Education as Enforcement: The Militarization and Corporatization of Schools (Paperback)

by Kenneth J. Saltman (Editor), David A. Gabbard (Editor) "Well, the main point I think is that the entire school curriculum, from kindergarten through graduate school, will be tolerated only so long as it..." (more)
Key Phrases: domestic militarism, virtuous war, corporate privatization, United States, New York, African American (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
For those of us who have worried that the high-standards, high-stakes reform movement really seeks to mold children into standardized, docile, obedient widget makers taking orders from global corporations, Education as Enforcement provides the realization of our worst nightmare. The chapters range from the abstract and conceptual to concrete examples in the schools of Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia to descriptions of how video games train children as soldiers. About the most comforting words in the book are only that the totalitarian trend we are enduring is not inevitable.
–Gerald W. Bracey, George Mason University and High/Scope Educational Research Foundation

This volume offers us a powerful look at what our current education system is doing to us instead of for us. If you have any doubt that education has become a business designed to first serve corporate interests, then political interests, and rarely individual and community interests, Education as Enforcement is a real education for you.
–Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Product Description
With surveillance cameras, chainlink fences, surprise searches and metal detectors our public schools increasingly resemble the military and prisons. The first book to focus on the intersections of militarization, corporations and education, Education as Enforcement shows how schooling has become the means through which the expansion of global corporate power is enforced. Whether through accountability and standards, school security, or other discipline based reforms, militarized education in the U.S. needs to be understood in relation to the enforcement of corporate economic imperatives and to a sense of "law and order" that pervades our popular culture. Such an understanding will enable the conception of strategies for renewing a spirit of public civic engagement and democratic responsibility.

*Contributors: Henry A. Giroux, Kenneth J. Saltman, Noam Chomsky, Robin Truth Goodman, David A. Gabbard, Pauline Lipman, Pepi Leistyna, Enora A. Brown, Don Trent Jacobs, Marvin J. Berlowitz, Nathan A. Long, Haggith Gor, Julie Webber, Sheila Landers Macrine, Ron Scapp, Sandra Jackson, Kevin D. Vinson, E. Wayne Ross, Eugene Provenzo, Jr., William M. Reynolds, Michael W. Apple, Peter McLaren, Ramin Farahmandpur*

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: RoutledgeFalmer; 1 edition (April 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415944899
• ISBN-13: 978-0415944892
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #967,983 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The emperor is no longer seen as fully dressed, July 16, 2003

By A Customer

Until we all realize that the schools have largely become vehicles for replicating the status-quo, for producing people who will follow orders and buy products, and maybe even increase prison populations, we will continue our cultural spiral downhill. This book and its very credible authors explain why we should be concerned.