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NEOLIBERALISM AND
EDUCATION SYSTEMS IN
CONFLICT

Neoliberalism and Education Systems in Conflict: Exploring Challenges Across the


Globe explores how neoliberal values are imprinted onto educational spaces and
practices, and by consequence, fundamentally reshape how we come to under­
stand the educational experience at the school or system level. Countries across
the globe struggle with the residual effects of increased accountability, choice/
voucher systems, and privatization.
The first section of the book discusses the direct imprint of neoliberal policies
on educational spaces. The next section examines the more indirect outcomes of
neoliberalism, including the challenges of inequity, access, violence, racism, and
social justice issues as a result of neoliberal ideologies. Each section of the book
includes case studies about education systems across the globe, including Britain,
Middle East, Turkey, United States, China, and Chile written by international
contributors.
Neoliberalism and Education Systems in Conflict is essential reading for educators,
scholars, and faculty of educational leadership and policy globally.

Khalid Arar is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy, Col­


lege of Education at Texas State University,Texas, USA.

Deniz Örücü is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at


Başkent University Faculty of Education,Ankara,Turkey.

Jane Wilkinson is Professor of Educational Leadership at Monash University and


an adjunct in the School of Education at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga,
Australia.

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NEOLIBERALISM AND
EDUCATION SYSTEMS
IN CONFLICT
Exploring Challenges
Across the Globe

Edited by Khalid Arar,


Deniz Örücü and Jane Wilkinson

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First published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt 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
© 2021 Taylor & Francis
The right of Khalid Arar, Deniz Örücü and Jane Wilkinson to be identified
as the authors 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
Names:Arar, Khalid, editor. | Örücü, Deniz, editor. | Wilkinson, Jane,
1958- editor.
Title: Neoliberalism and education systems in conflict : exploring
challenges across the globe / edited by Khalid Arar, Deniz Örücü and
Jane Wilkinson.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020037279 (print) | LCCN 2020037280 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367352554 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367362935 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780429345135 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Education--Economic aspects--Case studies. | Capitalism
and education--Case studies. | Privatization in education--Case studies. |
Neoliberalism--Case studies.
Classification: LCC LC65 .N46 2020 (print) | LCC LC65 (ebook) |
DDC 338.4/7374013--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020037279
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020037280

ISBN: 978-0-367-35255-4 (hbk)


ISBN: 978-0-367-36293-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-34513-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

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CONTENTS

List of Figures vii


List of Tables viii
Editors and Contributors ix
Foreword: Bob Lingard xvi
Preface: Khalid Arar, Deniz Örücü and Jane Wilkinson xx

1 A Call to Explore and Map The Educational Challenges


Under Neoliberalism Across The Globe 1
Khalid Arar, Deniz Örücü and Jane Wilkinson

PART I
Challenges of Markets, Poverty and Privatization 11
2 Challenges of School Principals and Teachers in Private
Schools: Comparison of Two Cases in the Middle East 13
Deniz Örücü and Khalid Arar
3 Neoliberal Challenges in Public Schools in
Hong Kong:An East Asian Model? 29
Paula Kwan, Benjamin Yuet Man Li and Trevor Tsz-lok Lee
4 Principals’ Leadership Tensioned by Market Pressures
in Chile 42
Romina Madrid Miranda, Claudia Córdoba Calquín
and Catherine Flores Gómez
5 Policy–Practice Decoupling: Education Inspection
Reform in China 56
Meng Tian and Xianjun Lan
6 Issues in Pre- and Primary School Education in
Rural Turkey:Teachers’ Experiences and Perspectives 74
Ecem Karlıdağ-Dennis and Zeynep Temiz

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vi Contents

7 Stepping Up or Stepping Aside? The Necessity of


Balancing Promise with Critique 90
Maysaa Barakat and Daniel Reyes-Guerra
8 Neoliberalism – The Straw that Broke the Back of Lebanon’s
Education System 107
Julia Mahfouz
9 The Neoliberal Challenge to Leading in Disadvantaged
Public Primary Schools in Victoria,Australia 118
Katrina MacDonald, Jane Wilkinson and Corine Rivalland

PART II
Challenges of Immigration, Conflict
and Social Injustice 133
10 Educational Administration Challenges in the
Destabilised and Disintegrating States of Syria
and Yemen:The Intersectionality of Violence, Culture,
Ideology, Class/Status Group and Postcoloniality 135
Eugenie A. Samier
11 Commonalities in Schools and Education
Systems Around The World Shifting from
Welfarism to Neo Liberalism:Are the Kids Okay? 151
Alison Taysum and Carole Collins Ayanlaja
12 Doing Social Justice Leadership in Challenging
Circumstances: Principals’ Perspectives 166
Rinnelle Lee-Piggott, Dyanis Conrad-Popova
and Dennis A. Conrad
13 How Leaders of Outstanding Muslim Schools in England
Interpret Islamic Educational Values in a Neoliberal
Climate:“British Values”And Market Competition 183
Fella Lahmar
Concluding Remarks:The Global/Local Nexus of School
Challenges Under Neoliberal Policies:What Next? 199
Khalid Arar, Deniz Örücü and Jane Wilkinson

Index 206

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FIGURES

3.1 Location of Hong Kong with respect to the Pearl River Delta 31
3.2 Government educational expenditure in 2000–2017 38
5.1 Policy–practice decoupling analytical framework 57
5.2 Education inspection structure in District A 65
11.1 Taysum and Collins Ayanlaja’s education systems’
Framework for Leadership, Logic and Language for
Happiness and Peace 162
12.1 Principals’ social justice leadership practices targeting
socioeconomic disadvantage 174

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TABLES

6.1 Mandatory service region in Turkey 76


6.2 Annual point scale given to teachers each year in Turkey 77
6.3 Demographic information of participating teachers 80
6.4 Summary of categories and themes that emerged from the data 81
12.1 Schools’ information 170
12.2 Participants’ information 171
13.1 Parents’ top three reasons for enrolling their children
in the Vision-SS 194

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EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Editors
Khalid Arar, PhD is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy
at the School Improvement Doctoral Program, College of Education, Texas
State University and an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Leadership in
Education and Middle-East regional editor of Journal of Education Administration and
History and a member of the editorial boards, Journal of Education Administration,
Leadership and Policy in Schools, International Journal of Educational Management,
Higher Education Policy, Applied Research in Higher Education. Member of UCEA
Center for the Study of International School Leadership. For the past two
decades, he conducted studies in the Middle East, Europe, and North America
on the issues of equity, diversity, and social justice in K-12 and higher education.
His recent books include Migrants, Refugees and Global Challenges in Higher
Education (Peter Lang Publishing, with Kussai Haj-Yehia, David Ross, and Yasar
Kondakci); Education, Immigration and Migration: Policy, Leadership and Praxis for
a Changing World (Emerald Publishing, with Jeffrey Brooks & Ira Bogotch);
Turbulence, Empowerment and Marginalization in International Education
Governance Systems (Emerald Publishing, with Alison Taysum), and School
Leadership for Refugees’ Education (Routledge).

Deniz Örücü is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at


Başkent University, Faculty of Education, Department of Educational Sciences,
Turkey. Her research interests are epistemological underpinnings of educational
administration and leadership field, refugee schools and leadership, emotion
management in education, multicultural education, higher education, educational
policy & change management, and qualitative research methodology. Her latest
research covers education policy and educational leadership in Syrian refugee
schools, the school leaders’ policy mediation styles in different countries, and
educational leadership within complex and challenging settings and privatization
of education. She is the Co-convenor for Turkey in Network 26 (Educational
leadership) of European Educational Research Association (EERA).

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x Editors and Contributors

Jane Wilkinson is Professor of Educational Leadership, Faculty of Education at


Monash University Associate Dean, Graduate Research and an adjunct in the
School of Education at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga. Jane is Lead
Editor of the Journal of Educational Administration and History and a member of
the Australian Council of Educational Leadership, Victorian executive. Jane’s
research interests are in the areas of educational leadership for social justice, with
a particular focus on issues of gender and ethnicity and theorising educational
leadership as practice/praxis. She is a co-developer of the theory of practice
architectures (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edwards-Groves, Hardy, Grootenboer, &
Bristol, 2014). Jane has published widely in the areas of women and leadership,
refugee students, and theorizing leadership as practice/praxis. Her most recent
study examines the role played by school and community leaders in building
social cohesion. Jane’s new books include Educational leadership as a culturally-
constructed practice: New directions and possibilities (with Laurette Bristol, Routledge,
2019) and Navigating complex spaces: Refugee background students transitioning into
higher education (with Loshini Naidoo, Misty Adoniou and Kip Langat, Singapore:
Springer, 2019). Jane is lead editor of the Journal of Educational Administration and
History and a member of the editorial boards, Journal of Educational Leadership,
Policy and Practice; Journal of Gender Studies and International Journal of Leadership
in Education.

Contributors
Carole Collins Ayanlaja as an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Educational Leadership, educates and elevates adult learners through delivery of
interactive hybrid instruction that prepares professionals for a career in teacher
leadership and service as principals and superintendents. Her professional career
spans over two decades of combined public school teaching, school leadership,
district leadership, and university teaching. Her instructional aim through
delivery techniques and content amplifies equity and inclusive practices in
Educational Leadership. An internal lens that propels her research is an agenda
that focuses on the influence of racial, social, economic, and cultural conditions
on family and community engagement with schools, student outcome, and
issues of leadership and governance. Her methodological approach is rooted in
constructivist and interpretivist paradigms. She is equity driven and promotes
respect, opportunity, and access for all.

Maysaa Barakat, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational


Leadership and Research Methodology at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). She
received her PhD in educational leadership from Auburn University, Alabama
in 2014. Before that, she served as a school administrator in Egypt for 15 years
in multiple American and International schools. Dr. Barakat is a University

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Editors and Contributors xi

Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) Clark Scholar alumna. She


serves as President Elect for Florida Association for Professors of Educational
Leadership and is a Board Member of the Journal of Cases in Educational
Administration. Dr. Barakat is a faculty Senate member at FAU and a member of
the Leaders for social Justice as well as the Learning and Teaching of Educational
Leadership Special Interest Groups for the American Educational Researchers
Association (AERA). Her research interests and publications focus on issues
of identity, diversity, cultural competence, educational leadership preparation,
and international education. She has authored many articles and book chapters
published nationally and internationally and has presented her research in top
Educational Leadership national and international conferences.

Dennis A. Conrad, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Education, SUNY – Potsdam


and currently Manager, Student Support Services Division, Ministry of
Education in Trinidad and Tobago. His current research interests include the
intersections of educational leadership, learner diversity, inclusive, and social
justice education. He is the co-editor of two texts: Caribbean Discourse in
Inclusive Education and Achieving Inclusive Education in the Caribbean and
Beyond: From Philosophy to Praxis.

