Rightist gains and critical scholarship

Abstract

In this essay, I first discuss where the article "Doing Things the 'Right' Way" that was published in this journal in 2005 fits into my corpus of work. In many ways, it represents a coming together of the various influences that have continued to form me over the nearly five decades I have been engaged in critically examining the relationship between educational theories, policies and practices, and differential power. Like many others, my work has been guided by two major goals: understanding and interrupting dominance. This has required that we become more nuanced in our critical analyses of the dynamics of power and the agents who wield it and that we not be satisfied with simplistic slogans that may be effective for rallying opposition but are much less effective at determining tactics and spaces of possibility. Thus, my aim is not only to both grasp and counter dominant policies and practices, but also to engage in fraternal criticism of what I take to be overly simplistic work by some parts of the Left as well. Given the increasing power of neoliberal, neoconservative, authoritarian populist and new managerial policies in education and the larger society, I next critically examine how and why the Right is ascendant. Finally, I detail a range of crucial tasks in which the critical scholar/ activist in education should engage if we are to respond to these conditions in politically and ethically robust ways. Understanding the "Right"To begin these reflections, let me say something about where the article "Doing Things the 'Right' Way" that was published in this journal (Apple 2005) fits into my corpus of work. In many ways, it represents a coming together of the various influences that have continued to form me over the nearly five decades I have been engaged in critically examining the relationship between educational theories, policies and practices, and differential power. These influences have led me from: largely neo-Marxist analyses of social and cultural reproduction that were influenced by Gramsci, Williams and Althusser and by concepts such as hegemony and over-determination; to an (unromantic) emphasis on agency and on the politics and economics of cultural production; to treatments of teachers' work and lives; to an enlargement of political and cultural struggles to complement (but definitely not abandon) my original focus on class; and more recently to sustained critical analyses of how powerful movements and alliances can radically shift the relationship between educational