Education Populism? A Corpus-Driven Analysis of Betsy Devos's Education Policy Discourse

Autor/in	Cohen, Michael Ian
Titel	Education Populism? A Corpus-Driven Analysis of Betsy Devos's Education Policy Discourse
Quelle	In: Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29 (2021) 16, (30 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Cohen, Michael Ian)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1068-2341
Schlagwörter	Public Officials; Neoliberalism; Political Attitudes; Computational Linguistics; Educational Policy; Policy Analysis; Discourse Analysis; Speeches; Comparative Analysis; Presidents; Advocacy; Privatization; School Choice; Word Frequency; Language Usage; Freedom; Educational Legislation; Elementary Secondary Education; Federal Legislation; Federal Government; Educational Administration + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Neo-liberalism; Neoliberalismus; Political attitude; Politische Einstellung; Linguistics; Computerlinguistik; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; Politikfeldanalyse; Diskursanalyse; President; Präsident; Sozialanwaltschaft; Privatisation; Privatisierung; Choice of school; Schulwahl; Word analysis; Frequency; Wortanalyse; Häufigkeit; Sprachgebrauch; Freiheit; Bildungsrecht; Schulgesetz; Bundesrecht; Bundesregierung; Bildungsverwaltung; Schuladministration; Schulverwaltung
Abstract	Scholars of political economy have raised the question of whether recent populist movements around the world signal the decline of neoliberal hegemony. What would such a decline mean for education policy, an arena that has been dominated by a neoliberal common sense for several decades? This study investigates the policy discourse of former U.S. President Donald Trump's Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, in order to assess the extent to which it aligns with the neoliberal common sense or draws upon discourses of populism that have been gaining traction in the last few years. Using methods of corpus linguistics, I engage in a critical discourse analysis of 59 of DeVos's public speeches delivered between 2017 and 2019 in comparison with a reference corpus of speeches delivered by DeVos's predecessors in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. The findings, informed by Ernesto Laclau's theory of populism as political logic and discourse, suggest that DeVos deploys several features of populist discourse even as she advocates policies that are characteristically neoliberal. I consider the implications of this discourse for education policy in the US. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Colleges of Education at Arizona State University and the University of South Florida. c/o Editor, USF EDU162, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL 33620-5650. Tel: 813-974-3400; Fax: 813-974-3826; Web site: http://epaa.asu.edu
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01