The Developing World and State Education: Neoliberal Depredation and Egalitarian Alternatives

by Dave Hill (Editor), Ellen Rosskam (Editor)

Neoliberalism has had a major impact on schooling and education in the Developing World, with social repercussions that have affected the salaries of teachers, the number and type of potential students, the availability of education, the cost of education, and more. This edited collection argues that the privatization of public services and the capitalization and commodification of education have resulted in the establishment of competitive markets that are marked by selection, exclusion and inequality. The contributors - academics and organization/social movement activists - examine aspects of neoliberal arguments focusing on low- and middle-income countries (including Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, China, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Burkina Faso, Mozambique and South Africa), and suggest where they fall short. Their arguments center around the assumption that education is not a commodity to be bought and sold, as education and the capitalist market hold opposing goals, motivations, methods, and standards of excellence.

260 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Marxist political and educational activist. He is Research Professor in Education at Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, England, and also Visiting Professor at the University of Limerick, Ireland, the Kapodistrian and National University of Athens, Greece, at Middlesex University, London. He was an elected Labour Party councillor for East Sussex and Brighton in the 1970s and 1980s, and contested in national and European elections.