Education Commons^™

Privatization And Democratization: The Usages Of Democracy In Chicago's School Reform Discourse, Erin Dyke

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

Since the start of Renaissance 2010, an initiative that is in the final stages of privatizing one-fifth of its over 600 schools, Chicago's public schools have undergone a massive transformation. The problem driving this inquiry is the opacity of the language and meaning of democracy and democratic principles within the context of the recent push for school privatization in Chicago. Using a framework of discourse analysis, I target the specific discursive formation in which democrary slips into a marketized version of itself in relation to Chicago's school privatization efforts. Through an analysis of scholarly articles, news media, and organizational literature …