From neoliberal policy to neoliberal pedagogy: Racializing and historicizing classroom management

In this article we first trace the history of “management,” particularly in the United States, from the plantation to the factory to the corporation, with the intention of understanding and contextualizing “classroom management” in today‘s educational lexicon. To do so, we look at the intertwining history of racial knowledge and the management of enslaved persons; the subsequent development of scientific management; social efficiency educators‘ application of scientific management to education; and conceptions of classroom management in today‘s neoliberal environment, in which education is increasingly positioned as a consumer good subject to individual choice and competitive markets. We further look to examples from post- -colonial Africa to demonstrate the ways in which neocolonial forms of scientific management comingle and entwine with neoliberal policies and procedures. The global phenomenon of scientific management, rife with neoliberalism and racism, is finally examined in the context of (so-called) Culturally Responsive Classroom Management, a neoliberal project that claims to advocate social justice through the process of managing bodies in classrooms.