Neoliberalism and the discursive construction of ‘creativity’

ABSTRACT

This paper resists normative definitions of ‘creativity’ to argue that the concept is constructed by neoliberal discourses in education policy. The analysis is firstly centred on the Australian context, and this is further informed and complimented by a global perspective. Focusing on two pivotal policies, The Melbourne Declaration of Educational Goals for Young Australians and PISA 2012 Results: Creative Problem Solving, the paper argues that universal versions of creativity, such as those that align the concept with problem-solving or design endeavour, are a product of market logic. Using Foucault’s concept of homo economius, it traces how creativity is subsumed into discourses of workplace readiness and rapidly changing environments, and proceeds to identify how select and partial discourses of the concept, such as creativity as instrumental and determinable are supported, while there is a silence around alternative conceptualisations. The paper concludes with a discussion on how the discursive positioning of creativity by neoliberal themes and formations brings about real effects: certain work practices are valued more than others and particular student and teacher subjectivities are endorsed or demoted ‘in the name of’ creativity.     

Public narratives under intensified market conditions: Chile as a critical case

This paper aims to extend existing theorisations around the notion of public narratives by analysing their regulatory effects under intensified market conditions. My analysis suggests that public narratives constitute a liminal space, one that it is not exclusively real or imaginary, factual or normative, but that simultaneously affects and is affected by vernacular practices and wider discursive structures. However, this paper argues that, under extreme conditions, these public narratives become a rigidifying space with homogenising/normalising effects. To do this I look at a set of ‘obligatory scenes’ captured in tales of success and struggle of teachers, parents and students in popular newspapers and fringe media in Chile. These accounts share a common ground: national assessment as a framework of intelligibility for the practices of parents, teachers and students. The central claim of this paper is that under intensified market conditions the scenes captured in these publicly available stories become ‘obligatory’ storylines, and their protagonists idealised policy subjects.     

“It’s about respect!” college-athlete activism and left neoliberalism

This essay offers a critique of left neoliberalism with reference to certain tendencies in cultural studies, antiracist politics, disparity discourse, and college sports. Where the dominant tendency in cultural studies has been to produce complex analyses of identity-based oppression, this article insists on a conception of class politics that, on the one hand, calls for more attention to exploitation and, on the other, de-emphasizes the “working-class identity” model. By examining two recent episodes of athlete activism in college sports—namely, the much-admired “strike against racism” at the University of Missouri in 2015 and the widely condemned (and ultimately unsuccessful) effort by Northwestern University football players to form a union in 2014—the article contends that the commitment to eliminating racism and indifference to ending exploitation in these contexts reflects the broader commitments of a “left-wing” neoliberalism that devotes itself to ending inequality without redistributing wealth.     

Scaling critical pedagogy in higher education

Across the globe, neoliberal reforms have produced effects in the higher education sector that are multiple, convergent and embodied or performed. In this context, a growing number of activist-scholars, from a range of disciplines, have explored the role of critical pedagogy within the space of the classroom. Yet, persistent critiques and challenges suggest that the field of critical pedagogy needs to build upon a richer set of theoretical and practical insights. While the discipline of geography has proven to be a generative source of learning and renewal, a recurring tendency exists within the educational literature to treat the key geographical concept of scale as a discrete, pre-given unit of analysis. Consequently, scale remains largely under-theorised and misunderstood leading to simplistic binary oppositions and choices. This binary filter underpins a comfortable but problematic ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ paradigm. Drawing upon contentious debates in the field of geography, this paper explores how the intersections between diverse spatial concepts, including scale, might be strategically deployed to rework the spatial imaginings of critical pedagogy.     

Artwashing Education?

Education increasingly operates in neoliberal terms; privatisation, marketisation and competition have become key drivers for schools in England. This article explores the findings from an ethnography that points to how arts education practices are being used to ‘art‐wash’ schools resulting in parents with the requisite economic, social and cultural capitals ensuring that their children benefit the most from a creative education. Whilst most of the narratives on artwashing have so far focused on arts institutions and global capital, this article questions how some of the specific processes of gentrification may be extended to the current education system in England and ask if schools and arts organisations may increasingly be ‘art‐washing education’.     

Bernstein revisited: the recontextualisation of equity in contemporary Australian school education

This article draws on the sociology of Basil Bernstein to show how his detailed theories of ‘recontextualisation’ and the ‘pedagogic device’ provide useful analytic levers to examine the politics of educational change. We focus on recent policy developments that have significantly impacted Australian school education: the Program for International Student Assessment; the National Assessment Programme for Numeracy and Literacy; and the government’s public dissemination of school achievement data through the MySchool website. The analysis illustrates the ways in which the logics of economic rationalism not only have become ubiquitous in Australian education policy, but have come to recontextualise – or reshape – discourses of social and educational equity through new norms of competition, standardisation and commensurability. In doing so, the paper highlights the value of a Bernsteinian approach to understanding the vernacular character of neoliberalism in contemporary educational policy.     

The enactment of literacy curriculum policy by early childhood teachers in two Australian schools

Since the early 2000s, literacy education has become an area of intense focus in Australian education policy, positioned to have a role in Australia's pursuit of enhanced international competitiveness in the “global knowledge economy”. Policy called for improvements in literacy outcomes, monitored by mandated annual assessments, and policy statements recognised the need to establish solid literacy foundations in early childhood to facilitate learning, and desired improvements, in later years. This article is derived from a larger study that investigated the production and enactment of literacy curriculum policy by early childhood teachers in Australian schools. It focuses on the school level within the State of Western Australia, presenting findings derived from thematic and critical discourse analysis of participant interview and documentary data collected in two case‐study schools. Comparative analysis revealed that literacy curriculum policy processes in both case‐study schools were focused on achieving improved test results in mandated testing regimes. This was impacting upon literacy curriculum in the early childhood years of schooling, in Australia deemed to involve children up to 8 years of age, in many, possibly adverse, ways. These findings may offer insights in other contexts about literacy curriculum policy processes that are focused on enhancing competitive positioning.     

Exploring the interconnections between adult education,militarism, and gender: implications for our field

This article reviews and expands on two books that focus on women's experiences of war and militarism, written from interdisciplinary perspectives based on women's studies, political science and international relations. The article explores the main tenets of militarism, neoliberalism and gender oppression as discussed in the books, adding a learning lens to the analysis. It focuses on the importance of engaging with the concept of militarism in order to explore its interactions with everyday learning and adult education.     

Great expectations and post‐feminist accountability: young women living up to the ‘successful girls’ discourse

The prevalence of the discourse of ‘successful girls’ (and failing boys) in Australia and internationally has been widely documented. Against the much‐vaunted lifting of barriers to opportunity for girls and women, it might reasonably be expected that their educational experiences and career paths are expressive of wider opportunities, greater confidence and autonomy. This article draws on qualitative research with young women in regional Australia to argue that supposedly outmoded but evidently durable patterns of educational and occupational experience remain and are accompanied by new burdens and anxieties. Importantly, young women are now obliged to account for these unfashionable arrangements, using the ubiquitous belief in choice and the possibility of self‐actualisation to demonstrate the volition and agency deemed appropriate to a post‐feminist ethos. Thus, techniques of reflective selfhood and neoliberal accountability are mobilised to justify social reproduction, while at the same time showcasing invigorated notions of meritocracy and social mobility.