Abstract
The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze how the prevalent educational discourses of human capital and resilience influence public education policy and teacher ideology. This dissertation begins by investigating human capital by analyzing the origins and conceptual assumptions of human capital. This analysis aims to understand how human capital became the dominant theory in public education and has driven policy and reform since the mid-twentieth century. The next chapter examines resilience theory and its emergence within the past decade. This chapter also contextualizes three manifestations of resilience theory: social emotional learning (SEL); grit; and mindfulness. The next chapter focuses on the relationship between human capital and resilience theory, studying how resilience theory may appear to be a separation from human capital but still exhibits striking similarities to human capital. This section argues that the similarities between human capital and resilience theory make resilience theory an extension of human capital rather than a separation from human capital. This is especially salient when investigating both human capital and resilience theory's effects on the poor. The last section of analysis examines one inner city elementary school and its rise from a state designated "failing school" to a level 1 commendation school. An original qualitative study was conducted in the school to analyze how the discourses of human capital theory and resilience theory shape public school teachers and administrators' interpretations of problems and solutions facing their school. The discussion considers the implications of the ways dominant discourses of human capital and resilience displace other discourses and traditions..