Markets, equality and democratic education: confronting the neoliberal and libertarian reconceptualisations of education
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Date
2010
Authors
Sung, Youl-Kwan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Education, University of the Free State
Abstract
The global emergence of market liberalism marks an effort to decouple the link between citizenship and the
welfare state and to rearticulate people’s identity as homo economicus, as independent citizens having the
right to property and the freedom to choose in the marketplace. Confronting this phenomenon, this paper
reviews neoliberal and libertarian understandings of educational equality and democratic education and
interrogates the rationale for the justification of markets in education. In the process, I criticise the notion
of possessive individualism as a principle of democratic education on the grounds that such a notion
explains human action only at the individual level, as a matter of free will, and not as a part of the cultural
and political struggle for nondiscrimination. I also provide reasons why the claim to equal respect and
recognition needs to be given more importance in education and argue for the social responsibility to
secure not only students’ educational opportunities, but also their opportunity to reflectively consider what
counts as equal value.
Description
Keywords
Neoliberalism, Libertarianism, Market-based education reform, Democratic education
Citation
Sung, Y. K. (2010). Markets, equality and democratic education: Confronting the neoliberal and libertarian reconceptualisations of education. Perspectives in Education, 28(4), 72-79.