Neoliberal Multiculturalism Embedded in Social Justice Education: Commodification of Multicultural Education for the 21st Century

Overview & Synopsis

This paper investigates how conceptions of "diversity" and "equity" in U.S. education have become amenable to global neoliberal economic educational discourses that rest on competitive global market demands. The argument outlined in this paper suggests that the approach and knowledge about and for democracy and social justice education, particularly in prominent multicultural education scholarship and practice, is increasingly commodified and risks being embedded in market rationalities. Further, this paper tries to point out the possible dangers of surrendering the goal and scope of multicultural education to neoliberal educational principals, which increasingly mirror a human capital model of society and individual subjectivity. The paper seeks to illustrate how the discourse of neoliberal multiculturalism dictates a commercial and competitive sense of social justice which also further facilitates the repression of political difference--particularly for populations that do not identify with neoliberal educational reforms--while administering mechanisms of social control through neoliberal processes of subjectification.