Neoliberalization elementary and high school education in Serbia from 2012 to 2022

Abstract

The paper demonstrates and analyses the process of neoliberalising elementary and high school education in Serbia, focused on the period from 2012 and the beginning of Serbian Progressive Party government to today. Before the empirical analysis itself, a theoretical contribution to the debate surrounding the elusiveness of the concept of neoliberalism is given. The paper recommends that the different conceptualizations of this term should be described as aspects of a broader process of class rule through disempowerment. Following Harvey?s approach, this meta-process is defined as neoliberalization. Harvey?s elements of neoliberalization (privatization and commodification; financialization; the management and manipulation of crises; state redistribution) are thus expanded by three further elements: the neoliberal intellectual project, ideology and the cultural regime. In based on this theoretical framework neoliberal changes in education and relationships between them are analyzed. Ways in which these changes contribute towards the restoration of class power is shown.