Manufactured Outrage: The Conservative Industrial Complex’s War on Education and How to Fight Back
Co-authored with T. Jameson Brewer, Emily M. Hodge and Serena J. Salloum
Public education is under attack. At school board meetings, in the media, and in the political sphere, there is a growing wave of anti-public education sentiment and a tendency to twist such concepts as Critical Race Theory, multiculturalism, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into dog whistles for the supposed brainwashing of students. In Manufactured Outrage, the authors provide an overview of the CIC—a coordinated network of conservative groups that seeks to dismantle our public education system—and explore how educators can push back against harmful education policy agendas.
The past few years have seen an avalanche of conservative education bills across the country. Dozens of states have rolled back protections for minoritized students, implemented book bans and instituted universal school choice, and promoted anti-DEI bills in the name of parents’ rights. These sweeping changes during such a short span of time are no accident. Using original research, including documents and observations obtained from behind the CIC’s closed doors, the authors reveal that these policies could only proceed through highly coordinated campaigns.
In this book, readers will learn who the key CIC players are, how the CIC advances its education policy agendas through webs of network organizations to become blueprints for educational reform, and finally, how activists are organizing to resist assaults on our democracy through public and policy advocacy. District leaders, school leaders, education policymakers, activists, and community members will find the guidance invaluable as they navigate the current fraught educational landscape.
Available for pre-order:
Teacher Education Reform as Political Theater: Russian Policy Dramas
Rooted in anthropology of policy, Teacher Education Reform as Political Theater (2019, SUNY Press) presents a critical analysis of recent educational reforms in Russia. The book explores how a group of Russian reformers used globally circulated scripts to transform purposes of schooling, reshape teachers’ work, and redesign teacher education. The Russian case serves as a mirror for examining policies that position educational systems at the service of global corporations. The book contributes to social foundations by providing an original framework of political theater that reveals how reformers’ pursuit of quality normalizes social inequality and disguises the introduction of a conservative cultural change.
Reviews
Min, S. (2022). Review published in the International Review of Education
“Aydarova’s scrutiny of Russian teacher education reform in the global neoliberal context offers readers a deeper understanding of globally interconnected educa-tion reform processes and transnational flows of neoliberal ideologies. The case of Russian education reform demonstrates how global transformation in education promotes neoliberal agendas by emphasising national economic competitiveness and corporate benefits.“
Rappoport, A. (2021). Review published in Anthropology and Education Quarterly
The readers “will appreciate the level of detail and nuanced contextualization of all events and actors that appear on this stage. This book is a must read for education policy specialists and scholars who are interested in school reform in Russia and Eastern Europe. It will also appeal to specialists in international and comparative education.”
Kerr, S. (2020). Review published in Slavic Review
“This is a rich analysis of Russian policy making, and the framework of political theater encourages us to think in new ways about what has happened and what may happen in that domain.”
Available for purchase:
Elena (Helen) Aydarova 