Deterritorializing/Reterritorializing

Book excerpt: This volume features scholars who use a critical geography framework to analyze how constructions of social space shape education reform. In particular, they situate their work in present-day neoliberal policies that are pushing responsibility for economic and social welfare, as well as education policy and practice, out of federal and into more local entities. States, cities, and school boards are being given more responsibility and power in determining curriculum content and standards, accompanied by increasing privatization of public education through the rise of charter schools and for-profit organizations’ incursion into managing schools. Given these pressures, critical geography’s unique approach to spatial constructions of schools is crucially important. Reterritorialization and deterritorialization, or the varying flows of people and capital across space and time, are highlighted to understand spatial forces operating on such things as schools, communities, people, and culture. Authors from multiple fields of study contribute to this book’s examination of how social, political, and historical dimensions of spatial forces, especially racial/ethnic and other markers of difference, shape are shaped by processes and outcomes of school reform.