Education and the Fantasies of Neoliberalism revitalizes conversations about the nature and purpose of education in a global context characterized by concerns about quality and equity in education, reflecting wider economic and political anxieties around declining productivity and social inclusion.

The book illustrates how Lacanian psychoanalytic theory offers a conceptual vocabulary for exposing and critiquing the fantasmatic nature of policy and practice, while foregrounding the tensions and contradictions they seek to conceal. Specifically, the book draws on ideas of lack, fantasy and desire from Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to gain insights into the contentious but disavowed politics of reform in education. The book builds on cutting-edge work in political and psychoanalytic theory to offer unique insights that challenge and contest the simplistic and often trivializing readings of education in contemporary media and political debates.

Offering a novel perspective on education policy reform, this book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of philosophy of education and educational policy and politics.

Matthew Clarke is Professor of Education at York St John University and has taught and researched at universities in Australia, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. His psychoanalytically informed work in critical policy studies offers unique and distinctive insights into recent developments in education.

Education and the Fantasies of Neoliberalism revitalizes conversations about the nature and purpose of education in a global context characterized by concerns about quality and equity in education, reflecting wider economic and political anxieties around declining productivity and social inclusion.

The book illustrates how Lacanian psychoanalytic theory offers a conceptual vocabulary for exposing and critiquing the fantasmatic nature of policy and practice, while foregrounding the tensions and contradictions they seek to conceal. Specifically, the book draws on ideas of lack, fantasy and desire from Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to gain insights into the contentious but disavowed politics of reform in education. The book builds on cutting-edge work in political and psychoanalytic theory to offer unique insights that challenge and contest the simplistic and often trivializing readings of education in contemporary media and political debates.

Offering a novel perspective on education policy reform, this book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of philosophy of education and educational policy and politics.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part 1 Policy, politics and psychoanalysis

Introduction to Part 1

1. The (absent) politics of neo-liberal education policy

2. Talkin' 'bout a revolution: The social, political, and fantasmatic logics of education policy

3. The sublime objects of education policy: Quality, equity and ideology

Part 2 Psychosocial readings of teacher education

Introduction to Part 2

4. Dialectics and dilemmas: Psychosocial dimensions of ability grouping policy

5.Heroes and villains: The insistence of the imaginary and the novice teacher's need to believe

6. Dialectics of development: Teacher identity formation in the interplay of ideal ego and ego ideal

Part 3 Seeing education and policy through film

Introduction to Part 3

7. Education beyond reason and redemption: A detour through the death drive

8. Eyes wide shut: The fantasies and disavowals of education policy

Conclusion