Dear EDSTers,
The 2011 American Education Research Association (AERA) Conference was held between Friday, April 8 and Tuesday, April 12 in New Orleans. The theme of the Annual Meeting was largely, although not exclusively, about reconsidering education as the public good in the era of neoliberalization, privatization, and marketization, thus stimulating a new dialogue about the contributions that education research can make to the public sphere. EDST presenters included Dr. Mark Aquash, Dr. Jo-Ann Archibald, Dr. Jo-Anne Dillabough, Dr. Amy Metcalfe, Dr. Taylor Webb, Dr. Kalervo Gulson and myself, Ee-Seul Yoon.
With the two invited professors from Australia and Sweden, Dr. Dillabough, Dr. Webb, Dr. Gulson & I participated in the symposium focused on Education Markets in Morocco, Canada, Australia, and Sweden: Youth, Identity, and Globalization. This symposium provided much-needed understanding of both locally specific and globally shared experiences and challenges that school choice has faced, and is facing, in an era of neoliberal globalization and new imperialism. It showcased ethnographic accounts of the relationship between education marketization and young people’s identities in urban areas of Australia, Canada, Morocco and Sweden. Furthermore, it identified emerging trends in these four countries: new school choice discourses and varying school types, such as identity schools, mini schools and free schools. Each scholar presented their novel, interdisciplinary conceptual tools which both guided their ethnography of youth and markets and helped interrogate illusive concepts, such as ‘choice,’ ‘community,’ ‘best school,’ ‘self-care’ and ‘freedom,’ in the cacophony of market discourses. The following list includes the titles of the papers presented:
- “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Freedom of Choice and Young People in Swedish Multicultural Neighborhoods (Nihad Bunar, Stockholm University)
- Education Marketization in a Global City: New Challenges to Young People’s ‘Community’ Belonging (Ee-Seul Yoon, The University of British Columbia)
- Global Tourism and the New Imperialism: Illusions of Choice and Young Working Lives in Morocco (Jo-Anne Margaret Dillabough, The University of British Columbia)
- The “Best School” or the “Right School”? Framings of School Value in Australia (Joel Austin Windle, Monash University)
- Afrocentric Schooling, Globalized Policy and the “Care of the Self”: Reimagining Marketization and Student Identity (Kalervo N. Gulson, University of New South Wales, Australia, & Taylor Webb, The University of British Columbia)
Chair: Ee-Seul Yoon & Jo-Anne Margaret Dillabough (The University of British Columbia)
Following the symposium, we had the opportunity to eat and talk. If you want to know more about this symposium or any paper, feel free to email me at eeseul@interchange.ubc.ca.
