Neoliberalism, subversion, and democracy in education

This paper aims to further address what we regard as the detrimental influence that neoliberalism has had on any and all commitments to democratic ideals in educational settings. The argument is simply that a robust pluralism and cosmopolitanism in educational theory sits in tension with the neoliberalism of contemporary Western mass society. Our argument has two parts. First, we argue that the neoliberal hegemony of contemporary North American schooling is oppressive insofar as it negates and stifles any effort to enact democratic practices within classrooms settings, while simultaneously producing systemic inequities, dehumanization, and instrumentalization of teachers and students in schools. We then argue for an educational ethic of subversion, an ethic that we see as warranted, justified, and often necessary in the face of systems of schooling that are organized according to the logic of neoliberalism.