The Reagan Administration as the Origin of the Shift from Citizen Building to Consumer Building in American Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18192/jpds-sjpd.v1i0.2174Abstract
Current American education is comprised of and influenced by a myriad of complex legislative, technological, and cultural representations of consumption, however this historic-educational study specifically examines how the Reagan administration discursively initiated the consumerizing educational framework. While existing research studies the neoliberal implications on education, this study addresses the neoliberal reforms under President Reagan within the discursive paradigm of its consumerizing impact. By using Critical Discourse Analysis on a selection of Presidential proclamations, speeches, and national educational reports, this study examines and elucidates how the Reagan administration created the consumerizing framework for American education. By understanding the results through the Frankfurt School concept of integration and expanding on Bowles and Gintis’ educational theory, this study argues that Reagan’s reforms created a consumerizing framework in American education.
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Van Leeuwan, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Wodak, R. & Meyer, M. (2001). Methods of critical discourse analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Wolff, R. D. (2005). Ideological state apparatuses, consumerism, and U.S. capitalism: Lessons for the left. Rethinking Marxism, 17(2), 223-235.
Althusser, L. (2014). On the reproduction of capitalism: Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. New York, NY: Verso.
Bell, T. H. (1986). Educational policy development in the Reagan administration. Phi Delta Kappan, 67(7), 487-494.
Bjork, G. C. (1999). The way it worked and why it won’t: Structural change and the slowdown of U.S. economic growth. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life. New York, NY: Haymaket Books.
Chiapello, E. & Fairclough, N. (2002). Understanding the new management ideology: A transdisciplinary contribution from critical discourse analysis and new sociology of capitalism. Discourse & Society, 13(2), 185-208.
Collin, R. & Ferrare, J. (2015). Rescaling education: Reconstructions of scale in President Reagan’s 1983 State of the Union Address. Journal of Education Policy, 30(6), 796-809.
Fairclough, N. (2004). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. New York, NY: Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical discourse analysis and critical policy studies. Critical Policy Studies, 7(2), 177-197.
Fairclough, N. & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical discourse analysis, in T. van Dijk, Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London, England: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Greaves, N., Hill, D., & Maisuria, A. (2007). Embourgeoisment, immiseration, commodification—Marxism revisited: a critique of education in capitalist systems. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 5(1), 38-72.
Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of postmodernity: An enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Hass, E. (2008). Propaganda, in D. Gabbard, Knowledge & Power in the Global Economy: The Effects of School Reform in a Neoliberal/Neoconservative Age. New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kellner, D. (1983). Critical theory, commodities and the consumer society. Theory, Culture, & Society, 1(3), 66-83.
Kellner, D. (2007). The Frankfurt school, in, T. Edwards, Cultural Theory: Classical and Contemporary Positions. London, England: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Machin, D. & Mayr, A. (2012). How to do critical discourse analysis. London, England: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Mathison, S. & Ross, E. W. (2008). Battleground: Schools. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Molnar, A. (1996). Giving kids the business: The commercialization of America’s schools. Denver, CO: Westview Press.
National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Plunkert, L. M. (1990). The 1980’s: A decade of job growth and industry shifts. Monthly Labor Review, 113(9), 3-16.
Reagan, R. (1983a). Proclamation 5112—National year of partnerships in education 1983-1984, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=40576.
Reagan, R. (1983b). Radio address to the nation on education, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=41259.
Reagan, R. (1985a). Proclamation 5417—National consumers week, 1986, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=38122.
Reagan, R. (1985b). Remarks at the annual meeting of the national association of independent schools, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=38263.
Reagan, R. (1985c). Remarks at the presentation ceremony for the “C” flag awards, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=38773.
Reagan, R. (1988). 1988 legislative and administrative message: A union of individuals, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=36046.
Reagan, R. (1989). Remarks at a briefing for the white house workshop on choice in education, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=35348.
Saltman, K. J. & Goodman, R. T. (2011). Rivers of fire: BPAmoco’s iMPACT on education, in K. J. Saltman & D. A. Gabbard, Education at Enforcement: The Militarization and Corporatization of Schools. New York, NY: Routledge.
Spring, J. (1997). Political agendas for education: From the Christian coalition to the green party. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Stedman, L. C. (1987). The political economy of recent educational reform reports. Educational Theory, 37(1), p. 69-76.
Task Force on Education for Economic Growth. (1983). Action for excellence: A comprehensive plan to improve our nation’s schools. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States.
United States Department of Labor (2016). Employment, hours, and earnings from the current employment statistics survey (national). Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet.
Van Leeuwan, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Wodak, R. & Meyer, M. (2001). Methods of critical discourse analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Wolff, R. D. (2005). Ideological state apparatuses, consumerism, and U.S. capitalism: Lessons for the left. Rethinking Marxism, 17(2), 223-235.
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