Neoliberalism and the Disposability of Youth Culture

E-ISSN： 1447-9559|8|8|71-80

ISSN： 1447-9508

Source： The International Journal of the Humanities: Annual Review, Vol.8, Iss.8, 2010-01, pp. : 71-80

Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.

Previous Menu Next

Abstract

The failed neoliberal ideologies that have dominated the global economic and social policies of the U.S. have also dominated the curricular decisions that have been implemented within institutions of public higher education. Because these curriculums have privileged market values over democratic values, institutions of public higher education have now become the training grounds for corporate America, rather than public sites of conflict and struggle where diverse populations of students can become engaged in the collective work required of citizens to protect and to preserve the imperatives of a vibrant democracy. The commodification of public higher education has been responsible for the development of the small bore curriculums that have increasingly instrumentalized and vocationalized learning environments into “skills” courses, where a thoroughly technocratic rationality has reduced the role that students serve in the classroom to that of a de-humanizing, mechanical exercise in rote memorization, mimicry and imitation. Under such conditions, students are prevented from gaining the agency necessary to investigate and to interrogate the power structures that impose their authority into what constitutes legitimate knowledge. Because their own social/cultural/political histories have been denied, these curriculums have eliminated any opportunity for students to become engaged in debate, dissent, or to explore possible theories of resistance that would empower them with the agency necessary to be critically active citizens, as opposed to obedient, conformed, passive workers.