Since the beginning of the 1990s, the Canadian and Québec Governments have increased their involvement with community-based organisations partly because of their potential economic benefits for society and the State. Community-based organisations can find themselves in a situation of ‘conflictual cooperation’, where they receive funding from the State, but also maintain a critical stance towards it. The chapter draws on an ethnographic and participatory study conducted in two community-based organisations for young people in the Province of Québec, Canada. The aim is to understand how youth workers managed to navigate an accountability regime and its literacies. Resourcefulness, awareness, and creativity were identified as key elements to navigate accountability literacies in the two organisations. Youth workers were forced to engage with neoliberal practices, but also found ways of adapting them so that they would be meaningful to the young people with whom they were working.
Neoliberalism has been widely criticised because of its role in prioritising ‘free markets’ as the optimum way of solving problems and organising society. In the field of education, this leads to an emphasis on the knowledge economy that can reduce both persons and education to economic actors and be detrimental to wider social and ethical goals. Drawing on a range of international contexts across informal, adult, school and university settings, this book provides innovative examples that show how neoliberalism in education can be challenged and changed at the local, national and transnational levels in order to foster a more democratic culture.Neoliberalism has been widely criticised because of its role in prioritising ‘free markets’ as the optimum way of solving problems and organising society. In the field of education, this leads to an emphasis on the knowledge economy that can reduce both persons and education to economic actors and be detrimental to wider social and ethical goals.Drawing on a range of international contexts across informal, adult, school and university settings, this book provides innovative examples that show how neoliberalism in education can be challenged and changed at the local, national and transnational levels in order to foster a more democratic culture.Neoliberalism is having a detrimental impact on wider social and ethical goals in the field of education. Using an international range of contexts, this book provides practical examples that demonstrate how neoliberalism can be challenged and changed at the local, national and transnational level.