Neoliberal Ideology and Educational Practice

Neoliberalism emerged as a political and economic paradigm emphasising market rationality, competition and individual choice. Within educational practice, this ideology manifests through performance metrics, standardised testing, privatisation of services and the alignment of curricula with labour-market demands. Schools and universities are recast as quasi-enterprises, where students are consumers and educators are service providers. This market logic reshapes pedagogical aims, privileging measurable outcomes over collective civic formation, and fosters a culture of accountability that often marginalises critical and democratic dispositions. Critics argue that this commodification narrows the purpose of education, undermining equity and democratic engagement. Meanwhile, alternative movements advocate for more democratic, participatory and commons-based models that reclaim education as a public good. In recent years, scholarship has interrogated these tensions across global contexts, examining how neoliberal policies affect governance structures, classroom practices and the potential for resistance through agonistic and commons-oriented pedagogies.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Research from all publishers

Recent scholarship has explored the erosion of democratic ambitions in curricula, arguing for an agonistic approach that encourages students to engage with conflict rather than accept imposed consensus. This perspective draws on democratic theory to propose curricular designs that habituate critical dissent and awareness of socio-economic inequalities. Concurrently, case studies from Greece have illuminated how educational commons—initiatives grounded in peer governance, co-creation of knowledge and community participation—offer practical alternatives to neoliberal hierarchies. These grassroots projects demonstrate how formal schooling structures can be reconfigured to foster solidarity, equal participation and environmental resilience. In early childhood contexts, researchers have identified the polycrisis as an opportunity to re-politicise education, advocating for re-conceptualised pedagogies that centre collective agency, social justice and systemic critique in response to neoliberal constraints.

Neoliberal Ideology and Educational Practice publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in neoliberal ideology and educational practice across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Neoliberalism: A political-economic framework prioritising market mechanisms, competition and individual choice in public policy and institutions.

Agonistic pedagogy: An educational approach that embraces conflict and dissent as necessary for democratic learning.

Educational commons: Collective governance models in education characterised by shared decision-making, co-creation and mutual accountability.

Radical democratisation: The process of transforming institutional structures to enhance participatory, egalitarian and deliberative practices.

References

1. Confronting and agonistic: what democracy requires of curricula. Curriculum Perspectives (2023).
2. Common education in schools. Gauging potentials for democratic transformation: a case study from Greece. Frontiers in Education (2023).
3. From anger to dreaming to real utopias: Re-thinking, re-conceptualising and re-forming (early childhood) education in the conditions of the times. Global Studies of Childhood (2024).