Comparing neo-liberal projects and inequality in education

In this article, I pay particular attention to some of the most important d ynamics surrounding globalisation in education-the increasingly powerful di scourses and polices of neoliberalism concerning privatisation, marketisati on, performativity, and the 'enterprising individual'. While I demonstrate the truly international effects of neo-liberal policies-and the differentia l realities they tend to produce in real schools-I also suggest that we can not simply read off the effects of these policies in the abstract. Their us es and effects are historically contingent. They are at least partly depend ent on the balance of forces in each nation and on the histories of the way s progressive tendencies have already been instituted within the state. Yet , I also suggest that any analysis of these discourses and policies must cr itically examine their class and race and gender effects at the level of wh o benefits from their specific institutionalisations and from their contrad ictory functions within real terrains of social power.