Lyn Tett and Mary Hamilton (eds) (2019) Resisting Neoliberalism in Education: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives

Abstract

In this edited collection from Tett and Hamilton, the authors explore the pervasive nature of neoliberalism within a range of educational contexts, including compulsory, adult and higher education. The need to resist dominant ideology, which puts profit over people, is a key theme throughout. Part One provides food for thought on ways to subvert dominant ideology within adult education. Chapter 1 (Thériault) examines the demands on community-based organisations in Quebec to undertake ‘accountability literacies’ (p.13) to prove their worth but highlights the resourcefulness of youth workers, who practise everyday resistance. I was left with a desire to read even more about the findings from this study, having personal experience of ‘conflictual cooperation’ as a youth worker funded by the state whilst challenging state demands on young people. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on adult education in England, examining adult literacy practice and policy. Duckworth and Smith (Chapter 2) propose that a discourse of transformation and hope constitutes natural resistance to the dominant expectations of ‘performative curricula’ (p.38). Allatt and Tett (Chapter 3) describe the approaches that adult literacy workers use to navigate ‘creative solutions’ (p.53) to meeting the demands set out by the discourse of employability skills that permeates policy and practice.