Introduction

The introduction traces the trajectory of the vision of elementary education as a public good and maps some of the issues and challenges that have kept it an unreached ideal. The rationale for this edited anthology of essays plumbing diverse disciplinary viewpoints and engaging with structures of elementary education across policy contexts is developed. It sounds a call to critique contemporary reform practices that are underwritten in an appropriate fashion to the workings of neoliberal capital while cautioning against a policy-led process of entrenching such schooling systems which not only reproduce the social asymmetries but also perpetuate another set of graded inequality. The section divisions reflect a breadth of understanding that brings within its purview the history of neoliberal shifts within educational planning, allied curricular changes and dismantling of social justice while opening up the debate for a comparative understanding by using transnational trends as an index of neoliberal common sense and its relative degrees of failure.