Public borders, private crossings: Anthropological approaches to neoliberalism in US educational policy and spaces

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Convertino ◽  
Amy Brown ◽  
Marguerite Anne Fillion Wilson
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Educational Policies ◽  
Market Values ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Nation At Risk ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Private Values ◽  
Public Versus Private

Educational policies across the globe reflect the ascendancy of neoliberalism. According to neoliberalism, the market represents a superior mechanism to govern ( Peters, 2012 ), and thus, the role of the state is to enable the agency of the market ( Rose, 1999 ). In the United States, the federal report A Nation at Risk (1983) formalized the direct influence of a neoliberal rationality on the formation of educational policies. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (2001) and The Race to the Top (2010) represent successive assertions of market values on educational reform. At the same time, there is a fundamental contradiction within neoliberal logic: while the state is to refrain from interfering in the market, it must simultaneously intervene to govern schools ( Hursh, 2005 ). Based on these trends, the articles in this special issue highlight critical tensions between public versus private values, practices, and discourses that emerge from the proliferation of a neoliberal logic into the educational sphere. In different ways, each of these articles map out a unique facet of neoliberalism in education to complicate the often totalizing critiques of market-based logics in order to demonstrate the complex ways that people rearticulate and resist education policy in an era of neoliberal ascendancy.

Cultural Narcissism and Education Reform

2011 ◽  
Vol 113 (9) ◽  
pp. 2018-2046
Author(s):  
Edward Pajak
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Nation At Risk ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
A Nation At Risk

Background/Context Scholars have described American culture in recent decades as narcissistic, manifested by displays of self-absorption tantamount to a pathological syndrome that has reached epidemic proportions. An education reform movement that is highly critical of public schools, teachers, and students has simultaneously emerged, espousing a wide array of seemingly disconnected innovations and punitive sanctions. Prior efforts to critically analyze these reform efforts have focused on the historical workings of power and knowledge by supporting reflective, emancipatory knowledge and action while overlooking the insights offered by psychoanalytic theory. Consequently, the impact of education policies on the identities of teachers and the personal relationships between teachers and students has not been thoroughly or sufficiently understood. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article represents a tentative step toward understanding the social and psychological underpinnings of education reform in the United States during the last quarter century. The reform movement is interpreted as being rooted in specific psychological processes associated with narcissistic parenting. Psychoanalytic concepts are employed to illustrate how educators and the general public have become accomplices in their own subjugation. A review of literature that addresses narcissistic parenting yielded eight characteristic behavioral patterns: expectations of perfection in children, particularly with regard to intellect; a grandiose sense of superiority and entitlement; relentless fault-finding; projection of personal fantasies onto children; an absence of empathy for children and their needs; a preoccupation with control; conditional approval; and a well-intentioned view of their own self-centered motives and insensitive actions as being beneficial for children. These conceptual formulations provided a basis for examining proposals and policies found in the National Commission on Excellence in Education's 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, and provisions of the more recent No Child Left Behind legislation. Research Design This analytic essay uses a review of the literature, including psychoanalytic research on narcissism and narcissistic parenting as well as contemporary critical theory related to education reform, to examine arguments and policies evidenced in A Nation at Risk and No Child Left Behind. Conclusions/Recommendations A prevailing “narcissistic education policy style” is posited, which denies the true learning needs of students; disempowers classroom teachers and schools by undermining trust in self and others; and reproduces narcissistic dynamics within the culture. Elements of an alternative education policy more focused on the needs of students are proposed, along with a call to recognize the right of children to be treated with the respect accorded to fully formed human beings.

scholarly journals Educational policies in the United States and implications for English learners

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
April Burke ◽  
Luciana C. de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Student Population ◽  
Educational Policies ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The U.S

This article provides a historical context for current educational policies in the United States, especially those mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The article explains the effects of these policies on a rapidly growing segment of the U.S. population, namely English Learners (ELs), students who are in the process of developing English as an additional language. It explains several of the controversies and concerns related to the use of standardized tests with this student population.

scholarly journals A Comprehensive Analysis of High School Genetics Standards: Are States Keeping Pace with Modern Genetics?

