ABSTRACT
Canada makes for an interesting case study in appreciating the impact of recent trends in the restructuring of education in the world’s wealthier countries. Neoliberal education policy imperatives, while impacting severely on less economically powerful and developed parts of the hemisphere, have already substantially negatively impacted Canada’s developed social programs and provincial education systems. Trends in the 1990s in particular, toward aggregate social funding cutbacks, have coincided with what may be described as a “creeping privatization” in many sectors of public services including, notably, health and education. These shifts show a disturbing trend in terms of the goal of public education in engendering equity through public education. This neoliberal “Washington consensus” in policy toward trade liberalization and social funding cutbacks continues to affect social systems and equity in Canada and, more broadly, in the Pan-American setting, albeit unequally, as is refl ected in the asymmetries in development and relations between countries in this context along “north and south” lines. Seen in wide perspective, neoliberal policy trends in education-buttressed by interested private “edupreneurs” as well as by aggressive international trade regimes-have the potential to further the dominance of the “Washington Consensus” through increased reliance on marketizing and privatizing trends in educational restructuring in Canada, resulting in the inevitable danger of further social polarization and inequity. The critical perspective adopted here refl ects an effort to critically analyze these policy trends, taking into account as well the impact of these trends on teachers in Canada.
