ERIC Number: EJ1141725
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Feb
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1478-2103
EISSN: N/A
Troubling the Discourse of Both/And: Technologies of Neoliberal Governance in Community-Based Educational Spaces
Nygreen, Kysa
Policy Futures in Education, v15 n2 p202-220 Feb 2017
This article traces the work of community-based popular educators with an explicit commitment to "Freirean" popular education as they shifted from teaching in a community-based setting to an after-school program focused on standardized test-preparation. Drawing from ethnographic observation and interviews, it examines educators' pedagogical practice and the narratives they employed to explain, interpret, and justify their practice. It shows that they adopted a "discourse of both/and," asserting the possibility and virtues of doing Freirean popular education and high-stakes test preparation simultaneously, without sacrificing the integrity of either. It argues that this discourse was a pragmatic adaptation to structural imperatives but also a limiting one that facilitated the intensification of workload, individual responsibilization, and a shifting of organizational mission in ways that align with neoliberal reform. Drawing from Foucauldian analyses of audit culture, this article troubles the discourse of both/and by exposing how it operates as a technology of neoliberal governance even when cloaked in the language of social justice.
Descriptors: Neoliberalism, Governance, Social Justice, Popular Education, After School Programs, Community Programs, Standardized Tests, Test Preparation, High Stakes Tests, Audits (Verification), Institutional Mission, Interviews, Teacher Attitudes, Spanish Speaking, Elementary School Students, Self Concept, Bilingualism, Parent Education, Workshops, English (Second Language), Ethnography, Participant Observation, Semi Structured Interviews
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Adult Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A