Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book seeks the ways in which one can confront the current in-school-only education reform driven by neoliberal ideologies that honor market forces while marginalizing the essential nature of public institutions and democratic ideals. It highlights the empirical work with working-class college students. Allison L. Hurst details the social costs and repercussions of US educational policy makers enthusiastically adopting meritocracy as the chief goal of social and educational policy. It provides sample lessons that have been successful in fostering critical literacy in classroom. The book explores a historical backdrop behind how the neoliberal reform model came to life in the US educational system. It provides the empirical work from interviews with 74 Inuit adults and with parents and students in the western Arctic to argue that colonialism is at the heart of these children's educational and social struggles.