ABSTRACT
Other contributions in this book outline the nature of the neoliberal project for education, demonstrating that issues teachers and teachers’ unions frequently view as germane only to the national experience are, in fact, global in nature. As Robertson (2008) explains, neoliberalism’s
promoters have remade the world, including the world of education. Out with the collective and welfare; in with the individual and freedom. This tectonic shift … has transformed how we talk about education, teachers and learners, unions, parents’ groups, and professional associations. In short, it has altered the conditions for knowledge production and the circumstances under which we might demand a socially just education system, along with the spaces and sites for claims making around education. With education yoked more closely to national and regional economies, schools and universities are now universally mandated to (efficiently and effectively) create the new breed of entrepreneurs and innovators, the value-driven minds who will spearhead the battle for global markets and consumers and a bigger share of the spoils. Education, once untrammeled virgin territory, is also being initiated into the world of property rights, markets, trade, and rating agencies.
(p. 11)