1st Edition
Beyond Human Capitalist Education From Capitalocentrism to Carecentrism
Contents
Opening Remarks and Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction: Care Matters in Education
Chapter 1: Education, Human Capital and Capitalocentrism
Chapter 2: Individualisation, Experts and Psychologising Education
Chapter 3: Inequality in Education: Sociological Contributions and Omissions
Chapter 4: Ordinal Ranking and Adultism: Affective and Epistemic Injustices against Children (co-authored originally with Anne Lodge)
Chapter 5: Hermeneutical and Testimonial Exclusions in Educational Theory
Chapter 6: Decolonisation, Disauthorization and Rethinking Intelligences
Chapter 7: Learning to Think with Care
Chapter 8: Education as a Site of Resistance to Injustice
Chapter 9: Rethinking Social Justice with Relationality and Care in Mind
Biography
Kathleen Lynch is Professor and Chair of Equality Studies (Emerita), at University College Dublin, where she has also been a Senior Lecturer in Education. She was elected as an Executive member of the Global Forum on Reimagining the Education of Humanity for the Third Millennium 2025, in Bengaluru, India.
‘This is an important book from Kathleen Lynch, one of the most astute advocates for a more caring world. Lynch meticulously explores how education currently supports a world in which rationality is limited, school’s emphasis on competition turns people into failures, and the importance of relationship is demeaned. Lynch guides us how to include affective equality in education, thereby leading us to knowing how to transform our world towards a more caring one. This book is indispensable for anyone interested in more joyous education and a more just world.’
Joan C. Tronto, Professor Emerita of Political Science, Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
'Credentialism and obsession with quantifiable measures of cognitive prowess have blighted our educational institutions. This book makes an eloquent case for reorientation toward "care-led ways of knowing and being." Onward!'
- Nancy Folbre, Professor Emerita of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
'Lynch’s book, Beyond Human Capitalist Education: From Capitalocentrism to Carecentrism is a stunning account of the reproduction of inequalities and injustices in education offering a clear pathway toward transforming school policies, practices and priorities. Not since the “new sociology of education” in the 1970’s has a book challenged the underpinnings of capitalist logics within educational systems in such a comprehensive way. The logics of neoliberal, racial-capitalist educational practices foster highly competitive and hierarchical individualism that work against other -and care-centered ways of thinking, acting and feeling. The book pays special attention to the harms imposed by the routine testing and ranking of school children along the narrowest of capabilities (verbal, linguistic, mathematical) that are measured in racialized, classed, ableist and adultist ways. A personal sense of violation, humiliation and injury that results from not “measuring up” fuels both affective and epistemic injustices that then bleed into divisive cultural politics that pit the worthy/valued against the underserving/disposable. Lynch’s book provides a vision for what an education that “does no harm” – to people, animals, environments – would mean.'
- Wendy Luttrell, Professor, Urban Education, Critical Psychology, Sociology, & Gender and Women’s Studies Graduate Center, CUNY
‘Beyond Human Capitalist Education is a timely and important contribution to contemporary debates on education and social justice. Kathleen Lynch offers a rigorous and compelling critique of human-capital-led education, exposing its epistemic, affective and ethical limits. By placing care, relationality and ecological responsibility at the centre of educational thinking, this book opens up new ways of imagining what education is for and who it should serve. An essential read for scholars, educators and policymakers committed to more just educational futures.’
- Aina Tarabini, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
‘Kathleen Lynch’s new book offers a compelling and necessary analysis of neoliberal capitalism through the lens of care, scrutinising the careless norms of market-driven systems and their multilayered impact on humans and non-humans. This is also a volume that inspires hope thanks to Lynch’s transformative and care-centric vision for education and society. This is an essential reading for anyone concerned with social justice and our responsibility to each other and to the planet.’
- Marie-Pierre Moreau, Professor of Education - Education Research Lead - CERII Director - ARU, Cambridge, CB1 1PT.
‘This is a book on care, and the carelessness of capitalism, that has been written with immense care and consideration. Beyond Human Capitalist Education should be read by everyone concerned, not just with the state of education, but social and economic inequalities more widely. It demonstrates, with impressive breadth and depth, that learning to think with care is the way to challenge the profound injustices that permeate education. The careful thinking outlined in the book combines forensic analysis with hope and vision to show how a fairer, more caring educational system can enable a moral, ethical, questioning and active citizenry.’
- Diane Reay, Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Cambridge
‘This is an important book from Kathleen Lynch, one of the most astute advocates for a more caring world. Lynch meticulously explores how education currently supports a world in which rationality is limited, school’s emphasis on competition turns people into failures, and the importance of relationship is demeaned. Lynch guides us how to include affective equality in education, thereby leading us to knowing how to transform our world towards a more caring one. This book is indispensable for anyone interested in more joyous education and a more just world.’
- Joan C. Tronto, Professor Emerita of Political Science, Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, USA
'Credentialism and obsession with quantifiable measures of cognitive prowess have blighted our educational institutions. This book makes an eloquent case for reorientation toward "care-led ways of knowing and being." Onward!'
- Nancy Folbre, Professor Emerita of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
