CER Educational Conversation: Ethnography of a Neoliberal School: Building Cultures of Success in an American Charter School

Charter schools, as part of the education reform movement in the United States, represent a fascinating and controversial policy experiment. Stahl presents a school ethnography which explores the ‘no excuses’ corporate logic of schooling practices and strategies embedded in such organizations. The focus is on how these practices influence teaching and learning, school leadership, teachers’ professional identities, and students’ understanding of meritocratic success. In this conversation, Stahl presents the main topics of his most recent book Ethnography of a Neoliberal School (Routledge). By theorizing the common practices within the organization as neoliberal investments, Stahl connects current research in theories of governance, the neoliberal structuring of educational policy and social justice. This scholarship presented in this seminar will be of interest to scholars in: * ‘No excuses’ Schooling * Neoliberal Educational Policy Enactment * Corporatization of Schools * Charter Schools and Charter School Management Organization CMOs) * School Ethnography / Institutional Ethnography / Institutional Texts * Philanthropy and Urban Schooling * Social Mobility in Education * Neoliberal Subjectivities * Urban education (access, equity, effectiveness) HDR students and researchers will gain skills associated with qualitative research, ethnography, fieldnotes negotiating with gatekeepers. PRESENTER: Dr. Garth Stahl is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Education at the University of South Australia and Research Fellow, Australian Research Council (DECRA). His research interests lie socio-cultural studies of education, identity, equity/inequality, and social change. Of particular relevance is empirical studies of learner identities, gender and youth, equity and difference, and educational reform.