Education cleavages, or market society and the rise of authoritarian populism?

UK higher education, neoliberal meritocracy, and the culture of the new capitalism: A computational‐linguistics analysis

“…The pandemic has also undermined both the dream of a resilient self‐regulating free market and the promissory legitimacy (Beckert, 2020) of those political institutions supporting it; that it is a competition amongst equals leading to all boats rising. Yet all boats have not risen and we see gaping differences in the outcomes of those who have invested in access higher education (Robertson & Nestore, 2022). Since neoliberal meritocracy relies on both these elements to marketize the idea of a fair competition amongst equals and to sell the associated educational products, a number of questions arise.…”

“…Hecht et al., 2020) highlights the increasingly important role of place in these social divisions, with those from the most privileged backgrounds able to move to cities like London to take advantage of sought‐after career occupations (see also Marmot et al., 2020). Lack of social mobility has also been linked to a new politics of resentment that feeds the rise of authoritarian populism and its manifestations, such as Brexit in the UK and Trumpism in the USA (Bruff & Tansel, 2019; Cohen, 2019; Robertson & Nestore, 2021).…”

On Bildung and the role of teachers in fostering global citizens

“…These are not isolated attacks, and the critique of what is perceived to be the neo-liberal underpinnings of global citizenship education seems to have become increasingly vocal over the past years. However, while there is ample reason to take seriously the more general critique of the neo-liberalisation of education (Robertson and Nestore 2021), and while particular attempts to educate for global citizenship may be said to be poorly masked attempts to capitalise on the notion of the global citizen, this does not undermine the framework or idea of a global citizenship education. It should be clear that however faulty some initiatives and programmes appear, the notion of educating for global citizenship is intended to be transformative.…”