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 318-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.J. Dougherty ◽  
C. Pleasants ◽  
L. Solow ◽  
A. Wong ◽  
H. Zhang
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Human Genetics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Genetic Literacy ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Genetic Complexity ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Instruction And Learning ◽  
American Society

Science education in the United States will increasingly be driven by testing and accountability requirements, such as those mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act, which rely heavily on learning outcomes, or “standards,” that are currently developed on a state-by-state basis. Those standards, in turn, drive curriculum and instruction. Given the importance of standards to teaching and learning, we investigated the quality of life sciences/biology standards with respect to genetics for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, using core concepts developed by the American Society of Human Genetics as normative benchmarks. Our results indicate that the states’ genetics standards, in general, are poor, with more than 85% of the states receiving overall scores of Inadequate. In particular, the standards in virtually every state have failed to keep pace with changes in the discipline as it has become genomic in scope, omitting concepts related to genetic complexity, the importance of environment to phenotypic variation, differential gene expression, and the differences between inherited and somatic genetic disease. Clearer, more comprehensive genetics standards are likely to benefit genetics instruction and learning, help prepare future genetics researchers, and contribute to the genetic literacy of the U.S. citizenry.

Curriculum as Colonizer: (Asian) American Education in the Current U.S. Context

2010 ◽  
Vol 112 (12) ◽  
pp. 3102-3138
Author(s):  
A. Lin Goodwin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Education ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Relevant Pedagogy

Background/Context The United States is currently undergoing a period of unprecedented immigration, with the majority of new arrivals coming from Asia and Latin America, not Europe. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (APIs) represent the fastest growing racial group in the United States, and schools are again being asked to socialize newcomer students, many of whom are APIs. Yet, even as the United States becomes more racially diverse, the national mindset regarding immigrants and immigration ranges from ambivalent to increasingly (and currently) hostile, and is often contradictory. “American” typically is imagined as “White,” and perceptions of APIs and people of color as “other” remain cemented in our collective psyche. It is this sociohistorical-political context that frames the education and socialization of Asian American citizens, immigrants, and their children. Objective/Focus As APIs are absorbed into the fabric of society, how will they define themselves? How will they be defined? This article begins by deconstructing the social category Asian and Pacific Islander in order to reveal the immense diversity contained under this label. The discussion illuminates both the horizontal diversity of APIs—differences between ethnic groups, and vertical diversity—differences within ethnic groups, to underscore the insufficiency of the API label. Against the diverse backdrop that APIs truly (re)present, (Asian) American education framed by three curricular contexts in the United States—the major reforms of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, culturally relevant pedagogy, and the “model minority” mythology—is theorized using postcolonial theory as an analytic lens. The article concludes with thoughts on how APIs can resist domination and what might be sites of resistance in schools or society. Research Design This is an analytic essay that examines both historical and contemporary educational and policy contexts. Conclusions/Recommendations Curriculum, defined not simply as subject matter content and instructional procedures, but as a tool of acculturation and a depository of (U.S.) national and cultural values, has the power to emancipate or colonize. Each of the three curricular contexts in the United States—the major reforms of the No Child Left Behind Act, culturally relevant pedagogy, and the “model minority” mythology—exemplify the role Curriculum plays in defining, silencing, and/or marginalizing APIs. Imagined sites of resistance against Curriculum as colonizer include this very page, where one voice deliberately pushes back against the obfuscation of fixed realities layered onto people of Asian descent in the United States, the reexamination and revision(ing) of teacher preparation curricula, and the larger policy arena.

Administrative Perspectives on the No Child Left behind Act (NCLBA) for Students with Disabilities in Rural Settings

2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luann L. Purcell ◽  
Bill East ◽  
Harvey A. Rude
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
The State ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Education Leaders ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The Impact

The impact of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) has provided a significant challenge and opportunity for administrators of special education services at the state and local levels. Leaders representing prominent professional organizations at both the state (National Association of State Directors of Special Education, Inc.) and local (Council of Administrators of Special Education, Inc.) education levels have identified advantages and barriers to successful implementation of the legal mandates. The most significant challenges for special education leaders and managers include: the requirements for adequate yearly progress for all learners, the provision of highly qualified special education service providers, and an adequate amount of attention devoted to all subgroups of learners. The unique difficulties for rural schools providing an appropriate education to all learners, including those with disabilities, are compounded by the effects of supplemental services, choice options, and the identification of adequate resources. The implications for the preparation of effective special education leaders and managers are identified within these parameters.

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