Dyanis Conrad-Popova, PhD is an assistant professor of Curriculum and


Instruction at the University of South Dakota teaching Foundations of Education
and courses related to the teaching of English as an additional language (ESL/
ENL). She also holds a graduate certificate in Race and Social Policy. Dr.
Conrad-Popova’s research interests include educational equity, implicit bias,
culturally responsive and anti-bias education, critical social justice, and the
deconstruction of colonial legacies. Her professional memberships include the
American Educational Research Association (AERA), the National Association
for Multicultural Education (NAME), and Teachers of English to Speakers of
Other Languages (TESOL).

Claudia Córdoba Calquín is an associated professor in the Department of


Education at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile. Her research interests include
school choice in socioeconomically disadvantaged families and socioeconomic
segregation between schools. She has also developed studies on teacher
professional initiation. Nowadays, her research projects address school choice on
migrant families and concentration of migrant students in some schools.

Catherine Flores Gómez is an assistant professor in the Department of Education


at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile. She lectures in Literacy and Educational
Leadership. Her research interests include beginning teacher attrition and
induction and pre-service professional practices. Her doctoral research centred

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xii Editors and Contributors

on beginning teacher’s induction programs. Most recently, she has expanded on


her research into induction and is seeking to establish links between induction
and practicum experiences.

Ecem Karlıdağ-Dennis holds a PhD from the University of Nottingham, School


of Education, UK. She works as a researcher at University of Northampton
at the Institute for Social Innovation and Impact. She is experienced working
in educational projects involving disadvantaged youth. For instance, Ecem
has been working on National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP)
that supports social mobility for young people from underrepresented groups
who desire to go into higher education. Her research interests include critical
education policy, social justice, and gender.

Paula Kwan is an Associate Professor at the Department of Educational


Administration and Policy and the Director of the Hong Kong Centre for the
Development of Educational Leadership at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong. Her research interests are educational leadership, school governance, and
vice-principalship.

Fella Lahmar holds a PhD from the University of Nottingham and is a Fellow of
the Higher Education Academy. She is the Course Leader for the MEd Islamic
Education: New Perspectives programme at the University of Bolton, UK. Prior
to that, she worked as a Research Associate at the University of Nottingham
examining the complexities of international/transnational Higher Education in
different contexts. She publishes in the field of Islamic education theory and
practice.

Xianjun Lan is Vice principal of Li Da Middle School, taking charge of school’s


moral education, campus safety, and arts. Before taking on the principalship, he
worked as a Chinese literature teacher and later an education inspector.

Trevor Tsz-lok Lee is an assistant professor at the Department of Education


Policy and Leadership at The Education University of Hong Kong. His research
interests are social stratification in education, youth studies, and parental
involvement in education.

Rinnelle Lee-Piggott, PhD (University of Nottingham, UK) is a lecturer in


Educational Leadership at the University of the West Indies (St Augustine). Her
research interests focus on principal leadership and development, school culture,
and school improvement. She serves as a reviewer for several journals focusing
on educational leadership and is also an educational institution evaluator.
Most recent publications include “New principals’ emotions: Interactions with

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Editors and Contributors xiii

‘inherited’ school cultures” (2019), in an edited book by I. Oplatka & K. Arar


and Social justice leadership: Principals’ perspectives in Trinidad and Tobago
(2019), with Dennis A. Conrad and Launcelot Brown in Research in Educational
Administration & Leadership, 4(3), 554–589. DOI:10.30828/real/2019.3.5

Benjamin Yuet Man Li is a Research Associate at the Hong Kong Centre for
the Development of Educational Leadership at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong. His research interests are school innovation, school governance, and
school administration.

Katrina MacDonald is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts


and Education, Deakin University. Her research and teaching interests are in
educational leadership, social justice, and the sociology of education. She has
recently completed doctoral study examining the social justice understandings
and practices of principals working in some of the most disadvantaged locations
in Australia. She is a former anthropologist, archaeologist, and primary and
secondary teacher in Victoria, Australia.

Julia Mahfouz is an assistant professor in the Leadership for Educational


Organizations program, School of Education and Human Development at the
University of Colorado-Denver. Her research explores the social, emotional,
and cultural dynamics of urban and rural educational settings and their
effects on school climate and school improvement utilizing qualitative and
mixed methodologies. Her work seeks to deepen our understanding of social
emotional learning (SEL) through lenses of intervention implementation, school
improvement efforts, and preparation of school leaders to create spaces equitable
for all where all could flourish utilizing policy as a lever for change and as a
powerful context that shapes education at multiple levels of the system.

Romina Madrid Miranda is a researcher at the Center of Education Leadership


for school improvement of the Pontifical Catholic University in Valparaíso.
Her research and interest topics include school leadership, school–family
relationships, and university-schools’ relationships in the context of teacher
preparation programs. Her doctoral research was an ethnography focused on
school–family relationships in the context of school choice in Chile.

Daniel Reyes-Guerra, PhD is an Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic


University’s School Leadership Program. He is the FAU Project Director for the
Wallace Foundation’s University Principal Preparation Initiative and Director of
three innovative university-district programs: the Principal Rapid Orientation
and Preparation in Educational Leadership (PROPEL) program with Broward
County Public Schools, Leadership for Excellence and Equity (ExEq) program

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xiv Editors and Contributors

with Palm Beach Public Schools, and Educational Leadership: Internship to


Excellence (ELITE), a similar program with the St. Lucie and Martin County
school districts. Other endeavors include being the Coordinator of FAU’s School
Leaders Program, previous Chair of the Learning and Teaching of Educational
Leadership Special Interest Group for the American Educational Researchers
Association, and Board Member of the Journal of Research on Leadership in
Education. Since graduating from Cornell University with a BA, he earned
his M.Ed. from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, and PhD from
FAU. His areas of research include School Improvement, Internships, School-
District Partnerships, Social Justice, Systems Thinking and Dynamics, Strategic
Leadership, and School Climate and Culture. Among his recent awards is FAU’s
Presidential Leadership Award, presented in 2016.

Corine Rivalland is a lecturer in Early Childhood and Equity and Social Justice
Education in the Faculty of Education, Monash University. Her research focus
addresses alternative theories of child development and equity and social justice.
Her work aims to contribute to the early childhood educational research with the
view of implementing more equitable and socially just early childhood teaching
and learning practices. She is a full member of the Child and Community
Development research group, a Research Fellow of the Collaborative Research
Network (Excellence in Research in Early Years Education) and Monash University
representative on the Department of Education and Early Childhood Advisory
Board.

Eugenie A. Samier is a Reader at the University of Strathclyde. She is author


of many articles, chapters, and books in educational and public administration,
leadership, and management studies focused primarily on organisational culture
and esthetics, covert and political behaviour, values and ethics, international and
comparative studies, postcolonialism, neoliberalism, historical and biographical
studies, and cultural security as well as Islamic ethics, leadership and public
administration traditions. She has been a guest researcher and lecturer at many
Western and Gulf universities and serves on the boards of a number of journals
and a book series with Springer.

Alison Taysum is an international researcher and Educational Consultant


working in new partnerships in the quadruple helix to optimize interactions
with bottom up Open Access knowledge bases to mainstream innovations in the
wider society. Such knowledge mobilization propels community cohesion with
entrepreneurial economies. She is committed to Empowering Young Societal
Innovators for Equity and Renewal (EYSIER) to use these knowledge bases
to synthesise implicit personal knowledge with external societal knowledge
from STEM, Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities. Central to this is evidence

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Editors and Contributors xv

informed and ethical leadership, logic and language of equity (see alisontaysum.
com). Alison is a committed Christian who, first, loves God and second loves
humans with or without protected characteristics of the Equality Act, 2010
(Equalities and Human Rights Commission 2010). For Christians, all other
rules hang upon these two.

Zeynep Temiz is an Associate Professor in the Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey


University Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education, Turkey.
She is the head of the Program of Early Childhood Education. She completed
her PhD and MS at Middle East Technical University and her undergraduate
studies at Dokuz Eylül University. Dr. Temiz worked at Florida State University
as a visiting scholar for a year. She is one of the luckiest researchers as her research
interests lie in the area of her passion in life. Over 35 years of keen interest on
picture books directed her to research on children’s narrative skills. She has a
passion for observing, spending time, and cultivating in nature and implements
a nature-based teaching with young children while seeking to improve the
educational standards of disadvantaged children. Currently, she works with low
SES and marginalized groups.

Meng Tian is an Assistant Professor in Educational Leadership and Management


at the University of Bath, UK. Her research interests lie in distributed leadership,
social justice leadership, leaders’ and teachers’ professional development,
and educational leadership policymaking. She holds an appointment as the
co-Convenor for the Network 26 Educational leadership at the European
Educational Research Association (EERA) and the Co-Director for the Centre
for Research in Education in China and East Asia (CRECEA) at the University
of Bath, UK.

