Assembling the opposition: Organizing struggles against neoliberalism and educational insecurity

Abstract

This article explores the realm of educational politics and the organization of opposition to neoliberal school reform in the United States of America. A distinguishing feature of the current reform movement—which blends free-market rhetoric with austere governance and undemocratic corporate control—is the callous normalization of educational insecurity. In this way, the author argues, contemporary trends in US school reform mirror, but also contribute to, the broader exacerbation of social insecurity under neoliberal governance. Though neoliberal reform strategies primarily target vulnerable groups with the aim of forcing them to acquiesce to market-driven reforms under duress, their blatant hostility often provokes dissent and resistance. Drawing on Judith Butler’s recent writing on the “performative politics of assembly,” the author examines two protests against neoliberal reform in an effort to think more deeply about the state of radical educational thought and the future of oppositional struggles seeking to transform the conditions of education in order to move beyond neoliberalism.