Faculty Publications

Neoliberal Multiculturalism And Productive Inclusion: Beyond The Politics Of Fulfillment In Education

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Education policy, exclusion, extractive schooling, inclusion, multicultural education, neoliberal multiculturalism

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Journal of Education Policy

Volume

36

Issue

2

First Page

253

Last Page

278

Abstract

While political theorists have elaborated on the phenomenon of neoliberal multiculturalism, many progressive educational scholars have yet to adequately theorize this nexus. Neoliberalism either remains unproblematized or, in some instances, it is imagined as a tendency that is antithetical to and incompatible with multiculturalism. This essay contributes to a critical inclusion studies of education and calls attention to the ways in which mobilizations of neoliberalism have appropriated, accommodated, and put to use the discourses of multiculturalism, diversity, and inclusion. By charting the parameters of neoliberal multiculturalism, the author demonstrates how a logic of extractive schooling operates through inclusion discourses, and particularly a technology of productive inclusion that governs and manages permissible forms of subjectivity, knowledge, affect, and action. Arguing that strategies of inclusion are unable to subvert capitalism, settler colonialism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, or ableism, the author concludes with a call for the revitalization of an antagonistic politics and education of transfiguration in order to challenge the dominant reign of a politics of fulfillment in education policy, theory, and practice.

Department

Department of Educational Psychology, Foundations, and Leadership Studies

Original Publication Date

1-1-2021

DOI of published version

10.1080/02680939.2019.1676472

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa

Language

en

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