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FOREWORD

It is a confronting pleasure to write this Foreword to Khalid Arar, Deniz Örücü


and Jane Wilkinson’s edited collection Neoliberalism and Education Systems in
Conflict. This is so because the book details in a granular fashion the direct and
indirect depredations of neoliberalism on schools and school systems across the
globe, including in China, Hong Kong, the UK, the USA, Australia, in nations
of the Middle East, South America, and the Caribbean. It then raises issues for
ethical and educative leadership practices in such systems and schools affected
by these neoliberal economic policies that have been rearticulated as systemic
education policies.
The global reach of this collection is impressive, just as the situations docu­
mented are deeply concerning for those committed to more socially just school­
ing and a more socially just world. Think for a moment of the reality of 29.5
million refugees in the world today; think of the growing inequality within and
between nations (Piketty, 2013) and of the impact on the provision and expe­
riences of schooling for many young people; think of racism and sexism, and
of the impact of war and political upheavals. The evidence provided is deeply
confronting and concerning. Yet, the goal is not shock and horror, but what can
and should be done. In responding to criticisms of his sociology of education
work that it was all about the reproduction of inequalities, Bourdieu (2008, p. 53)
noted, “It is by knowing the laws of reproduction that we can have a chance,
however small, of minimizing the reproductive effect of the educational institu­
tion.” These chapters in this collection in their glocal mapping of the neoliberal
impact on schooling similarly proffer knowledge and understanding as a step
toward political action and progressive change. They also imply the necessity of
the broadest knowledge for effective leadership in schools and school systems and
the centrality of ethical and politically aware leadership to achieving those ends.
While neoliberal policy frames have been hegemonic in one way or another
across the globe since the end of the Cold War, this frame always plays out in what
comparative educators refer to as “path dependent ways.” This is well illustrated
in the chapters in this collection. For example, the neoliberal has played out vastly

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Foreword xvii

differently in say China than in say Chile. As such, the history, postcolonial situ­
ation, politics, culture, geopolitical positioning, and place in the global economy
mediate the expression of the neoliberal in the national systems dealt with.
The introduction to the collection uses the verb “imprinted” to describe the
way this global phenomenon of neoliberalism touches down or is translated in
these different nations. Whatever word is used, we must acknowledge that there
are global, national, and local actors (individuals, groups, organisations) involved
politically in this seeming hegemony of the neoliberal. The neoliberal has been a
political project pursued by certain interests desiring to roll-back the egalitarian
achievements of Keynesian welfare statism.
As the collection illustrates, the impact of the neoliberal in education has
been through the restructuring of the state (new public management and net­
work governance), through privatisation and marketisiation and explicitly in
schooling through the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM). Yet, just
as with the broader neoliberal political framing, GERM manifests in different
ways in different national systems of schooling, and there are as well resist­
ances to it. While policy discourses in schooling now might flow globally, their
national and systemic manifestations are divergent and play out in different ways.
Furthermore, while global education policy discourses (e.g. GERM, a human
capital construction of the purposes of schooling, test-based accountability) flow
into national and local systems, they manifest in multiple and variegated ways
and are always rearticulated as they move to affect leadership and pedagogical
practices in schools. The nation-state has been affected by such global flows,
the globalisation of the economy, and global hegemony of the neoliberal, but it
remains important, but now works in different ways.
The collection was put together before the impact of the COVID-19 global
pandemic, which has strengthened the rise of nationalisms and ethno-nationalisms
in the face of neoliberal globalization. This emergence has been clearly manifest
in President Trump’s America First, Make America Great Again slogans, in Brexit
and in the rise of populist right wing governments across the globe (see Lingard,
2021). The pandemic has strengthened these new worrying nationalisms. Yet
within nations, the US being a good case in point, the neoliberal remains domi­
nant. This right-wing ethno-nationalism is a regressive, reactionary politics of
resistance to the neoliberal and will achieve nothing for the poor and disadvan­
taged. It is clear, though, that effective responses to the pandemic demand
effective local, global and national politics. This collection argues similarly in
respect of the depredations of the neoliberal on schooling and resistances to them.
There needs to be a multiscalar politics of opposition and resistance to the
neoliberal generally and specifically in schooling. Education International,
the global federation of teacher unions, is important in such politics, but so is the
work of leaders in national school systems and in local schools, the focus of
this collection.

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xviii Foreword

The focus of the neoliberal has been on continuous economic growth and as
such this focus neglects the effects of this ideology on our natural world in this
period of climate emergency, the age of the Anthropocene. The endangered
state of our planet and of all species must be an acknowledged context of moral,
politically aware and progressive educational leadership today. A central critique
here of the neoliberal is its erroneous and dangerous assumption of the infinite
nature of resources. In stark contrast, there needs to be acknowledgment of
the finite nature of our resources and consideration of how that anti-neoliberal
observation needs to be put into effect in schooling, specifically in relation to
environmental and sustainability education, but also more broadly, including in
leadership practices (Rappleye & Komatsu, 2020).
For me, the significance of this collection on school and system leadership in
this time of the neoliberal is that it stresses the deep morality and acute politi­
cal awareness necessary for effective, progressive and socially just leadership in
schooling at this moment. It also documents the vastly different conditions under
which such leaders work in different parts of the world. We also must acknowl­
edge that the concept of social justice needs to be continually rethought, recon­
ceptualised; as Nancy Fraser (2013) has so persuasively argued, globalization has
significant implications for how we conceptualise and rethink, as well as enact,
social justice today. Furthermore, the reconstitution of the concept in reductive
ways in many schooling systems though a test constructed concept (social justice
as the strength of the correlation between a student’s social class background and
test results) also needs to be retethered to a conceptual frame.
This collection does what many of the voluminous number of books on lead­
ership, and indeed on educational leadership, fail to do: that is, acknowledge
that effective leadership work is moral and political. This is why it has been
a (confronting) pleasure to write this Foreword. The book proffers confront­
ing accounts of the impact of the neoliberal, but these accounts also provide
insights that make hope practical rather than despair convincing in respect of
challenging the neoliberal in progressive ways and reconstituting more socially
just schooling.

Bob Lingard
Emeritus Professor, The University of Queensland
Professorial Fellow, Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education
Australian Catholic University

References
Bourdieu, P. (2008). Political Interventions: Social Science and Political Action. London:Verso.
Fraser, N. (2013). Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis.
New York:Verso.

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Foreword xix

Lingard, B. (2021). Globalisation and Education:Theorising and Researching Changing Imbrications


in Education Policy. London: Routledge.
Piketty, T. (2013). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Boston, MA: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press.
Rappleye, J., & Komatsu, H. (2020).Towards (comparative) educational research for a finite
future. Comparative Education. doi: 10.1080/03050068.2020.1741197.

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PREFACE

Khalid Arar, Deniz Örücü and Jane Wilkinson

This book examines the direct and indirect challenges posed by neoliberalism
faced by schools and educational systems across the globe. It does by drawing
on the voices of researchers and practitioners. As the defining political and eco­
nomic paradigm of our age (Apple, 2006), neoliberalism has shaped the current
educational landscape; spread its global education reforms or GERMs (Sahlberg,
2012); and re/formed the work of school leaders and teachers through the rede­
fining of education as a commodity and private good within a market economy
(Ball, 2013; Blackmore, 2016; Fuller, 2019).
Within this frame, this book offers a critical view of the contemporary edu­
cational leadership challenges that are faced by schools and systems across the
globe when dealing with neoliberal discourses, policies, and ideologies. It aims
to answer the following questions:

1 What are the challenging school circumstances that emerge as a result of


neoliberal agendas around the world?
2 How do schools and education systems position themselves in such chal­
lenging contexts?
3 How does school leadership, policy, or praxis tackle direct or indirect neo­
liberal challenges in education in different countries?

In so doing, we aim to produce a glocal map which identifies the terrain of


challenges that schools and systems face, shaped by a neoliberal imprint.
We have classified the papers based on the types of challenges they have tack­
led in terms of direct or indirect outcomes of neoliberalism. The chapters are
located in two sections. The first section covers the direct drivers behind these
challenges and is entitled Challenges of Markets, Poverty and Privatization. The sec­
ond section covers the more indirect outcomes of neoliberalism and is entitled
Challenges of Immigration, Conflict and Social In/Justice.
Following the first chapter of the book which raises the call to explore and
map the educational challenges under neoliberalism across the globe by Khalid
Arar, Deniz Örücü and Jane Wilkinson, the first section of the book exploring

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Preface xxi

the direct imprint of neoliberal policies on educational spaces begins in Chapter 2


with a comparison of school leaders and teachers’ challenges in private schools in
Turkey and Arab schools in Israel .
Through the voices of the participants of an ongoing study, Deniz Örücü
and Khalid Arar portray and compare the policy and school based challenges of
two contrasting contexts. It leads the authors to question the neoliberal poli­
cies determining the context and operation of privatisation in education. The
corporate agenda, market forces, and the marketization of teacher and princi­
pal labour, which deviate from core educational ideals, are powerful levers in
shaping the work of school leaders and teachers, and subsequently lead to these
practitioners enduring major pressures and dilemmas.
In Chapter 3, a challenging case from the Hong Kong context represents the
impact of performative culture of accountability. Paula Kwan, Benjamin Yuet Man
Li and Trevor Tsz-lok Lee examine the unique challenging policy environment
confronting Hong Kong schools from the perspective of neoliberal discourses.
They reveal the reactive, as well as strategic responses of school leaders and
teachers in coping with these challenges.
Without a case from Chile, the impact of neoliberalism on educational leader­
ship would be incomplete. In Chapter 4, Romina Madrid Miranda, Claudia Córdoba
Calquín and Catherine Flores Gómez offer an analytical view of two main reforms
that affect school leadership directly in Chile: the national voucher system and
the national system of quality assurance through testing. They vividly illustrate
how recent reforms that prohibit selection of students challenge principals to
move toward inclusive and collaborative approaches whilst conflicting with the
historical way principals have responded to the Chilean neoliberal agenda.
China, the world’s fastest growing economy, also poses the paradox of auton­
omy and accountability through a recent inspection reform which posed key
challenges for practitioners. In Chapter 5, Meng Tian and Xianjun Lan reflect on
the policy–practice decoupling in the Chinese education inspection system from
the 1970s to contemporary times under the Communist regime. While doing so,
they present a critical policy analysis of their findings and focus on how policies
have/have not been translated into practices.
In Chapter 6, we return to Turkey to read about the challenges facing rural
schools’ teachers. As the country has vast socioeconomic differences across
schools and regions, Ecem Karlıdağ-Dennis and Zeynep Temiz investigate the chal­
lenges that early childhood and primary education teachers and students experi­
ence from the teachers’ personal perspectives. They draw on critical education
theorists to analyse the related issues of privatization of education and class ine­
qualities as neoliberal policies. They examine how the privatization of public
education has resulted in regional differences in equity and economic security.
Taking the reader to another educational dimension and country, Maysaa
Barakat and Daniel Reyes-Guerra narrate in Chapter 7 on the USA context. They

