<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> The article utilizes critical social theory and critical religious theory to examine the emergent and historically aberrant alignment between Catholic schools and neoliberal market-based reforms in the United States. The author traces the historical split between Catholic and public schooling, attending to the role of the litigious in shaping American parochial contexts. In the face of declining enrollments and vocations as well as skyrocketing tuition and a contracting share of the educational ‘market,’ Catholic leadership has sought public support through market instruments (tax credits and vouchers) in order to preserve dying religious schools. Lost in this paradigm shift is the irony of the move from proud separatism to a governmental reliance that would have seemed abhorrent thirty years ago. Missing, too, in the rhetoric of ‘saving Catholic schools’ is concern for the harm done to education on a whole when religious schools are presented as competitors with, rather than alternatives to, a free public education. Examined through the lens of the largest provider of Catholic schoolteachers in the United States, the article ultimately concludes that the public good is being sacrificed at the altar of religious pride.</p></abstract>

The article utilizes critical social theory and critical religious theory to examine the emergent and historically aberrant alignment between Catholic schools and neoliberal market-based reforms in the United States. The author traces the historical split between Catholic and public schooling, attending to the role of the litigious in shaping American parochial contexts. In the face of declining enrollments and vocations as well as skyrocketing tuition and a contracting share of the educational ‘market,’ Catholic leadership has sought public support through market instruments (tax credits and vouchers) in order to preserve dying religious schools. Lost in this paradigm shift is the irony of the move from proud separatism to a governmental reliance that would have seemed abhorrent thirty years ago. Missing, too, in the rhetoric of ‘saving Catholic schools’ is concern for the harm done to education on a whole when religious schools are presented as competitors with, rather than alternatives to, a free public education. Examined through the lens of the largest provider of Catholic schoolteachers in the United States, the article ultimately concludes that the public good is being sacrificed at the altar of religious pride.

Strange bedfellows: The new neoliberalism of catholic schooling in the United States

University of Notre D ame Institute for E ducational I nitiatives 207P Carole Sandner Hall Notre D ame IN 46616 USA

Journal of Pedagogy

The article utilizes critical social theory and critical religious theory to examine the emergent and historically aberrant alignment between Catholic schools...

Strange bedfellows: The new neoliberalism of catholic schooling in the United States

Published Online: Dec 28, 2012

Page range: 177 - 197

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/v10159-012-0009-5

Keywords
critical social theory, critical religious education theory, neoliberalism, catholic schooling, vouchers

This content is open access.

Strange bedfellows: The new neoliberalism of catholic schooling in the United States

Published Online: Dec 28, 2012

Page range: 177 - 197

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/v10159-012-0009-5

Keywordscritical social theory, critical religious education theory, neoliberalism, catholic schooling, vouchers

This content is open access.

Keywords
critical social theory, critical religious education theory, neoliberalism, catholic schooling, vouchers