Movement and Stasis in the Neoliberal Re-Orientation of Schooling and the University
Cameron McCarthy
Institute of Communications Research
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
810 S. Wright Street
Urbana, IL 61820
cmccart1@uiuc.edu
Scholars writing on the topic of globalization cast globalization processes too often in terms of simplistic binary oppositions: “homogenization” versus, “heterogeneity,” “uniformity” versus “diversity, cosmopolitanism” versus “localism,” “centralization” versus “decentralization” and so forth. In the context of an application to schooling and the university, globalization is often seen as a set of processes happening “way out there” in the world, far from what educators, teachers and students do. Globalization is therefore depicted as embodying movement and dynamism. On the other hand, schooling, particularly in the urban setting, is often represented within the discourse of “stasis” and tradition. In this presentation, I confront this unreflexive dualism, showing how globalization articulated to neoliberal policies—associated, for example, with the United States Bush government’s “No Child Left Behind Act” of 2002--is effectively restructuring the organization of knowledge in educational institutions and undermining their vital function as institutions dedicated to the public good. I argue “movement” and “stasis” are therefore intimately related in the reorganization and restructuring of education and the larger processes of re-feudalization of the public sphere.
Cameron McCarthy
Institute of Communications Research
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
810 S. Wright Street
Urbana, IL 61820
cmccart1@uiuc.edu
Scholars writing on the topic of globalization cast globalization processes too often in terms of simplistic binary oppositions: “homogenization” versus, “heterogeneity,” “uniformity” versus “diversity, cosmopolitanism” versus “localism,” “centralization” versus “decentralization” and so forth. In the context of an application to schooling and the university, globalization is often seen as a set of processes happening “way out there” in the world, far from what educators, teachers and students do. Globalization is therefore depicted as embodying movement and dynamism. On the other hand, schooling, particularly in the urban setting, is often represented within the discourse of “stasis” and tradition. In this presentation, I confront this unreflexive dualism, showing how globalization articulated to neoliberal policies—associated, for example, with the United States Bush government’s “No Child Left Behind Act” of 2002--is effectively restructuring the organization of knowledge in educational institutions and undermining their vital function as institutions dedicated to the public good. I argue “movement” and “stasis” are therefore intimately related in the reorganization and restructuring of education and the larger processes of re-feudalization of the public sphere.
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