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Illusions of Social Democracy: Early Childhood Educational Voucher Policies in Taiwan

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Part of the book series: Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood ((CCSC))

Abstract

Circulating and traveling around the globe, vouchers and school choice discourses currently function as the new “truth” for educators and parents, mobilizing them to imagine different ways of changing the field of education for the better. Without thorough critical investigations/inquiries, educational voucher policies are often thought of as examples of democratic educational reforms in multiple continents, including South America, North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe.1 Supported by Milton Friedman’s discussions on educational vouchers as tactics to dismantle government’s monopoly over modern public schooling systems and mobilized by neoliberal discourses of socioeconomic and cultural reform discourses, notions of educational vouchers and choice discourses are packed with ideas of choice and promises of social democracy for the field of education.

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© 2006 Marianne N. Bloch, Devorah Kennedy, Theodora Lightfoot, and Dar Weyenberg

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Lee, IF. (2006). Illusions of Social Democracy: Early Childhood Educational Voucher Policies in Taiwan. In: Bloch, M.N., Kennedy, D., Lightfoot, T., Weyenberg, D. (eds) The Child in the World/The World in the Child. Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230601666_11

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