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The purpose of conducting this study was to understand how neoliberal discourses manifest within the local context of a short-term, job-training program offered at a two-year college in the USA. Ethnographic data were collected at the local site through interviews, observations and document analysis. We then situated these data within a global context represented by a corpus of purposively selected national and international policy texts. Focusing on three components of discourse as social action-genres, representations and identities-the data analysis illuminated three interrelated themes relating to how institutional actors translated neoliberal discourses available at the global scale into practice. The ideological consequences for learners as well as examples of counter-hegemonic resistance are discussed. Article: MANIFESTATIONS OF NEOLIBERAL DISCOURSES WITHIN A LOCAL JOB-TRAINING PROGRAM A central feature of the current economic and social milieu is the ascendancy of neoliberalism, a political economic program in which individual property rights, deregulated markets and free trade are seen as fundamental to human well-being (Harvey 2005). Quite distinct from the Keynesian, mixed-market capitalism of the mid-twentieth century, the current political economic order has been referred to as the new capitalism (Fairclough 1995), and within this program cities, states, nations and regions compete fiercely to attract global capital as a means of advancing a certain variety of economic growth. Consequently, governments at various levels become preoccupied with advancing an institutional framework that establishes a favourable business climate, and goals of international economic competitiveness are assumed to serve the common good.

Recently, we have been struggling to interpret a series of minor yet absurd spectacles that span the industrial and popular-cultural realms. These events have compelled our scholarly interest, but lack a ready-made frame for diagnosing their significance. Consider these examples: In the summer of 1996, vivacious TV talk-show cohost Kathie Lee Gifford was criticized by activists who linked her line of Wal-Mart clothing to human-rights abuses and wage violations among factory workers in Honduras and New York City. Tearful and contrite, Gifford quickly adopted a policy of independent monitoring and assigned her husband, celebrity sports-announcer Frank Gifford, to deliver envelopes of compensation for the affected workers. Relatedly, in the fall of 1997, Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams-famed for his satire of corporate foibles-disguised himself as a management consultant. With the help of a company official, he conducted an executive retreat in a computer firm that produced a tortured "revision" of its mission statement. Additional examples appear in the flickerings of our TV screens: the lithe, androgynous figures of Intel's technicians, clad in hooded, colorful "clean room" suits, energetically installing computer chips to a soundtrack of 1970s funk; and quasi-documentary images of rolling golf carts, filled with visitors to the Saturn car plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, watching assembly workers at their tasks-and being watched in return.Collectively, these examples indicate a type of social drama in which the organization of work is aestheticized and commodified for consumption. We do not argue that this discourse is novel. Each of these events may be classified among the familiar genres of modern commerce: publicity, promotion, advertising, marketing and public relations. Nor do we argue that these genres are neglected by communication scholars: Sustained interest in organizational rhetoric and media criticism suggests the opposite. We do believe, however, that analysis of such events might benefit from the tentative integration of two communication fields traditionally regarded as distinct: those of organizational commtlnica-

A key to improving urban science and mathematics education is to facilitate the mutual understanding of the participants involved and then look for strategies to bridge differences. Educators need new theoretical tools to do so. In this paper the argument is made that the concept of “boundary spanner” is such a tool. Boundary spanners are individuals, objects, media, and other experiences that link an organization to its environment. They serve critical communicative roles, such as bridges for bringing distinct discourses together, cultural guides to make discourses of the “other” more explicit, and change agents for potentially reshaping participants' discourses. This ethnographic study provides three examples of boundary spanners found in the context of an urban public high school of science, mathematics, and technology: boundary media, boundary objects, and boundary experiences. The analysis brings to the foreground students' and teachers' distinct discourses about “good student identity,”“good student work,” and “good summer experience” and demonstrates how boundary spanners shaped, were shaped by, and sometimes brought together participants' distinct discourses. An argument is made for boundary spanners' practical and theoretical utility: practically, as a tool for enhancing meaning‐making between diverse groups, and theoretically, as a heuristic tool for understanding the reproductive and transformative aspects of urban science education.

Each year, managers and employees spend billions of dollars retaining management consultants, buying business books, and attending seminars to regain certainty. Some of this quest occurs in the lectures of star management consultants, such as Stephen R. Covey. For his audience, a Covey lecture is a liminoid event, that is, a middle phase in a secular rite of passage from "ineffective" to "effective." Viewed through the lens of liminoidity, the lecture (a) disrupts the ontology of business subjects, (b) gains force by blending sacred wisdom and technical instruction, (c) makes permanent a transitional stage, and (d) situates the lecturer as guru and audience members as neophytes through their interaction with one another. Despite the quest for certainty, Covey"s lectures simultaneously ease and deepen uncertainty and anxiety.