ERIC Number: EJ1084915
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Jan
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0895-9048
EISSN: N/A
Meritocracy 2.0: High-Stakes, Standardized Testing as a Racial Project of Neoliberal Multiculturalism
Au, Wayne
Educational Policy, v30 n1 p39-62 Jan 2016
High-stakes, standardized testing is regularly used within in accountability narratives as a tool for achieving racial equality in schools. Using the frameworks of "racial projects" and "neoliberal multiculturalism," and drawing on historical and empirical research, this article argues that not only does high-stakes, standardized testing serve to further racial inequality in education, it does so under the guise of forms of anti-racism that have been reconstituted as part of a larger neoliberal project for education reform. This mix of neoliberalism, high-stakes testing, and official anti-racisms that are used to deny structural, racialized inequalities are a manifestation of what the author calls, "Meritocracy 2.0."
Descriptors: High Stakes Tests, Standardized Tests, Neoliberalism, Multicultural Education, Educational Change, Accountability, Urban Schools, Politics of Education, Social Justice, Racial Bias, Equal Education, Intelligence Tests, Educational Legislation, Federal Legislation, Achievement Gap, Discipline
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Laws, Policies, & Programs: No Child Left Behind Act 2001
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A