Is There Room For the Other in a “Modernized” Education?

Authors

  • Rebeca Heringer University of Manitoba
  • Melanie Janzen University of Manitoba

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14288/ce.v14i1.186676

Keywords:

Education reform, neoliberalism, Modernization of education, equity, social justice education

Abstract

The enactment of the Education Modernization Act by the government of Manitoba in early 2021 proposed several structural changes to the governance and delivery of provincial education. The related documents had a strong emphasis on improving the achievement of all students, making them future-ready and strengthening parental involvement. Despite potentially relevant claims of equity and diversity promotion, in this paper we discuss how the government discourse is neither modern nor necessarily better, as it claims to be. Rather, the proposed Education Modernization Act reifies mainstream worldviews and ideas that have been proclaimed since the beginning of the 20th century and which are today empowered by a global neoliberal mindset. We conclude arguing that a non-totalizing response to the Other is a necessary and yet missing disposition in any genuine social justice education.

Author Biographies

Rebeca Heringer, University of Manitoba

Rebeca Heringer is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba. She currently works as a sessional instructor (University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba) and a research assistant. Her main research and teaching areas are philosophy of education, educational psychology, anti-racism education, and anti-oppressive research methodologies.

Melanie Janzen, University of Manitoba

Melanie Janzen is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the University of Manitoba. Her research areas are in curriculum studies and teacher education and explore the inter-related workings of power and discourses, particularly as they relate to the construction of identities of teachers and the ongoing marginalization of children.

Critical Education Volume 14 Number 1 2023

Downloads

Published

2023-01-23

Issue

Vol. 14 No. 1 (2023)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Rebeca Heringer, Melanie Janzen

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with Critical Education agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).