Depoliticization of educational reforms: the STEM story.

Education reforms are rarely successful or free of controversies. However, efforts to STEM-ify public education in the USA by positioning education in STEM fields and training of future workforce as the central purposes of public schooling is proving to be remarkably successful and devoid of contention. This paper explains the success of STEM-ification of public education in the USA by examining these reform efforts from the perspective of depoliticization. With special reference to the implementation of STEM reforms in the state of Georgia, USA, we analyze STEM reforms as a case of network governance to elaborate its features that contribute to its depoliticization. Then, we examine these reforms as a case where we see three concurrent modes of depoliticization—governmental, societal, and discursive. Our analysis presents the depoliticization of STEM reforms in the USA as an example of governance techniques in the current times that legitimize neoliberalism as the dominant political rationality with profound implications for the diminution of democratic space and perpetuation of injustices of misrepresentation in advanced societies. The paper ends with an appeal for repoliticization of STEM reforms and sustained attention to this issue among educators and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]