Engaging youth at risk : the language of exclusion

Using New Public Management (NPM) strategies, governments throughout the world are rewriting their education policies to meet the demands of the knowledge economy(Bamber, 2001, Millar, 1995). To address this change of emphasis Fairclough (1995,2003) and colleagues called for multi-disciplinary discourse analysis of “the language in the new capitalism” (LNC Network, 2004). In this chapter, I respond to Fairclough’s request as a practitioner examining education policies aimed at disaffected youth. The global dominance and availability of NPM discourses sustain a “professional-client” trajectory of core education services. In terms of funding, policies and procedures these education discourses display hallmark characteristics of the language of the new capitalism. In this chapter, I argue that educators can create innovative, appropriate challenges to such language patterns and the structural inequalities they maintain.