Education and new hegemonic blocs: Doing policy the 'right' way

Abstract

Discussions of higher education need to be placed within larger processes of socio-economic and cultural restructuring. While higher education does indeed have its own specific histories and its own relatively autonomous dynamics, the entire sphere participates in and is connected in complex ways to social transformations and to struggles over power. The author examines these larger transformations that are changing the very landscape on which higher education - and education in general - sits. He analyzes the formation of a new hegemonic bloc that is pushing education in particular rightward directions. This tense alliance includes various factions - neo-liberals, neo-conservatives, authoritarian populists, and a particular fraction of the upwardly mobile new middle class. The author critically examines the policies that are being proposed and the possibilities of counter-hegemonic action. © 1998, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.