Returning to Normal? The Zero-Sum Phenomenon and Imagining Otherwise
by Omar Davila Jr.,, McKenzie Mann-Wood, William Martinez & Maria De La Lima
COVID-19 generated a strange paradox. Social suffering reached new heights, and simultaneously, we conceptualized new possibilities. Terms such as “reimagining” and “rethinking” became part of our everyday vocabulary, shaping new possibilities, especially in the field of education. Researchers have long demonstrated the way unequal structures produce unequal outcomes. Yet the very logic driving these inequalities has received much less attention in our imaginative spaces, that is, the zero-sum phenomenon. At its core, the zero-sum phenomenon is the way academic success is based on logics of competition, wherein the academic success of a few requires the nonsuccess of others. Simply consider selective enrollment, award distribution, and standardized testing. In a society in which race, gender, and social class are so intimately connected to notions of merit, it should come as no surprise that the zero-sum phenomenon consistently reproduces power and subordination. We, therefore, call on education scholars, practitioners, and activists to join us in reimagining the future of education, one that departs from exclusion and strives toward transformation.