ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the deepening difficulties of educating future generations in a hostile climate. It first suggests that neo-liberal capitalism provides an increasingly destructive context for education. The chapter explains the context; managerialism has diminished learning to tested 'outcomes' alarmingly remote from real understanding. The chapter explores the developments have been damaging for many students; the neo-liberal counterrevolution has specific implications for criminology. It finally presents the point where expectations of 'consumer students' have narrowed; universities are required to 'give them what they want'. Drawing on Mills' conceptualization of both the 'promise' of social science and the skills of intellectual craftmanship, perhaps the most fundamental personal quality for the fresher criminology student is a genuine concern about the wider world and social justice. Neo-liberalism has become a normalized force that shapes our lives, memories and daily experiences, while attempting to erase everything critical and emancipatory about history, justice, solidarity, freedom, and the meaning of democracy.
