No child left behind: a neoliberal repackaging of social Darwinism

This paper shall discuss the historical continuities between Spencer‟s Social Darwinism, and the essentialist ideals of meritocracy, selfishness, and competition that are advanced by neoliberalism, and that underpin the Bush Administration's neoliberal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). According to neoliberal rhetoric, the education system is largely seen as the ultimate arbiter of innate intelligence and ability, as well as the benefactor of hard-work and merit, and so its analysis in relation to contemporary education policies and their overarching philosophy is fitting and should provide for critical retrospective and prospective reflections. Furthermore, I contend that neoliberal policies like NCLB have taken what I will refer to as a Neo-Spencerian outlook on education that has abandoned racial inferiority theories, but continues to elebrate unfettered markets, which have only led to further racialised underperformance (Hursh and Martina 2003). Therefore, structural explanations for racialised educational underachievement are overlooked if not replaced by market-based standards of performance, and thus only serve to give fodder to Spencer‟s still popular legacy of racial inferiority

Sue Heath and Charlie Walker, Innovations in Youth Research, Palgrave Macmillan Publishers 2011 [Book review]

Book review of Sue Heath and Charlie Walker, Innovations in Youth Research, Palgrave Macmillan Publishers, 2011. ISBN: 978023027849

Exploring neoliberal social-reproduction: a working theoretical framework

This article proposes a working theoretical framework to explain and explore processes of neoliberal social reproduction. I focus on the interplay between neoliberal political-economic discourses and practices, contemporary Western media-culture, and individual agency. I make the case that research concerned with the hegemony of neoliberalism and its effects on culture and subjectivity needs to take an interdisciplinary approach that rejects the longstanding structure and agency dichotomy. To do so, I draw on a diverse set of socio-culture theoretical traditions, as well as concepts and arguments from academics not typically associated with social reproduction work. The article concludes by laying out what such an approach might look like

Neoliberalism and the cultural and political dispositions and practises of millennials in London and LA: a socio-cognitive analysis

This thesis explores the everyday experiences and aspirations of young people living in Los Angeles and London, focusing on their cultural and political dispositions, emotions, thoughts and practices, and how these converge with, and diverge from, the dominant neoliberal discourses they are surrounded by. The contemporary literature on youth and youth politics tends to view young people as active and cognizant agents in the reproduction of socio-cultural and political-economic institutions, discourses, and practices. Applying a socio-cognitive approach to the analysis of interview data, ethnographic observations, and media-cultural texts, this thesis contends that these bodies of literature neglect the unconscious dimensions of young people’s practices, and in particular, that insufficient emphasis is placed on how these contribute to the reproduction of neoliberalism. It argues that, if the literature on youth is to adequately conceptualize and represent young people and their roles in social reproduction, then research explorations must attend to these unconscious dimensions. As this thesis will demonstrate, doing so facilitates and enriches analyses of the ways in which different institutional settings influence, constrain, and enable young people, and of some of the ways that young people contest, internalize, and negotiate between the dominant societal discourses presented to them. The thesis also explores some of the lessons that a socio-cognitive approach to youth culture and politics can contribute to the work of critical educators concerned with progressive social change. It argues that critical and progressive educators must incorporate socio-cognitive insights into their practices in order to tackle the potential dispositional barriers which may hinder the realisation of the political objectives of critical and progressive pedagogy

Phase space analysis of quintessence fields trapped in a Randall-Sundrum Braneworld: anisotropic Bianchi I brane with a Positive Dark Radiation term

In this paper we investigate, from the dynamical systems perspective, the evolution of an scalar field with arbitrary potential trapped in a Randall-Sundrum's Braneworld of type 2. We consider an homogeneous but anisotropic Bianchi I (BI) brane filled also with a perfect fluid. We also consider the effect of the projection of the five-dimensional Weyl tensor onto the three-brane in the form of a positive Dark Radiation term. Using the center manifold theory we obtain sufficient conditions for the asymptotic stability of de Sitter solution with standard 4D behavior. We also prove that there are not late time de Sitter attractors with 5D-modifications since they are always saddle-like. This fact correlates with a transient primordial inflation. We present here sufficient conditions on the potential for the stability of the scalar field-matter scaling solution, the scalar field-dominated solution, and the scalar field-dark radiation scaling solution. We illustrate our analytical findings using a simple $f$-deviser as a toy model. All these results are generalizations of our previous results obtained for FRW branes.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, one affiliation added, matches the published version at CQG. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1110.173

Highlighting the wider relevance of science centre evaluations: a reflection on the evaluation of a physics engagement programme

This paper reflects on the evaluation of and findings from a nationwide programme of physics engagement activities hosted by 10 science centres across the UK. We discuss our findings indicating the affordances of the programme with reference to the wider literature in order to draw out elements of the project that may be useful for other science learning and engagement initiatives. In particular, we discuss findings that relate to contemporary research and policy interests around the engagement of girls in science, the key ages at which young people’s views may best be influenced, the importance of explicating the nature of ‘real-world’ content and careers, and the value of collaborative partnerships

Transient polarization dynamics in a CO2_2 laser

We study experimentally and theoretically the polarization alternation during the switch-on transient of a quasi-isotropic CO$_2$ laser emitting on the fundamental mode. The observed transient dynamics is well reproduced by means of a model which provides a quantitative discrimination between the intrinsic asymmetry due to the kinetic coupling of molecules with different angular momenta, and the extrinsic anisotropies, due to a tilted intracavity window. Furthermore, the experiment provides a numerical assignment for the decay rate of the coherence term for a CO$_2$ laser.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Opt. Com