Colonized Schooling Exposed : Progressive Voices for Transformative Educational and Social Change

221 Pages·2013·1.189 MB·English

by  Pierre Orelus, Curry Malott, and Romina Pacheco

Colonized Schooling Exposed
This book presents a novel perspective on colonialism, education and other
related issues. It unveils the eff ects of colonialism on the learning and well-
being of students and workers, including marginalized groups such as women,
Native Americans, Latino/as, Asians, Blacks, and African Americans. It is a
collection of essays combined with in-depth interviews and conversations
with committed social justice educators and activist-scholars genuinely con-
cerned with educational issues situated in the context of western renewed
forms of colonialism and neoliberalism. This book covers many interwoven
and pressing issues echoed through authentic voices of progressive educators
and scholars. Anyone interested in decolonizing schools and transcending
neoliberal and colonial mentality must read this book.
Pierre Wilbert Orelus is assistant professor at New Mexico State Univer-
sity. His recent books include: Whitecentricism and Linguoracism Exposed
(2013); The Race Talk (2012); and Radical Voices for Democratic School-
ing (with Curry Malott, 2012).
Curry S. Malott is assistant professor in the Department of Professional
and Secondary Education, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, US.
Some of Dr. Malott’s most recent books include Critical Pedagogy and
Cognition: An Introduction to a Post-Formal Educational Psychology
(2011); Teaching Joe L. Kincheloe (2011) co-edited with Rochelle Brock
and Leila Villaverde; and Radical Voices for Democratic Schooling (2012),
co-edited with Pierre W. Orelus.
Romina Pacheco is doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum and
Instruction at New Mexico State University. Her research interests include
critical pedagogy, Black and Latina/Chicana Feminist Thought, critical mul-
ticultural education, and radical participatory democracy in the classroom.
Routledge Studies in Education and Neoliberalism
SERIES EDITOR DAVE HILL, University of Northampton, UK
1 The Rich World and the
Impoverishment of Education
Diminishing Democracy, Equity
and Workers’ Rights
Edited by Dave Hill
2 Contesting Neoliberal Education
Public Resistance and Collective
Advance
Edited by Dave Hill
3 Global Neoliberalism and
Education and its Consequences
Edited by Dave Hill and Ravi
Kumar
4 The Developing World and State
Education
Neoliberal Depredation and
Egalitarian Alternatives
Edited by Dave Hill and Ellen
Rosskam
5 The Gates Foundation and the
Future of US “Public” Schools
Edited by Philip E. Kovacs
6 Colonized Schooling Exposed
Progressive Voices for
Transformative Educational and
Social Change
Edited by Pierre Wilbert Orelus,
Curry S. Malott, and Romina
Pacheco
Colonized Schooling Exposed
Progressive Voices for Transformative
Educational and Social Change
Edited by
Pierre Wilbert Orelus, Curry S. Malott,
and Romina Pacheco
NEW YORK LONDON
First published 2014
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
The right of Pierre Wilbert Orelus, Curry S. Malott, and Romina Pacheco
to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Colonized schooling exposed : progressive voices for transformative
educational and social change / edited by Pierre Wilbert Orelus, Curry S.
Malott, Romina Pacheco.
pages cm. — (Routledge studies in education and neoliberalism ; 6)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Transformative learning. 2. Critical pedagogy. 3. Neoliberalism—
Social aspects. 4. Postcolonialism—Social aspects. 5. Social change.
I. Orelus, Pierre W. II. Malott, Curry, 1972– III. Pacheco, Romina.
LC1100.C65 2013
370.11'5—dc23
2013023749
ISBN13: 978-0-415-84036-1 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-76782-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by IBT Global.
