The Constraints of Neo-Liberal New Managerialism in Social Work Education

Abstract

Universities have been overtaken by corporatization and managerialism. This means they are run like a business with a focus on economic sustainability, viability and business relations, rather than education. Managerialism is a form of restructuring the workforce under neoliberalism (Baines, 2007). Neoliberalism refers to “[a]n approach to social, political, and economic life, that discourages collective or government services, instead encouraging reliance on the private market and individual skill to meet social needs” (Baines, 2011, p. 30). Everyday practices of managerialism involve an intensified control and disciplining of the workforce evident through strategies and surveillance tools such as performance reports and outcome measurements. Like universities, social services are increasingly shaped by these same tactics. According to Chomsky, disciplining workers requires reducing people’s expectations for democracy, social justice, and control over the workplace (2014). The emphasis is on productivity and keeping costs low while taking power away from those who do the work and increasing the power of those in administration. This is true not only of social work academics, but of professionals in the social services and front line social work practice. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has argued that universities are at risk and that we need to resist the corporate control over Canadian higher education (Tudiver, 1999; Turk 2000, 2008). New managerialism has a deeply problematic grip on higher education in Canada. There is a growing pressure for teaching, research, and scholarship to serve the market rather than a broader notion of the public good and the core mission of teaching and research. As such, social work educators need to be vigilant toward administrative demands geared toward the market such as employability, competency-based training and an emphasis on brief cost saving interventions within schools of social work in order to resist rather than contribute to the snowballing impact of managerialism.