Ebook: Repositioning feminism and education : perspectives on educating for social change

Within the last decade, the debate over the meaning and purpose of education
has occupied the center of political and social life in the United States. Dominated
largely by an aggressive and ongoing attempt by various sectors of the
Right, including "fundamentalists," nationalists, and political conservatives, the
debate over educational policy has been organized around a set of values and
practices that take as their paradigmatic model the laws and ideology of the
marketplace and the imperatives of a newly emerging cultural traditionalism.
In the first instance, schooling is being redefined through a corporate ideology
which stresses the primacy of choice over community, competition over cooperation,
and excellence over equity. At stake here is the imperative to organize
public schooling around the related practices of competition, reprivatization,
standardization, and individualism.