Contents
Introduction 1
PIERRE WILBERT ORELUS, CURRY S. MALOTT, AND ROMINA PACHECO
PART I:
Unmasking the Wretchedness of Neoliberalism and Neocolonialism
1 Colonialism in the 21st Century: A Critical Analysis 15
PIERRE WILBERT ORELUS
2 Violence and the Interstices of Diff erence:
Working With(in) and Around Fanon 32
GEORGE J. SEFA DEI AND LOREN OLA DELANEY
3 Colonialism and Neoliberalism:
Twins of Inequities: A Conversation with Vijay Prashad 51
4 Countering the Colonizing Allure of (Pseudo)-
Scientifi c Discourses in Education Research and Policy 66
MYRIAM N. TORRES
5 Courageous Voices Against Neocolonial and White Supremacy:
Sandy Grande and Pierre Orelus in Dialogue 84
6 Surviving Language as a Refugee 92
MARISOL RUIZ
7 Unfair Comparisons: Monolingual Norms and
Language Discrimination Against Nonnative English-
Speaking Students at U.S. Colleges and Universities 101
JOHN KATUNICH
vi Contents
8 An arabyyah-muslimah Feminist Negotiating
Gender/Nation/Sexuality/Colonial Discourses:
A Conversation with Manal Hamzeh 113
9 Testimonios of Microaggressions on
University and College Campuses 127
MARIVEL OROPEZA
PART II
Unmasking the Wretchedness of
Neoliberalism and Neocolonialism
10 Marxist Scholarship in Neoliberal Times:
Social Imagination or Social Revolution? 137
ANTONIA DARDER
11 A Critical Pedagogy of Revolutionary Solidarity
Against Neoliberal, White-Supremacist, Petrochemical
Plunder: A Conversation with Curry Stephenson Malott 148
12 Understanding History From the Standpoint of the Oppressed 160
PIERRE WILBERT ORELUS
13 Uncovering Racial, Socioeconomic, and Political
Domination Through the Western Neocolonial and
Neoliberal Agenda: A Conversation With Sangeeta Kamat 169
14 Education, Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism,
and Class Struggle in Britain and Europe 182
DAVID HILL
Conclusion 199
Contributors 205
Index 209
Introduction
Pierre Wilbert Orelus, Curry S. Malott,
and Romina Pacheco
For many critical educators, colonialism is still at work; its legacy continues
to shape the practices of many institutions, such as schools, governments,
churches, workplaces, and the mass media. Concealed under the umbrella
of Western neoliberalism, colonialism has been implemented through dif-
ferent educational, socioeconomic, and political policies that have had a
negative impact on the school system and the economy of many countries,
particularly formerly colonized countries as well as those that are currently
occupied. The educational, socioeconomic, political, and cultural disaster
that colonialism has engendered may not be as obvious as its renewed form,
neoliberalism, partly because those in power have used the corporate media
to gain the consent of people, including the poor, leading them to believe
that they have benefi ted from global capitalism and the free market.
However, those who have presence of mind, and are thus able to critically
refl ect on their direct experience with neocolonialism and neoliberalism,
know this system mostly works for the rich who have created it. Like-
wise, neoliberalism has not only impacted factory and sweatshop workers,
though they are most aff ected by it; it has also aff ected many institutions,
such as universities and colleges, and people who are the engines of these
institutions, like students, professors, and staff . This book aims at shed-
ding light on these issues, which will be analyzed in depth throughout the
book. In the section that follows, we provide a brief overview of the impact
of neoliberalism and neocolonialism on the well-being of people in general
and the learning of students and teachers’ teaching practices in particular.
THE CORPORATE MODEL: A CURRENT TREND
RUNNING THROUGH UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES
Over the last two decades or so, many universities and colleges have been
following and implementing an externally imposed corporate and militarist
model of education (Aronowitz, 2000; McLaren, 2005; McLaren and Fara-
mandpur, 2001a; Schugurensky, 2007). The corporate takeover of higher
education and the intensifi ed focus of using the knowledge factory in the
2 Pierre Wilbert Orelus, Curry S. Malott, and Romina Pacheco
service of military innovations can best be understood as a consequence
of competition between capitals. That is, since before Columbus washed
up on the shores of Haiti in 1492, European powers used military force to
conquer lands and gain access to resources, labor, and potential markets.