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xxii Preface

portray how, while maintaining elements of school leadership preparation pro­


gram curriculum tied to standards and accountability measures, a redesign team
rejected the inclusion of neoliberal vocabulary and conceptions as the lexicon
and theoretical framework for learning. Examining a partnership between a
school leadership program, a donor organization, and multiple districts engaged
in the redesign of a Master’s Degree program leading to assistant principal certi­
fication, they promote a language and lens of school leadership learning focused
on student holistic outcomes of success. The goal was to take a comprehensive
approach to school leadership that extended beyond the narrow focus/definition
of achievement and accountability.
In Chapter 8, Julia Mahfouz brings her conceptual insights into the Lebanese
experience as she examines the problems arising from the neoliberal practices
and discourses reproduced and transformed into this educational system. She
argues that the influence of neoliberalism has to a great extent undermined
social justice and the quality of education despite explicit intentions of bring­
ing communities together. Further, she contends that the competitive edge has
strengthened the Lebanese private educational system at the expense of the pub­
lic schools and the communities that these schools serve.
This section closes with Chapter 9, a comprehensive case study from Australia
by Katrina MacDonald, Jane Wilkinson and Corine Rivalland. They outline how the
leadership practices of three principals, working in some of the most disadvan­
taged areas in Victoria, Australia, are structured by and structuring of a public
education system heavily influenced by neoliberal ideologies and a performative
accountability culture. They focus on the highly gendered experiences of the
school leaders, which amounted to invisible labour, labour that was not valued or
measured in performative accountability regimes and yet was crucial in enhanc­
ing students’ academic and social outcomes.
Part II, Challenges of Immigration, Conflict and Social InJustice, deals with the
more indirect outcomes of neoliberalism. In this respect, the contributions here
lend themselves to the challenges of inequity, access, violence, racism and social
justice issues as a result of neoliberal ideolgies.
In Chapter 10, Eugenie A. Samier takes us to the Middle East and focus on
the challenges faced by school teachers and heads in the “failed” or “collapsed”
states of Syria and Yemen where a complex set of factors combine to produce an
extremely violent and insecure environment of war, terrorism, mortality, and
severe deprivation. They examine internationalising the educational adminis­
tration field to include the conditions under which schools operate in conflict
zone countries. They propose a new type of intersectionality theory that would
include the factors of “collapsed” or “"disintegrating” states such as Syria and
Yemen, which have experienced extreme violence and humanitarian crises.
Alison Taysum and Carole Collins Ayanlaja discuss in Chapter 11 the ways in
which education systems swing from one political ideology to another when

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Preface xxiii

there are changes in power in the government. They draw on evidence from
23 groundwork Case Studies from China, England, France, Israel (Arab per­
spective), Italy, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Russia, United
States (Higher Education perspective), Egypt, Finland, Greece, Israel ( Jewish
perspective), Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Germany, Hungary, Guyana,
India, Pakistan, and the US (K-12 perspective). The authors delve into the com­
monalities in schools and education systems around the world, shifting from
welfarism to neo liberalism while questioning whether the “kids are ok.”
In Chapter 12, we are informed about undertaking social justice leadership in
challenging circumstances in Trinidad and Tobago in schools with diverse popu­
lations. Rinnelle Lee-Piggott, Dyanis Conrad-Popova and Dennis A. Conrad present
a tapestry of the nature of the socioeconomic challenges faced by three primary
and three secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago, sharing their perspectives
on their social justice leadership practices within an educational landscape of
historical inequity. We read about how principals face a myriad of challenges
where they must engage in practices to facilitate student success, essentially tar­
geting “symptoms” of socioeconomic challenges.
Finally, in Chapter 13, Fella Lahmar presents us with the leadership challenges
faced by an Islamic School in the UK, which has to interpret “British” educational
values under neoliberal market dynamics, and the contradictions that ensue. She
examines changes to policy, considering how neoliberal ideals of market competi­
tion are shaping and reshaping the education system in Britain and how leaders
enable the alignment of their interpretation of “Islamic educational values” with
an Ofsted “outstanding” rating alongside parental market demands for “Islamic
schooling.” She expands on the challenges of change and diversity for Muslim
school leaders working within both educational policies’ enablers and constraints,
parental demands and the broader socio-political context. Twelve contributions
from different parts of the world exploring different contexts provide us with deep
insights into the various challenges faced by education professionals and schools
operating within various manifestations of neoliberal ideologies. Challenges are
manifest in a variety of forms in policy, leadership, and praxis and contextual ele­
ments trigger or alleviate the varied issues that ensue.
As we add the finishing touches to this book, in April 2020, the world strug­
gles with the unprecedented health crises of COVID-19, which has/will have
dramatic consequences for social, political and economic systems. The schools
and systems presented in this book are already in lockdown, and we can antici­
pate that they will face newer challenges in finances, delivery of education,
access, equity, social justice, and adverse forms of surveillance. These will defi­
nitely be the subject of investigation for researchers. We are witnessing how one
tiny virus can damage the “holy” idea of neoliberalism and weaken humankind.
We anticipate the challenging school circumstances portrayed in this book are
now likely to be exacerbated by this global pandemic.

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xxiv Preface

We hope you enjoy this book and that it contributes to a larger conversation
on the imprint and challenges for schools and their systems posed by neoliberal­
ism in local and global terms. In the end of the book, you will find our conclud­
ing thoughts providing a holistic look at the challenges, strategies, policy, and
practice reflected in the chapters towards building a glocal perspective.

References
Apple, M. W. (2006). Educating the “right” way: Markets, standards, god, and inequality. Bristol,
PA:Taylor & Francis.
Ball, S. J. (2013). Foucault, power, and education. New York, NY: Routledge.
Blackmore, J. (2016). Educational Leadership and Nancy Fraser. London, England: Routledge.
Fuller, K. (2019). “That would be my red line”: An analysis of headteachers’ resistance of
neoliberal education reforms. Educational Review, 71(1), 31–50.
Sahlberg, P. (2012). How GERM is infecting schools around the world? Retrieved from https://
pasisahlberg.com/text-test

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1
A CALL TO EXPLORE AND MAP
THE EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES
UNDER NEOLIBERALISM ACROSS
THE GLOBE
Khalid Arar, Deniz Örücü and Jane Wilkinson

Neoliberalism has reinvented the notion of the individual citizen within the
nation state into a particular form of competitive self-interest that moves beyond
national boundaries (Blackmore, 2016, p. 6). Neoliberal economic theory has
come to dominate bipartisan responses to economic globalization in most
Anglophonic Western Democracies that were affected by the rapid processes
of de-industrialization as fast mobile global capital sought cheaper labor in Asia
and South America (Apple, 2012). Whereas some western economies adopted
structural adjustment policies to maintain their global competitive advantage,
structural adjustment was also imposed as an economic experiment by inter­
national monetary bodies such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the
World Bank, and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development). Structural adjustment, an economic orthodoxy of the right wing
in the United States, advocated deregulation of financial and labor markets,
reduction of state welfare expenditure, privatization of education and health,
and small government (Blackmore, 2016, p. 6). The hegemony of neoliberal­
ism along with its inequitable effects has subsequently reshaped the project of
compulsory education and compounded the challenges schooling systems face.
The implications of this movement raise key questions for us as educators,
for example: What is the purpose of education in a neoliberal economy? What
happens in regard to issues of equity, equality, and diversity?; What are the
implications for the broader goals of education beyond the market?; How do
schools and systems respond?; Who suffers the most from these reforms?; and
finally, how do school leaders and teachers survive, if at all? The project that
is this book emerged out of such questions and discussions with colleagues. In
this respect, we aim to contribute meaningfully to a larger conversation around

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2 K Arar, D Örücü and J Wilkinson

how neoliberal values and ideals are variously imprinted into diverse educational
spaces and practices and the challenges experienced at school or system-level
across the globe. To achieve this goal, we have sought to uncover first the vari­
ous and unique challenges facing schools and second to understand the strategies
and practices employed by key actors within these schools or systems as they
variously navigate through a dominant global neoliberal agenda to better cater
for the needs of their students and societies.

Implications of Neoliberalism on Education


In terms of public education, researchers have argued that neoliberal govern-
mentality is “the key force affecting (and undermining) nation-states today”
(Olssen, Codd, & O’Neil, 2004, p. 13). The intensified assault on public educa­
tion is manifested in a number of ways including resource cutbacks and con­
straints and the increasing commodification of education (Apple, 2006; Ball,
2013). In addition to shaping educational systems across the globe, conserva­
tive ideologies and neoliberal policies have also impacted responses to the chal­
lenges faced by societies (Meshulam & Apple, 2014) such as economic instability,
wars, refugee flows, environmental damage, racism, sexism, and poverty (Arar,
Örücü, & Waite, 2020; Miller, 2019). One of the key impacts of neoliberal poli­
cies and practices on education is the issue of exclusion for economic inequal­
ity, the politics of coloniality, and practices of exclusion within education have
historically functioned to perpetuate the privilege and power of the wealthy and
powerful within the neoliberal policy scape globally (Ball, 2017; Darder, 2009).
The global education reforms that arise from varied neoliberal agendas lead
to varying and complex outcomes in different education systems and schools
(Chitpin & Portelli, 2019). Neoliberalism represents a deep restructuring of the
cultural, social, political, and economic relations of state, market, and society
based on the politics of financial deregulation that sever the economy from social
realities. As such, local expressions of neoliberalism are an outcome of how hier­
archically ordered social groups are organized in relations of power concerning
the “goods” and “ills” of social life in the context of wider structures of oppor­
tunity and constraint ( Jaffe & Quark, 2006). Thus, neoliberal policies at global
and local levels impact directly and indirectly on social systems in various nation
states (Carnoy, 2016; Keddie, 2012).
While neoliberalism does not have a scientific basis (English & Papa, 2018),
its emphasis on free markets, individualism, deregulation, privatization, and
welfare reform has direct outcomes through creating new rhetorical strategies,
identities, relationships, experts, and powers ( Jaffe & Quark, 2006). For exam­
ple, in relation to education systems (Ball, 2012; Barker; 2011), these include
an emphasis on: marketization, commercialization and privatization of pub­
lic schools, voucher systems, League Tables, accountability and performance

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Educational Challenges under Neoliberalism 3

measures changed labor educators (Milner & Stevenson, 2019), and socioeco­
nomic deprivation.
Regardless of the direct or indirect outcomes of a neoliberal agenda (Rizvi
& Lingard, 2010), the ideologies that underpin it have created major challenges
within education systems and schools locally and globally (Gross, 2020). We
do not blatantly claim that neoliberalism is the only driver behind the challenges
encountered by schools, but its impact in shaping school systems globally is evi­
denced through a range of research (Apple, 2006; Ball, 2012), particularly in
terms of the new challenges it poses for schools and systems (O’Donoghue &
Clarke, 2019).

