CHAPTER 1: Saved by the Bell?: Stigma and Salvation in the Inscription of Neoliberal Subjectivities

Under neoliberal regimes, individuals are expected to manage any potential risk to their (or their family’s) capability to be self-sufficient. Alternative schools for “at-risk” youth can be construed as interventions that foster the development of an entrepreneurial-self. Here, I argue that the alternative setting, as it articulates with “at-risk” discourses, is instrumental in facilitating the inscription of a neoliberal subjectivity in its capacity to at once stigmatize and redeem youth placed there.