Organised abandonment in education
Article / Journal
Author(s) / editor(s):
Alice Willatt
,
Annabel Wilson
,
Arathi Sriprakash
,
Claire Neaves
,
Vivian Látìnwọ ̀ -Ọlájídé
Year: 2026
Language(s): English
Abstract:
This paper considers the histories and geographies of educational disinvestment in England through the lens of Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s ‘organised abandonment’. The concept of organised abandonment refers to the intentional disinvestment in particular communities by state and capitalist interests. Such disinvestment makes groups vulnerable to precarity and harm, entrenching racialised and classed dispossession. Drawing on findings from school- and community- based research in Bristol, England, we show how organised abandonment, when applied to education, functions in two interrelated ways: by ‘abandoning places’ – the material, social and economic infrastructures of children’s lives, and; by ‘abandoning futures’ – the circumscription of educational aspirations and the foreclosing of alternatives for young people. The paper argues that the concept of organised abandonment not only offers a
useful lens to recognise longstanding, active, and deeply felt structural injustices in education, but it also underlines the political necessity of reparative action for the field of education.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2025.2592127
Post created by: Virginia Signorini