Abstract
This chapter addresses the relationship between education, youth formation, and socioeconomic change. The focus of change is the rise of neoliberal policies, practices, and forms of governance in advanced industrial societies in the early twenty-first century. Three thematic areas are pursued: citizenship formation, technological change, and philanthropy. Evidence is presented that in each of these three areas, educational ideas and practices are affected by the growing dominance of free market ways of thinking. The state promotion of multicultural education has shifted to a more instrumental and strategic promotion of competitive success in the global knowledge economy; new digital technologies marketed under consumer capitalism have engendered short-term interests among youth and an increasing difficulty to pay deep attention across generations; the incursion of philanthropy into educational policy has encouraged more school choice and attempts to recruit parents and students into competitive and entrepreneurial subjectivities. It is argued that these processes are currently accelerating and have negative repercussions for children and society.
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Mitchell, K. (2019). Changing the Subject: Education and the Constitution of Youth in the Neoliberal Era. In: Skelton, T., Aitken, S. (eds) Establishing Geographies of Children and Young People. Geographies of Children and Young People, vol 1. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4585-88-0_6-1
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