Mapping Educational Challenges Posed by Neoliberalism


In this respect, challenge may be interpreted as a relative term. The concept
“challenging school circumstances,” was initially associated with the UK con­
text (MacBeath et al., 2007). Yet, the challenges of schools are a global phenom­
enon. In the UK context, they relate to failing schools, struggles with OFSTED
(Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) inspections,
League tables, low student achievement (Harris & Chapman, 2004), and dealing
with multicultural education (Banks & Banks, 1995). However, these are not
the only challenges that schools face and they can be applied to any geographi­
cal region at different levels. As MacBeath et al. (2007) asserted, “this is a story
that could be told in Sydney, Hong Kong, Paris, or New York,” thus reflecting
the universality of challenging school circumstances. However, as Gronn and
Ribbins exhorted in 1996, context needs to be taken seriously in any considera­
tions about educational leadership. Capturing the daily realities of schools and
local education systems is critical as their individual contexts and geographies
mean that challenges take on different forms and occur at different levels, with
responses to these challenges varying in developed and underdeveloped societies
(Oplatka, 2019).
In terms of the relative nature of challenges in education, a disadvantaged or
an advantaged school facing a regime of high accountability endures their own
challenges in one part of the world, whereas a school without proper infrastruc­
ture in an underprivileged village in Africa, Latin America, or in a war zone in
the Middle East experiences very different particular challenges. This is not to
underestimate such challenges, but to make the obvious point that particular strat­
egies and solutions in their own contexts will be required. In short, the challenges
that schools and their systems face depend on their cultural, socio-political, and
economic contexts, which we, as scholars, cannot underestimate. The chapters in
this book illustrate this point very clearly challenging circumstances are not only
about the deprivation of peripheric groups but also apply to advantaged schools.
No matter what their geography and context, all schools experience diverse forms

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4 K Arar, D Örücü and J Wilkinson

of challenges. Hence, our previous research has examined the forms that challeng­
ing school circumstances may take, particularly in terms of their global and local
neoliberal imprint (Arar, Kondakci, & Taysum, 2019).
The most direct challenges that schools face are poverty and its conse­
quences such as inequity, deprivation, and issues in regard to accessing school­
ing. Research has highlighted that high levels of poverty distract from a school’s
ability to improve student achievement (Rumberger & Palardy, 2005; Ylimaki,
Jacobson, & Drysdale, 2007). Students living in poverty often experience poor
nutrition, inadequate health services, and higher rates of illiteracy and criminal
behavior, which in turn can result in high rates of student transience, absence,
and indiscipline (Ylimaki et al., 2007). These circumstances inevitably lead
to lower achievement and other problems experienced by students in poverty.
Given that schools are the main means of survival for underprivileged and/or
initially low achieving students (Scheerens & Bosker, 1997), the effectiveness of
schools is particularly critical for such students. Other challenges include major
differences in the quality of schooling experienced in rural and isolated areas,
as well as the issues experienced by migrant and indigenous populations (Arar,
2020; Ezzani & Brooks, 2019; Mulford et al., 2008). Globally, regardless of their
contexts, schools are already challenged with League Tables (MacBeath et al.,
2007), international examinations, performativity and uncertainty (Ball, 2000),
and with neoliberal market policies in the form of exogenous or endogenous
forms of privatization (Ball & Youdell, 2008; Blackmore, 2016).
Another group of challenges are indirect outcomes, which mostly accompany
one or more of the direct challenges noted above. Wars, political upheavals, and
socioeconomic crises, especially in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, have led
to unprecedented numbers of displaced peoples (Arar, 2014; Arar et al., 2020;
Arar, Brooks, & Bogotch, 2019; Banks, 2017; Dryden-Peterson, 2016; Hatton,
2017; Waite, 2016) around the world, which directly impact the education sys­
tems of host countries. While statistics vary, by 2019, an unprecedented 70.8
million people around the world had been forced from home. Among them
are nearly 25.9 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of
18 and in need of education (UNHCR, 2019). In this respect, schools and
their education systems face major challenges with the increasing numbers of
refugee students (Arar, 2014; Arar, Örücü, & Ak Küçükçayır, 2018; Wilkinson
& Kaukko, 2019).
In this respect, the needs of societies, schools, and children are endless and
diverse (Arar et al., 2019; Brooks & Watson, 2018; Ezzani & Brooks, 2019).
Thus, major challenges that educational policy-makers and practitioners face
include developing sustainable improvement in schools facing challenging cir­
cumstances according to their specific contexts. Determining “the right sort of
ingredients, mixed to suit the contexts and circumstances of individual schools”
(West, Ainscow, & Stanford, 2005, p. 77) locally and globally is critical.

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Educational Challenges under Neoliberalism 5

More specifically, economic and political crises are related to cultural/eth­


nic clashes and prejudice around the globe (Brooks & Watson, 2018; Ezzani &
Brooks, 2019; Oplatka & Arar, 2016). These, in turn, have brought extreme
challenges for schools with consequent racialized student populations (Banks,
2017). Host nations for immigrants, refugees, and displaced people are trying
to pursue various policies to integrate refugee student populations (Arar, 2020;
Arar et al., 2019; Mundy & Dryden-Peterson, 2011). Regardless of their experi­
ence, this has led to increasing levels of turbulence as schools grapple with diverse
populations with very particular needs (Norberg & Gross, 2018). As such, there
is a growing need to reconcile national and multicultural discourses (Banks,
2017; Wilkinson, 2018) in education policy and practice. Therefore, integra­
tion, inclusivity, social justice, and building social cohesion (Blackmore, 2016;
Bogotch & Shields, 2014; Brooks, Normore, & Wilkinson, 2017; Theoharis,
2009; Waite & Arar, 2020) are some of the concepts that require immediate
attention in leading schools with these challenges (Waite & Bogotch, 2017). On
the one hand, concepts such as multicultural, intercultural education, and social
cohesion are discussed together as a remedy for socially just schools (Brooks et
al., 2017; Wilkinson et al., 2018) and as a more appropriate response to the new
context of globalization and the increasing convergence of different languages,
religions, cultural behavior, and ways of thinking (Arar et al., 2019; Portera,
2008). On the other hand, some scholars approach the use of such words with
caution as they allege that these concepts already signify a form of othering,
discrimination, and a move toward standardization as a reflection of neoliberal
policies (Portelli & Konecny, 2013). Even the use and meaning making of the
word “cultural diversity” is under debate, despite its attempt to promote social
justice (Blackmore, 2016). Hereby, the discursive ideology of White supremacy
is alleged to be produced (Brooks & Watson, 2018; Fylkesnes, 2018) and xeno­
phobia, alienation, and marginalization are still to be faced in different schools
sites (Arar, 2014; Arar et al., 2019).
We assume that neither a purely local nor global approach is possible in ana­
lyzing the challenges of schools and their systems around the globe which have
been influenced by neoliberalism. Therefore, the book adopts a glocal perspec­
tive. In a world where policies travel globally (Lingard, Rawolle, &Taylor, 2005)
as if local needs were ubiquitously the same, the book provides a glocal perspec­
tive to understand and analyze the experiences of schools and systems in differ­
ent parts of the world as part of a “vast supermarket” of neoliberal educational
policies (Apple, 2006).
Global capital, in its current neoliberal form in particular, leads to human
degradation and inhumanity and has increased social class inequalities within
states and globally. These effects are increasing (racialized and gendered) social
class inequality within states, with markets exacerbating existing inequalities
(Blackmore, 2016). Under these conditions, school leadership plays a significant

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6 K Arar, D Örücü and J Wilkinson

role ( Jacobson, 2011) realizing the purpose of schooling and meeting the needs
of students and society across diverse contexts. However, this is a form and spirit
of leadership that recognizes a broader understanding of education, beyond nar­
row definitions of school improvement as defined by league tables and national
and international testing regimes (English & Papa, 2018; Waite & Bogotch,
2017; Wilkinson, 2017).
Thus, a critical point for educators facing varied challenging circumstances is
how to cultivate the necessary skills, dispositions, values, and actions for dem­
ocratic citizenry among their students (Waite & Arar, 2020). As such, there is
a growing scholarly interest on the leadership in schools facing extremely chal­
lenging circumstances (Ahumada, Galdames, & Clarke, 2015; Bush, Joubert,
Kiggundu, & van Rooyen, 2010; MacBeath et al., 2007; Smith & Bell, 2014),
particularly in terms of the critical and ethical practices necessary to transform the
undesirable features of schools and societies into desired ones (Blackmore, 2016).
Critical and ethical practice, in this respect, requires a wider perspective
of leadership in schools (Gross, 2020). In order to deal with such undesirable
features such as racism, classism, and sexism in educational practice; prejudice
against particular religious or regional groups or those with a range of disabili­
ties, social and intellectual disadvantages, criticality, and ethics need to operate
in a way that brings about a transformation of culture and social relations within
the school. It also requires considerable social skills of advocacy, intergroup
relations, team building, and inspiration without domination (Grace, 2000, p.
238). A critical-democratic engagement with education is essential to realize the
authentic purpose of education (Portelli & McMahon, 2004). This is particularly
the case in terms of the impact of neoliberal education policies, which include
the instrumentalization of teachers, dehumanizing of students as classrooms are
turned into spaces of performance and efficiency with no space for any genuine
engagement with social problems, political issues, or cultural critique (Portelli
& Konecny, 2013). It is the spirit of this critical-democratic engagement with
education that underpins the formation of and contributions to this book.

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PART I

Challenges of Markets,
Poverty and Privatization

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2
CHALLENGES OF SCHOOL
PRINCIPALS AND TEACHERS IN
PRIVATE SCHOOLS
Comparison of Two Cases
in the Middle East

Deniz Örücü and Khalid Arar

Introduction
The current move toward privatization of educational provision at global level
is predominantly the outcome of neoliberal policies (Apple, 2006; Blackmore,
2016). Neoliberal education policies have major implications in the public sphere,
as well as for schools, educators, and even students in terms of the commodifi­
cation of education from a public good to a private good (Apple, 2012; Burch,
2009). These policies and broader trends place teachers and school principals in
a critical state, dealing with a variety of subsequent challenges that arise while
performing their jobs in different countries.
Privatization is defined as “the shift from government provision of functions
and services to provision by the private sector” (Priest, 1988, p. 1). In education,
it is conceptualized as any move that generates control of different aspects of the
education system that is transferred from the public (central or local government)
to private authorities (private or companies) (Belfield & Levin, 2002). Over the
past two decades, the privatization of education has become a widespread phe­
nomenon, affecting most education systems and engendering a consistent increase
in private school enrolment globally (Ball, 2009; Burch, 2009; Verger, Fontdevila,
& Zancajo, 2017). However, it is a context-sensitive process necessitating appro­
priate policy mechanisms that may produce many and different policy outcomes
(Tooley & Dixon, 2006; Verger et al., 2017). The neoliberal tendencies evident
in privatization processes generate a variety of personal and professional pressures
for general directors, school principals, and teachers who work for private schools.
Fuller (2019) asserts that neoliberal reforms have been spread by Edu-business, the
publication of international comparison data (PISA) and a transnational leadership

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14 D Örücü and K Arar

package colonizing professional practice across the globe. These are the solid forms
that we witness in everyday discourse. On the other hand, privatization of schools
can act as a means to open up democratic and autonomous opportunities in some
contexts, where the government control is high and strict.
Thus, as there are obvious differences in the forms of privatized education
adopted in Turkey and Israel, a comparative study of the struggles and challenges
facing educators and school principals due to privatization of education can pro­
vide a rich source of information in order to understand these issues. The pre­
sent study, therefore, draws on the conservative modernism of Apple (2006) and
the power/knowledge discussions in privatization processes by Ball (2013), to
explore, compare and contrast the neoliberal challenges faced by private school
teachers and school principals in Turkey and in Arab schools in Israel. Herein, as
the term private school has different meanings in different contexts (, we need
to clarify the type of private schools we explored in our contexts. These are the
ones founded by private enterprises/individuals and dependent on users fee, hav­
ing to attract and retain student enrollments.

