자유주의 경제 사상의 변천과 신자유주의 교육관에 대한 성찰

Abstract

In spite of a clear similarity between neo- and old-liberalism, the two cannot be seen as identical. They diverge from policy against government intervention about market mechanism. Whereas old-liberalism represents a negative conception of state power, in that the individual was taken as an object to be freed from the intervention of the state, neo-liberalism has come to represent a positive conception of the state's role in creating the appropriate market order by providing the conditions, laws and institutions necessary to minimize market distortions or offset certain dysfunctions. What recently published researches on neo-liberalism in Korea have criticized is that neo-liberalism in both ideology and policy legitimate severe competition among individuals and serve the needs and interests of the few elite groups. Thus education cannot be considered as the structuring mechanism through which resources and status are allocated efficiently and fairly. This article, regardless of a certain ideological perspective, tries to diagnose neo-liberalism and educational transformation based upon neoliberal model. For the purpose, the historical shifts of liberalism as an economic paradigm are examined in the first section. And then the emergency of neo-liberalism is delineated by the way of explaining 'market failure' and 'government failure'. Lastly, critiques and argumentations regarding to what schooling is about in terms of educational transformation in the globalization society where generally emphasizes the superiority of knowledge and elitism,market-based competition as well as equality of educational opportunity are reflectively considered, and furthermore the misunderstandings of neo-liberalism are refuted.