also found instances where focal teachers enacted resistance to neoliberalism—at times partially and tentative—by constructing more dialogic practices and collective subjectivities.

Authors

• Michiko Hikida, The Ohio State University - Columbus

• Laura A Taylor, Rhodes College