Conceptual Background
Neoliberalism has been a dominant force shaping education policy (Sattler, 2012).
Privatization, as the practical aspect of neoliberalism, involves the commercializa­
tion of education; namely, the application of market rules transforms the percep­
tion of education as a fundamental inalienable civil right, which can ensure the
provision of equal opportunities, into a perception of education as a need that
can be provided by those with capital and can only be acquired by those who can
afford to purchase it (Blackmore, 2016; Carnoy, 2016; Darling-Hammond, 2010).
Researchers have explored why and how education privatization has become
popular in a broad variety of settings in the light of cultural and economic con­
texts (Apple, 2006; Ball, 2013; Rooks, 2017). For example, Verger et al. (2017)
have identified six different paths toward education privatization involving fre­
quently associated circumstances, mechanisms, and courses of action leading to
privatization from a political economy stance. These six paths toward privatiza­
tion are listed by the authors as (1) education privatization as a state reform, (2)
education privatization in social democratic welfare states, (3) scaling up privati­
zation through reforms, (4) privatization by default in low-income countries, (5)
historical public–private partnerships in education, and (6) privatization along
the path of emergency (Verger et al., 2017, p. 11). Private schools in Turkey and
Arab private educational provision in Israel fit into one of the path above as out­
lined in the contextual information provided later in this chapter.
Given these multiple paths toward privatization, Apple’s (2006) proposition
that there are complex configuration of interests shaping the educational pol­
icy and reforms around the world further explains the ideologies behind the

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Comparison of Turkish and Palestinian Cases 15

radical restructuring of the education systems. He explains these interests as


follows: (1) neoliberals who seek marketized solutions to educational problems;
(2) neoconservatives who seek a return to higher standards and a common cul­
ture, (3) authoritarian populist and religious fundamentalists who are worried
about secularity and the preservation of their own traditions and seek a more
religion-based education, and (4) new middle class/new managerialists who are
committed to the ideology and techniques of accountability, measurement, and
management (p. 55).
Hereon, although neoliberal policies could be considered as the main driver
behind the proliferation of private schools globally, we contend that the remain­
ing three interest groups also have an indirect influence on the phenomenon and
its consequences. This is particularly the case in terms of the aim of this chapter,
that is, the challenges faced by teachers and school leaders in private schools in
Turkey and Arab education in Israel. Globally, there is a belief that the more
market forces operate, the more corporate models are adapted to education and
the more schools, administrators, and teachers engage in competition, the better
they will be (Anderson & Donchik, 2016).
The global proliferation of private services in education both in exogenous
and endogenous forms (Ball & Youdell, 2008) could be explicated through the
interrelated dynamics summarized above. However, how this bigger picture
manifests itself in the work of teachers and school leaders at school level is also an
“issue” as Ball (2013, pp. 131–132) explains:

Neo-liberalism is realized in practical relations of competition and exploi­


tation within business but also in very mundane and immediate ways in
our institutions of everyday life, and thus it “does us”—speaks and acts
through our language, purposes, decisions and social relations. In think­
ing about these practices, and concomitant changes in the form and
modalities of the state, we can also think about how we are “reformed”
by neo-liberalism, and made into different kinds of educational work­
ers or learners. At its most visceral and intimate neoliberalism involves
the transformation of social relations and practices into calculabilities and
exchanges, that is into the market form—with the effect of commodifying
educational practice and experience.

In other words, as power paradoxically both liberates and enslaves those


involved, individuals either gain more power in educational management or
they become docile in the process (Wang, 2011). Under such dynamics, Ball’s
explanation of the disciplinary practice of management reflects on the produc­
tive rather than coercive aspect of it. Thus, while neoliberal dynamics offer
flexibility and autonomy to some actors with the power to speak (i.e., students,
parents, senior teachers, and employers), teachers lose their autonomy under a

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Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
ever having studied it. I think I’ll get a psychologist to take a look at
him.”

“Do you think he’ll like that?”

“Oh, he’ll never know unless he’s a mind reader. Somebody to sort
of observe him at work. I’ve already had him checked out physically.”

“You’re very thorough.”

“Have to be. He’s got a duodenal ulcer and there’s a danger of high
blood pressure when he’s older; otherwise he’s in fine shape.”

“What do you want me to do first?”

He became serious. “A pamphlet. You might make a highbrow


magazine article out of it for the Readers’ Digest or something first.
We’ll want a clear, simple statement of the Cavite philosophy.”

“Why don’t you get him to write it?”

“I’ve tried. He says he can’t write anything. In fact he even hates to


have his sermons taken down by a recorder. God knows why. But, in
a way, it’s all to the good because it means we can get all the talent
we like to do the writing for us and that way, sooner or later, we can
appeal to just about everybody.”

“Whom am I supposed to appeal to in this first pamphlet?”

“The ordinary person, but make it as foolproof as you can; leave


plenty of doors open so you can get out fast in case we switch the
party line along the way.”

I laughed. “You’re extraordinarily cynical.”

“Just practical. I had to learn everything the hard way. I was kicked
around by some mighty expert kickers in my day.”
I checked his flow of reminiscence. “Tell me about Cave and Iris.”
This was the secondary mystery which had occupied my mind for
several days. But Paul did not know or, if he did, would not say. “I
think they’re just good friends, like we say in these parts. Except that
I doubt if anything is going on ... they don’t seem the type and she’s
so completely gone on what he has to say....”

A long-legged girl secretary in discreet black entered the room


unbidden and whispered something to the publicist Paul started as
though she had given him an electric shock from the thick carpeting.
He spoke quickly: “Get Furlow. Tell him to stand bail. Also get a writ.
I’ll be right down there.”

She ran from the room. He pushed the bar away from him and it
rolled aimlessly across the floor, its bottles and glasses chattering.
Paul looked at me distractedly. “He’s in jail. Cave’s in jail.”
Five

1
Last night the noise of my heart’s beating kept me awake until nearly
dawn. Then, as the gray warm light of the morning patterned the
floor, I fell asleep and dreamed uneasily of disaster, my dreams
disturbed by the noise of jackals, by that jackal-headed god who
hovers over me as these last days unfold confusedly before my
eyes: it will end in heat and terror, alone beside a muddy river, all
time as one and that soon gone. I awakened, breathless and cold,
with a terror of the dying still ahead.

After coffee and pills, those assorted pellets which seem to restore
me for moments at a time to a false serenity, I put aside the
nightmare world of the previous restless hours and idly examined the
pages which I had written with an eye to rereading them straight
through, to relive again for a time the old drama which is already, as I
write, separating itself from my memory and becoming real only in
the prose: I think now of these events as I have told them and not as
they occur to me in memory. For the memory now is of pages and
not of scenes or of actual human beings still existing in that baleful,
tenebrous region of the imagination where fancy and fact together
confuse even the most confident of narrators. I have, thus far at
least, exorcised demons, and to have lost certain memories to my
narrative relieves my system, like a cancer cut whole from a failing
organism.
The boy brought me my morning coffee and the local newspaper
whose Arabic text pleases my eye though the sense, when I do
translate it, is less than strange. I asked the boy if Mr. Butler was
awake and he said he had gone out already: these last few days I
have kept to my room even for the evening meal, delaying the
inevitable revelation as long as possible.

After the boy left and while I drank coffee and looked out upon the
river and the western hills, I was conscious of a sense of well-being
which I have not often experienced in recent years. Perhaps the
work of evoking the past has, in a sense, enhanced the present for
me. I thought of the work done as life preserved, as part of me which
will remain.

Then, idly, I riffled the pages of John Cave’s Testament for the first
time since I had discovered my name had been expunged.

The opening was the familiar one which I had composed so many
years before in Cave’s name. The time of divination: a
straightforward account of the apparent wonders which had
preceded the mission. No credence was given the supernatural but a
good case was made (borrowed a little from the mental therapists)
for the race’s need of phenomena as a symptom of unease and
boredom and anticipation. I flicked through the pages. An entire new
part had been added which I did not recognize: still written as though
by Cave but, obviously, it could not have been composed until at
least a decade after his death.

I read the new section carefully. Whoever had written it had been
strongly under the influence of the pragmatic philosophers, though
the style was somewhat inspirational: a combination of a guide to
popularity crossed with the Koran. A whole system of ideal behavior
was sketched broadly for the devout, so broadly as to be fairly
useless though the commentary and the interpretive analysis of such
lines as: “Property really belongs to the world though individuals may
have temporary liens on certain sections,” must be already
prodigious.
I was well into the metaphysics of the Cavites when there was a
knock on my door. It was Butler, looking red and uncomfortable from
the heat, a spotted red bandana tied, for some inscrutable reason,
about his head in place of a hat.

“Hope you don’t mind my barging in like this but I finished a visit with
the mayor earlier than I thought.” He crumpled, on invitation, into a
chair opposite me. He sighed gloomily. “This is going to be tough,
tougher than I ever imagined back home.”

“I told you it would be. The Moslems are very obstinate.”

“I’ll say! and the old devil of a mayor practically told me point-blank
that if he caught me proselyting he’d send me back to Cairo. Imagine
the nerve!”

“Well, it is their country,” I said, reasonably, experiencing my first real


hope: might the Cavites not get themselves expelled from Islam? I
knew the mayor of Luxor, a genial merchant who still enjoyed the
obsolete title of Pasha. The possibilities of a daring plot occurred to
me. All I needed was another year or two by which time nature would
have done its work in any case and the conquest of humanity by the
Cavites could then continue its progress without my bitter presence.

I looked at Butler speculatively. He was such a fool. I could, I was


sure, undo him, for a time at least; unless of course he was, as I first
expected, an agent come to finish me in fact as absolutely as I have
been finished in effect by those revisionists who have taken my
place among the Cavites, arranging history.... I’d experienced, briefly,
while studying Butler’s copy of the Testament, the unnerving sense
of having never lived, of having dreamed the past entire.

“Maybe it is their country but we got the truth, and like Paul Himmell
said: 'A truth known to only half the world is but half a truth.’”

“Did he say that?”


