Creating a Crisis: Selling Neoliberal Policy Through the Rebranding of Education

Authors

  • Lana Parker York University

Keywords:

politics, policy, accountability, media, educational policy, ethics

Abstract

How is it that neoliberal education policies, often lacking evidentiary basis, come to be endorsed—often by the very people they alienate and marginalize? This work seeks to expose how this kind of exclusive policy is sold to a public through intricate hortatory tools. Using critical policy analysis with an emphasis on historical development and political sociology, I employ marketing literature on branding as the analytical framework for a case study of the government’s education platform in Ontario, Canada. At the conclusion, I propose that it is necessary to step away from accountability jargon to reconsider the purpose of education and to recuperate what it means to be responsible for rather than accountable to one another.

Author Biography

Lana Parker, York University

Lana Parker is interested in the politics of education, particularly the effects of neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies on literacy, teacher education, and democracy. She is currently a Course Director at York University.

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2017-08-09

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