Today is no diff erent. Another reason for the militarization of higher
education is related to the self-preservation of capitalists themselves. That
is, because the competitive drive for profi ts and access to markets perpetu-
ally pushes capitalism toward crisis and because unproductive production,
such as “the means of destruction” (Callinicos, 2011, p. 231), off sets this
tendency, universities have deepened their investments in this sector of the
economy. Explaining what “waste production” is and why it off sets the
tendency toward crisis, Callinicos (2011) notes:
The military struggle between national capitals has . . . been crucial to
the comparative stability and great prosperity which the world econ-
omy enjoyed in the 1950s and 1960s, for the diversion of resources to
the production of destruction paradoxically reduces some of the pres-
sures on the system which force it toward crises. To understand why
this is so we have fi rst to recall that Marx identifi ed two main sectors
of the economy . . . means of production . . . and goods for consump-
tion. . . . The commodities produced [here are] . . . productively con-
sumed . . . they are used to produce more commodities. The means
of production—machinery, infrastructure, and so on—are obviously
necessary if more goods are to be made. But consumer goods too
are used to keep labor power alive and working effi ciently. There is,
however, a third sector of the economy . . . whose output is not pro-
ductively consumed. . . . Arms are . . . not used to make other com-
modities. . . . Arms production is waste production. . . . The eff ects of
competition is to force capitals to reinvest surplus value in improving
their methods of production. So the organic composition of capital—
that is, the share of the means of production in total investment—
rises, and the rate of profi t falls. Waste production, however, off sets
this process. (pp. 231–232)
It becomes clear that arms production is therefore needed both to build
up the neocolonial militias capital relies on to expand into new markets and
to off set the tendency toward overaccumulation and crisis. Despite these
eff orts, which cannot solve the tendency toward crises, but only postpone
or temporarily displace them, the United States entered an economic reces-
sion during the 1970s, which, among other factors, was fueled by the cor-
porate competition of Japan, Germany, and other industrialized countries
devastated by WWII and the disappearance of cheap oil, which had led to
enormous development in related industries. As wages stagnated and the
cost of living (i.e., fuel) rose through the 1970s, Reagan took offi ce under
promises of economic recovery and a way out of the crisis (Ackerman,
Introduction 3
1982). Reagan’s solution was a policy of “trickle-down economics,” which
was based on the assumption that what was prohibiting economic growth
was government regulation getting in the way of the free market. Conse-
quently, Reagan took drastic steps to deregulate capital, paving the way for
the neoliberal era, or the corporate and militarist model of education.
This militarist and corporate atmosphere at many universities and col-
leges is what many educators, including the authors herein, have witnessed
and experienced. Doors of many universities and colleges have been widely
opened to corporations, that is, the business world (Aronowitz, 2000). In
his breakthrough book Knowledge Factory, Aronowitz (2000) eloquently
describes the way many universities have followed a corporate model of edu-
cation aiming to prepare students for the labor force, thus making it much
more challenging for progressive educators to do critical work. According to
Aronowitz, the content of the curriculum in many schools and the choice stu-
dents make regarding their majors refl ect the logic of the market. Aronowitz
argues, “In most cases, their choices of major and minor fi elds are informed
by a rudimentary understanding of the nature of the job market rather than
by intellectuals, let alone intellectual passion” (p. 10).
Because higher education began feeling the neoliberal pinch around the
mid-1990s, there has been increasing pressure for professors to engage in
profi table research. Consequently, professors who bring capital (i.e., grant
money) to their institutions are more often the ones who are rewarded and
held in high esteem. Those who refuse to sell their souls and minds to cor-
porations but instead decide to question the status quo often do not receive
the credit and respect they deserve, even when they are prolifi c writers,
great researchers, and profoundly committed to teaching and helping stu-
dents to become critical citizens. Worse yet, they are too often the fi rst ones
to be denied tenure and promotion.
With regard to the ongoing presence of militarism on college and univer-
sity campuses, Peter McLaren, a dissident voice in academia, argues
There is increasing militarism in the universities, much stronger links to
military projects and programs, with offi cers training programs, with
the Pentagon providing funds for research; we can all agree that public
funding for universities is drying up, that the quality of our universities
is suff ering in its overall academic programs, especially the liberal arts
sector, that, in eff ect, the universities are abandoning the public sphere
and embracing the market-based neoliberal rationality that powers the
private sphere. (McLaren, as cited in Orelus, 2011, p. 102)
We concur with McLaren’s statement that programs designed to recruit
students for the U.S. army have indeed increased nationwide from second-
ary to higher education. For example, at the community and liberal colleges
where the fi rst author, Pierre Orelus, taught, he witnessed and experienced
fi rsthand the aggressive way with which military personnel, established at