‘Productive’ and ‘disciplined’ students for the ‘common good’: Globalised discourses of neoliberal and neoconservative responsibility in Australian education policy

Abstract

The notion of responsibility makes a significant appearance in a range of Westernised education policy documents concerned with student conduct, welfare and values. While policies may differ in the extent to which responsibility is explicitly defined or generally assumed, most seem to emphasise an ideal social subject who is accountable, self-regulating and actively contributing to civic life. Drawing on insights from Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas and Judith Butler, I argue that the emphasis on neoliberal and neoconservative discourses in Australian educational policy can work to undermine more unconditional forms of responsibility grounded in notions of ethics, care and recognition of the other.

Re-imagining society and childhood: An analysis of cultural politics of childhood in Turkey

“…Conceptualising children in similar lines, the document necessitated competitive, productive, entrepreneurial agents for the future of the country (Ball, 2010; Wardman, 2016). The plan advised such a kind of transformation.…”

The Lived Experience of Youth Justice Policy: Responsibilization in a Carceral State

“…According to Besley (2009), "neoliberalism has promoted a deliberate policy shift from a 'culture of dependency' to one of 'self-reliance' and 'responsibilization'" (p.69). As an arm of neoliberalism, responsibilization includes techniques to develop responsible and autonomous citizens with the aim of protecting goals of individualism and the development of a free market (Besley, 2009;Clark, 2002;Harvey, 2005;Goddard;Gray, 2009;Wardman, 2016;Wilson, 2011). Participants in this research demonstrate an experience of responsibilization as they contend with a system intent on teaching responsibility or intervening to manage risk.…”

To follow a rule: The construction of student subjectivities on classroom rules charts

“…Schools are spaces in which children of the nation are compulsorily groomed to be particular kinds of moralising, enterprising, competitive and productive bodies (Ball et al, 2012; Burke, 2011). The ideal of the school as a civilising institution is an explicit theme across formal education policy frameworks in the UK (Ball et al, 2012; Burke, 2011), Australia (Johnson and Sullivan, 2016; Wardman, 2016), Ireland (Devine, 2002), Denmark (Gilliam and Gulløv, 2017) and elsewhere. Within school spaces, civilising rules are deployed through not only explicit policies, but also the less overt ‘hidden curriculum’ of schooling (Apple, 2004; Gilliam and Gulløv, 2017; Morris, 2005; Thornberg, 2009), which extends beyond the policies themselves and into the everyday interactions between and among staff and students.…”

“…In educational contexts, the individualisation of responsibility has its antecedents in neo-liberal educational reforms that frame students as responsible for their own behaviour. Wardman (2016: 311), for example, has written on the ways neo-liberal policies have influenced Australian schools to move away from ‘responsibility grounded in notions of ethics’ and instead devolve ‘responsibility for learning, behaviour, as well as institutional and social order’ to students themselves. This works to engender school cultures in which students’ capacity for self-regulation is heavily scrutinised and the blame for transgressions individualised (Liljestrand and Hammarberg, 2017; Wardman, 2016).…”