ABSTRACT
This chapter explores an alternative description of economic rationalism and human capital model as complex local discourses with shared rhetorical components yet variable narrative shapes, rather than as singular monolithic entities spreading globally as part of an intentional ideological and economic reorganisation of late capitalism. It also explores how narrative analysis can enable us to plot and anticipate the local consequences of educational policy, with an eye on current moves to recreate the deficit human subject in policy and practice. The development of the human capital model in Australia has its own local inflections. Australian educational research and development brought together a unique coalition of political constituencies and community interests, ideologies and values. Research and theory in many areas of the social sciences and applied human services have shifted from a focus on traditional labour markets to an analysis of the economic and cultural consequences of new modes of information.