“Of course he did. Don’t you....” he paused. His eye taking in at last
the book in my hand. His expression softened somewhat, like a
parent in anger noticing suddenly an endearing resemblance to
himself in the offending child. “But I forget how isolated you’ve been
up here. If I’ve interrupted your studies, I’ll go away.”

“Oh no. I was finished when you came. I’ve been studying for several
hours which is too long for an old man.”

“If a contemplation of Cavesword can ever be too long,” said Butler


reverently. “Yes, Himmell wrote that even before Cavesword, in the
month of March, I believe, though we’ll have to ask my colleague
when he comes. He knows all the dates, all the facts. Remarkable
guy. He has the brains of the team.” And Butler laughed to show that
he was not entirely serious.

“I think they might respond to pressure,” I said, treacherously. “One


thing the Arabs respect is force.”

“You may be right. But our instructions are to go slow. Still, I didn’t
think it would be as slow as this. Why we haven’t been able to get a
building yet. They’ve all been told by the Pasha fellow not to rent to
us.”

“Perhaps I could talk to him.”

“Do you know him well?”

“We used to play cards quite regularly. I haven’t seen much of him in
the past few years but, if you’d like, I’ll go and pay him a call.”

“He’s known all along you’re a Cavite, hasn’t he?”

“We have kept off the subject of religion entirely. As you probably
discovered, since the division of the world, there’s been little
communication between East and West. I don’t think he knows much
about the Cavites except that they’re undesirable.”
“Poor creature,” said Butler, compassionately.

“Outer darkness,” I agreed.

“But mark my words before ten years have passed they will have the
truth.”

“I have no doubt of that, Communicator, none at all. If the others who


come out have even a tenth of your devotion the work will go fast.”
The easy words of praise came back to me mechanically from those
decades when a large part of my work was organizational, spurring
the mediocre on to great deeds ... and the truth of the matter has
been, traditionally, that the unimaginative are the stuff from which
heroes and martyrs are invariably made.

“Thanks for those kind words,” said Butler, flushed now with pleasure
as well as heat. “Which reminds me, I was going to ask you if you’d
like to help us with our work once we get going?”

“I’d like nothing better but I’m afraid my years of useful service are
over. Any advice, however, or perhaps influence that I may have in
Luxor....” There was a warm moment of mutual esteem and
amiability, broken only by a reference to the Squad of Belief.

“Of course we’ll have one here in time; though we can say,
thankfully, that the need for them in the Atlantic states is nearly over.
Naturally, there are always a few malcontents but we have worked
out a statistical ratio of nonconformists in the population which is
surprisingly accurate. Knowing their incidence, we are able to check
them early. In general, however, the truth is happily ascendant
everywhere in the really civilized world.”

“What are their methods now?”

“The Squad of Belief’s? Psychological indoctrination. We now have


methods of converting even the most obstinate lutherist. Of course
where usual methods fail (and once in every fifteen hundred they
do), the Squad is authorized to remove a section of brain which
effectively does the trick of making the lutherist conform, though his
usefulness in a number of other spheres is somewhat impaired: I’m
told he has to learn all over again how to talk and to move around.”

“Lutherist? I don’t recognize the word.”

“You certainly have been cut off from the world.” Butler looked at me
curiously, almost suspiciously. “I thought even in your day that was a
common expression. It means anybody who refuses willfully to know
the truth.”

“What does it come from?”

“Come from?” Semantics were either no longer taught or else Butler


had never been interested in them. “Why it just means, well, a
lutherist.”

“I wonder, though, what the derivation of it was.” I was excited: this


was the only sign that I had ever existed, a word of obscure origin
connoting nonconformist.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to ask my side-kick when he comes. I don’t


suppose it came from one of those Christian sects ... you know the
German one which broke with Rome.”

“That must be it,” I said. “I don’t suppose in recent years there have
been as many lutherists as there once were.”

“Very, very few. As I say, we’ve got it down to a calculable minority


and our psychologists are trying to work out some method whereby
we can spot potential lutherists in childhood and indoctrinate them
before it’s too late ... but of course the problem is a negligible one in
the Atlantic states. We’ve had no serious trouble for forty years.”

“Forty years ... that was the time of all the trouble,” I said.

“Not so much trouble,” said Butler, undoing the bandana and


mopping his face with it. “The last flare-up, I gather, of the old
Christians ... history makes very little of it though I suppose at the
time it must have seemed important. Now that we have more
perspective we can view things in their proper light. I was only a kid
in those days and, frankly, I don’t think I paid any attention to the
papers. Of course you remember it.” He looked at me suddenly, his
great vacuous eyes focused. My heart missed one of its precarious
beats: was this the beginning? had the inquisition begun?

“Not well,” I said. “I was seldom in the United States. I’d been digging
in Central America, in and around the Peten. I missed most of the
trouble.”

“You seem to have missed a good deal.” His voice was equable,
without a trace of secondary meaning.

“I’ve had a quiet life. I’m grateful though for your coming here;
otherwise. I should have died without any contact with America,
without ever knowing what was happening outside the Arab League.”

“Well, we’ll shake things up around here.”

“Shake well before using,” I quoted absently.

“What did you say?”

“I said I hoped all would be well.”

“I’m sure it will. By the way, I brought you the new edition of Cave’s
prison dialogues.” He pulled a small booklet from his back pocket
and handed it to me.

“Thank you.” I took the booklet: dialogues between Cave and Iris
Mortimer. I had never before heard of this particular work. “Is this a
recent discovery?” I asked.

“Recent? Why no. It’s the newest edition but of course the text goes
right back to the early days when Cave was in prison.”

“Oh, yes, in California.”


“Sure; it was the beginning of the persecutions. Well, I’ve got to be
on my way.” He got heavily to his feet and arranged the bandana
about his head. “Somebody stole my hat. Persecuting me, I’ll bet my
bottom dollar ... little ways. Well, I’m prepared for them. They can’t
stop us. Sooner or later the whole world will be Cavite.”

“Amen,” I said.

“What?” He looked at me with shock.

“I’m an old man,” I said hastily. “You must recall I was brought up in
the old Christianity. Such expressions still linger on, you know.”

“It’s a good thing there’s no Squad of Belief in Luxor,” said Butler


cheerily. “They’d have you up for indoctrination in a second.”

“I doubt if it’d be worth their trouble. Soon I shall be withdrawing from


the world altogether.”

“I suppose so. You haven’t thought of taking Cavesway have you?”

“Of course, many times, but since my health has been good I’ve
been in no great hurry to leave my contemplation of those hills.” I
pointed to the western window. “Now I should hesitate to die until the
very last moment, out of curiosity. I’m eager to learn, to help as much
as possible in your work here.”

“Well, that of course is good news but should you ever want to take
his way let me know. We have some marvellous methods now,
extremely pleasant to take and, as he said, 'It’s not death which is
hard but dying.’ We’ve finally made dying simply swell.”

“Will wonders never cease?”

“In that department, never! It is the firm basis of our truth. Now I must
be off.”

“Is your colleague due here soon?”


“Haven’t heard recently. I don’t suppose the plans have been
changed, though. You’ll like him.”

“I’m sure I shall.”

2
And so John Cave’s period in jail was now known as the time of
persecution, with a pious prison dialogue attributed to Iris. Before I
returned to my work of recollection, I glanced at the dialogue whose
style was enough like Iris’s to have been her work. But of course her
style was not one which could ever have been called inimitable since
it was based on the most insistent of twentieth-century advertising
techniques. I assumed the book was the work of others, of those
anonymous counterfeiters who had created, according to a list of
publications on the back of the booklet, a wealth of Cavite doctrine.

The conversation with Cave in prison was lofty in tone and seemed
to deal with moral problems. It was apparent that since the task of
governing is largely one of keeping order, it had become, with the
passage of time, necessary for the Cavite rulers to compose in
Cave’s name different works of ethical instruction to be used for the
guidance and control of the population. I assume that since they now
control all records, all original sources, it is an easy matter for them
to “discover” some relevant text which gives clear answer to any
moral or political problem which has not been anticipated in previous
commentaries. The work of falsifying records, expunging names is, I
should think, somewhat more tricky but they seem to have
accomplished it in Cave’s Testament, brazenly assuming that those
who recall the earlier versions will die off in time, leaving a
generation which knows only what they wish it to know, excepting of
course the “calculable minority” of nonconformists, of base
Lutherists.

Cave’s term in prison was far less dramatic than official legend,
though more serious. He was jailed for hit-and-run driving on the
highway from Santa Monica into Los Angeles.

I went to see him that evening with Paul. When we arrived at the jail,
we were not allowed near him though Paul’s lawyers had been
permitted to go inside a few minutes before our arrival.

Iris was sitting in the outer office, pale and shaken. A bored
policeman in uniform sat fatly at a desk at the other end of the office,
ignoring us.

“They’re the best lawyers in L.A.,” said Paul quickly. “They’ll get him
out in no time.”

Iris looked at him bleakly.

“What happened?” I asked, sitting down beside her on the bench.


“How did it happen?”

“I wasn’t with him.” She shook her head several times as though to
dispel a profound daydream. “He called me and I called you. They
are the best, Paul?”

“I can vouch that....”

“Did he kill anybody?”

“We ... we don’t know yet. He hit an old man and went on driving. I
don’t know why; I mean why he didn’t stop. He just went on and the
police car caught him. The man’s in the hospital now. They say it’s
bad; he’s unconscious, an old man ...”

“Any reporters here?” asked Paul. “Anybody else know besides us?”

“Nobody. You’re the only person I called.”

“This could wreck everything.” Paul was frightened.

But Cave was rescued, at considerable expense to the company.


The old man chose not to die immediately while the police and the
courts of Los Angeles, at that time well known for their accessibility
to free-spending reason, proved more than obliging. After a day and
a night in prison. Cave was released on bail and when the case
came to court, it was handled discreetly by the magistrate.

The newspapers, however, had discovered John Cave at last and


there were photographs of “Present-Day Messiah in Court.” As ill
luck would have it, the undertakers of Laguna had come to the aid of
their prophet with banners which proclaimed his message. This
picketing of the court was photographed and exhibited in the
tabloids. Paul was in a frenzy. Publicist though he was, in his first
rage he expressed to me the novel sentiment that not all publicity
was good.

“But we’ll get back at those bastards,” he said grimly, not identifying
which ones he meant but waving toward the city hidden by the
Venetian blinds of his office window.

I asked for instructions. Cave had, the day before, gone back to
Washington to lie low until the time was right for a triumphant
reappearance. Iris had gone with him; on a separate plane, however,
to avoid scandal. Clarissa had sent various heartening if confused
messages from New York while Paul and I were left alone to gather
up the pieces and begin again. Our close association during those
difficult days impressed me with his talents and though,
fundamentally, I still found him appalling, I couldn’t help but admire
his superb operativeness.

