ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the discourses of the Ren2010 debate as it played out in Chicago's two largest newspapers, the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune. During the years 2004-2010 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) underwent a massive restructuring through its Renaissance 2010 (Ren2010) initiative. The theoretical concepts of social space and linguistic markets are crucial to this analysis. Neoliberal education reform is concerned not with equality, but rather with reframing urban space so that it may fit the dominant capitalist economy centered on private competition. Counter-discourses in education reform must move forward by including a local-democratic discursive contextualization of educative space. This continual production of Chicago's social spaces was increasingly conducted by those who have what is considered legitimate linguistic habitus. Finally, he concluded by discussing the implications of highly restricted access to media engagement in general and in the context of contemporary educational reform movements.
