Students navigating and negotiating the conveyor belt: aspiration, loss, endurance and fantasy
Students navigating and negotiating the conveyor belt: aspiration, loss, endurance and fantasy
This chapter explores how students navigate and negotiate Dreamfields’ demands from their situated positions. Unlike other research showing how masculinities are often built on displays of resistance towards school work, Dreamfields makes trying not only acceptable for both boys and girls, but a mandatory requirement. While 'liberation' may bring the benefits of good grades and future success, these benefits come at a cost. Throughout this process students are urged to regard themselves as commodities made better and more valuable through their training as market logic penetrates these young people's lives and their social relationships at an intensely personal level. There is little space for critical thinking, innovation or creativity in the neoliberal school; instead there is obedient reproduction where students, parents and teachers learn to accept that Dreamfields’ approach is the only option.
Keywords: Students, Fantasy, Neoliberal governance, Race, Class, Competition, Hierarchy, Compromise, Negotiation, Ambivalence
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