Abstract
‘New capitalism’ has been characterized as an economic period in which insecurity, flux, and uncertainty exist in the workplace. Capitalism attempts to tame that uncertainty through risk taking. Taking risks has become what one must do with risk. Economic discourses of embracing risk — thoroughly grounded in the ideologies of neoliberalism — are widely distributed into many non-economic areas, including education. Risk taking is now understood as something everyone should valorize, a necessity for freedom and choice. Such discourses are appropriated and recontextualized into different domains, including the everyday interactions between young children and teachers. In this study the authors examine the discourse of a writing lesson taught by one early childhood teacher, focusing on how she used language to promote/produce her students as risk-takers. The authors argue that this teacher's attempt to promote/produce risk-takers belied her commitment to neoliberal ideologies and new modes of capitalism. They also argue that her efforts were dampened by tensions that she also seemed to embody/live — tensions between old and new forms of capitalism, between modernist and postmodernist notions of agency, between safety and risk, and between freedom and control. The outcomes of her work thus seemed to embody tensions in how her students came to understand choice, risk, and freedom. It is no coincidence that free-market economies, which encourage personal risk taking, have outlived centrally planned ones, which do not. ( The Economist, 1994) Steve: A person who takes risks — what kind of person do you think that person is? Jackie (age 10): A good person.
Highlights
Childhood is, arguably, the most intensively governed sector of personal existence
Steve Bialostok & George Kamberelis remains correct – schools still function largely to integrate children into the capitalist economic system. How does such integration occur in what is described as the ‘new capitalism’ (Sennett, 1998, 2007), where new forms of engagement between workers and employers are characterized by greater insecurity, flux, and precariousness? Uncertainty implies unknown outcomes that cannot be determined, and through encouraging risk taking, capitalism attempts to domesticate uncertainty, making it manageable
Neoliberalism as the cultural system that provides the ideological foundation for new capitalism, posits the free market as the ideal vehicle to distribute wealth, power, and resources, and it celebrates, and validates, entrepreneurship and risk taking
Summary
The most intensively governed sector of personal existence. The health, welfare, rearing, and schooling of children has been linked in thought and practice to the destiny of the nation and the responsibilities of the state (Rose, 1999). Steve Bialostok & George Kamberelis remains correct – schools still function largely to integrate children into the capitalist economic system. How does such integration occur in what is described as the ‘new capitalism’ (Sennett, 1998, 2007), where new forms of engagement between workers and employers are characterized by greater insecurity, flux, and precariousness? Neoliberalism as the cultural system that provides the ideological foundation for new capitalism, posits the free market as the ideal vehicle to distribute wealth, power, and resources, and it celebrates, and validates, entrepreneurship and risk taking
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