“I’m going ahead with the original plan ... just like none of this
happened. The stockholders are willing and we’ve got enough
money, though not as much as I’d like, for the publicity build-up. I
expect Cave’ll pick up some more cash in Seattle. He always does,
wherever he goes.”

“Millionaires just flock to him?”


“Strange to tell, yes. But then nearly everybody does.”

“It’s funny since the truth he offers is all there is to it. Once
experienced, there’s no longer much need for Cave or for an
organization.” This of course was the paradox which time and the
unscrupulous were bloodily to resolve.

Paul’s answer was reasonable. “That’s true but there’s the problem
of sharing it. If millions felt the same way about death the whole
world would be happier and, if it’s happier, why, it’ll be a better place
to live in.”

“Do you really believe this?”

“Still think of me as a hundred percent phony?” Paul chuckled good-


naturedly. “Well, it so happens, I do believe that. It also so happens
that if this thing clicks we’ll have a world organization and if we have
that there’ll be a big place for number one in it. It’s all mixed up,
Gene. I’d like to hear your motives, straight from the shoulder.”

I was not prepared to answer him, or myself. In fact, to this day, my


own motives are a puzzle to which there is no single key, no easy
definition. One is not, after all, like those classic or neo-classic
figures who wore with such splendid mono-maniacal consistency the
scarlet of lust or the purple of dominion, or the bright yellow of
madness, existing not at all beneath their identifying robes. Power
appealed to me in my youth but only as a minor pleasure and not as
an end in itself or even as a means to any private or public end. I
enjoyed the idea of guiding and dominating others, preferably in the
mass; yet, at the same time, I did not like the boredom of power
achieved, or the silly publicness of a great life. But there was
something which, often against my will and judgment, precipitated
me into deeds and attitudes where the logic of the moment
controlled me to such an extent that I could not lessen, if I chose, the
momentum of my own wild passage, or chart its course.

I would not have confided this to Paul even had I in those days
thought any of it out, which I had not. Though I was conscious of
some fundamental ambivalence in myself, I always felt that should I
pause for a few moments and question myself, I could easily find
answers to these problems. But I did not pause. I never asked
myself a single question concerning motive. I acted like a man
sleeping who was only barely made conscious by certain odd
incongruities that he dreams. The secret which later I was to
discover was still unrevealed to me as I faced the efficient vulgarity
of Paul Himmell across the portable bar which reflected so brightly in
its crystal his competence.

“My motives are perfectly simple,” I said, half-believing what I said. In


those days the more sweeping the statement the more apt I was to
give it my fickle allegiance: motives are simple, splendid! simple they
are. “I want something to do. I’m fascinated by Cave and I believe
what he says ... not that it is so supremely earthshaking. It’s been
advanced as a theory off and on for two thousand years. Kant wrote
that he anticipated with delight the luxurious sleep of the grave and
the Gnostics came close to saying the same thing when they
promised a glad liberation from life. The Eastern religions, about
which I know very little, maintain ...”

“That’s it!” Paul interrupted me eagerly. “That’s what we want. You


just keep on like that. We’ll call it 'An Introduction to John Cave.’
Make a small book out of it. Get it published in New York; then the
company will buy up copies and we’ll pass it out free.”

“I’m not so sure that I know enough formal philosophy to ...”

“To hell with that stuff. You just root around and show how the old
writers were really Cavites at heart and then you come to him and
put down what he says. Why we’ll be half-there even before he’s on
TV!” Paul lapsed for a moment into a reverie of promotion. I had
another drink and felt quite good myself although I had serious
doubts about my competence to compose philosophy in the popular
key. But Paul’s faith was infectious and I felt that, all in all, with a bit
of judicious hedging and recourse to various explicit summaries and
definitions, I might put together a respectable ancestry for Cave
whose message, essentially, ignored all philosophy, empiric and
orphic, moving with hypnotic effectiveness to the main proposition:
death and man’s acceptance of it. The problems of life were always
quite secondary to Cave, if not to the rest of us.

“When will you want this piece done?”

“The sooner the better. Here,” he scribbled an address on a pad of


paper. “This is Cave’s address. He’s on a farm outside Spokane. It
belongs to one of his undertaker friends.”

“Iris is with him?”

“Yes. Now you ...”

“I wonder if that’s wise, Iris seeing so much of him. You know he’s
going to have a good many enemies before very long and they’ll dig
around for any scandal they can find.”

“Oh, it’s perfectly innocent, I’m sure. Even if it isn’t, I can’t see how it
can do much harm.”

“For a public relations man you don’t seem to grasp the possibilities
for bad publicity in this situation.”

“All pub ...”

“Is good. But Cave, it appears is a genuine ascetic.” And the word
“genuine” as I spoke it was like a knife-blade in my heart. “And, since
he is, you have a tremendous advantage in building him up. There’s
no use in allowing him, quite innocently, to appear to philander.”

Paul looked at me curiously. “You wouldn’t by chance be interested


in Iris yourself?”

And of course that was it. I had become attached to Iris in precisely
the same sort of way a complete man might have been but of course
for me there was no hope, nothing. The enormity of that nothing
shook me, despite the alcohol we had drunk. I was sufficiently
collected, though, not to make the mistake of vehemence. “I like her
very much but I’m more attached to the idea of Cave than I am to
her. I don’t want to see the business get out of hand. That’s all. I’m
surprised you, of all people involved, aren’t more concerned.”

“You may have a point. I suppose I’ve got to adjust my views to this
thing ... it’s different from my usual work building up crooners and
movie stars. In that line the romance angle is swell, just as long as
there’re no bigamies or abortions involved. I see your point, though.
With Cave we have to think in sort of Legion of Decency terms. No
rough stuff. No nightclub pictures or posing with blondes. You’re
absolutely right. Put that in your piece: doesn’t drink, doesn’t go out
with dames....”

I laughed at this seriousness. “Maybe we won’t have to go that far.


The negative virtues usually shine through all on their own. The
minute you draw attention to them you create suspicion: people are
generally pleased to suspect the opposite of every avowal.”

“You talk just like my analyst.” And I felt that I had won, briefly, Paul’s
admiration. “Anyway, you go to Spokane; talk to Iris; tell her to lay off
... in a tactful way of course. I wouldn’t mention it to him: you never
can tell how he’ll react. She’ll be reasonable even though I suspect
she’s stuck on the man. Try and get your piece done by the first of
December. I’d like to have it in print for the first of the New Year,
Cave’s year.”

“I’ll try.”

“By the way, we’re getting an office ... same building as this. The
directors okayed it and we’ll take over as soon as there’s some
furniture in it.”

“Cavites, Inc.?”

“We could hardly call it the Church of the Golden Rule,” said Paul
with one of the few shows of irritability I was ever to observe in his
equable disposition. “Now, on behalf of the directors, I’m authorized
to advance you whatever money you might feel you need for this
project; that is, within ...”

“I won’t need anything except, perhaps, a directorship in the


company.” My own boldness startled me. Paul laughed.

“That’s a good boy. Eye on the main chance. Well, we’ll see what we
can do about that. There aren’t any more shares available right now
but that doesn’t mean.... I’ll let you know when you get back from
Spokane.”

Our meeting was ended by the appearance of his secretary who


called him away to other business. As we parted in the outer office,
he said, quite seriously, “I don’t think Iris likes him the way you think
but if she does be careful. We can’t upset Cave now. This is a tricky
time for everyone. Don’t show that you suspect anything when you’re
with him. Later, when we’re under way, and there’s less pressure, I’ll
handle it. Agreed?”

I agreed, secretly pleased at being thought in love ... “in love,” to this
moment the phrase has a strangely foreign sound to me, like a
classical allusion not entirely understood in some decorous,
scholarly text. “In love,” I whispered to myself in the elevator as I left
Paul that evening: in love with Iris.

3
We met at the Spokane railroad station and Iris drove me through
the wide, clear, characterless streets to a country road which wound
east into the hills, in the direction of a town with the lovely name of
Coeur d’Alene.

She was relaxed. Her ordinarily pale face was faintly burned from the
sun while her hair, which I recalled as darkly waving, was now
streaked with light and worn loosely bound at the nape of her neck.
She wore no cosmetics and her dress was simple cotton beneath the
sweater she wore against the autumn’s chill. She looked young,
younger than either of us actually was.

At first we talked of Spokane. She identified mountains and indicated


hidden villages with an emphasis on places which sharply recalled
Cave. Not until we had turned off the main highway into a country
road, dark with fir and spruce, did she ask me about Paul.

“He’s very busy getting the New Year’s debut ready. He’s also got a
set of offices for the company in Los Angeles and he’s engaged me
to write an introduction to Cave ... but I suppose you knew that when
he wired you I was coming.”

“It was my idea.”

“My coming? or the introduction?”

“Both. I talked to him about it just before we came up here.”

“And I thought he picked it out of the air while listening to me


majestically place Cave among the philosophers.”

Iris smiled. “Paul’s not obvious. He enjoys laying traps and, as long
as they’re for one’s own good, he’s very useful.”

“Implying he could be destructive?”

“Immensely. So be on your guard even though I don’t think he’ll harm


any of us.”

“How is Cave?”

“I’m worried, Gene. He hasn’t got over that accident. He talks about
it continually.”

“But the man didn’t die.”

“It would be better if he did ... as it is there’s a chance of a lawsuit


against Cave for damages.”
“But he has no money.”

“That doesn’t prevent them from suing. Worst of all, though, would
be the publicity. The whole thing has depressed John terribly. It was
all I could do to keep him from announcing to the press that he had
almost done the old man a favor.”

“You mean by killing him?”

Iris nodded, quite seriously. “That’s actually what he believes and the
reason why he drove on.”

“I’m glad he said nothing like that to the papers.”

“But it’s true; his point of view is exactly right.”

“Except that the old man might regard the situation in a different light
and, in any case, he was badly hurt and did not receive Cave’s gift of
death.”

“Now you’re making fun of John.” She frowned and drove fast on the
empty road.

“I’m doing no such thing. I’m absolutely serious. There’s a moral


problem involved which is extremely important and if a precedent is
set too early, a bad one like this, there’s no predicting how things will
turn out.”

“You mean the ... the gift as you call it should only be given
voluntarily?”

“Exactly ... if then, and only in extreme cases. Think what might
happen if those who listened to Cave decided to make all their
friends and enemies content by killing them.”

“Well, I wish you’d talk to him.” She smiled sadly. “I’m afraid I don’t
always see things clearly when I’m with him. You know how he is ...
how he convinces.”

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