This dissertation is an analysis of the peripheral ideological concepts of neoliberalization and democratization within contemporary American and Spanish educational policy, at the national and local levels. Many social scientists today posit that the core, adjacent, and peripheral concepts of the ideology of neoliberalism are hegemonic ones. In a globalized world with interscalar relations, the existence of any hegemonic ideology should lead to a process of ideological convergence across nations, both inside and outside the marketplace. Under this premise, advanced-capitalist nations should increasingly experience a neoliberalization of the social milieu.

The United States is a primary architect of neoliberalism and promotes the neoliberalization of social spaces such as schools. As such, its national educational policies since 1983 provide the baseline used for comparison with Spain's four national educational reform laws. Spain serves as the country for comparison, because over the past thirty years it has become more similar to the U.S. politically, economically, and socio-culturally. The beginning contention is that Spain follows the U.S. trend of ideologically neoliberalizing its system of education. An analysis of policy statements from a sub-national school reform initiative in both countries adds further ideological detail to the research. It also allows for a greater determination of interscalar hierarchies.

The analysis finds that the United States and Spain have the same tripartite ideological trajectory of awareness, declaration, and commitment. However, the ideological commitment to neoliberalization in the United States' educational system is in contrast to the ideological commitment to democratization found in the Spanish educational system.