Michel Foucault And Education Policy Analysis

The work of Michel Foucault has become a major resource for educational researchers seeking to understand how education makes us what we are. In this book, a group of contributors explore how Foucault’s work is used in a variety of ways to explore the ‘hows’ and ‘whos’ of education policy – its technologies and its subjectivities, its oppressions and its freedoms. The book takes full advantage of the opportunities for creativity that Foucault’s ideas and methods offer to researchers in deploying genealogy, discourse, and subjectivation as analytic devices. The collection as a whole works to makes us aware that we are freer than we think! This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Education Policy.

Specially selected by Stephen Ball, this is a collection of the best and most interesting recently published papers that ‘use’ Foucault to analyse, destablise and re-claim educational ‘problems’. Arguably the best known social theorist in the western world, Foucault’s work is now widely used by researchers and writers in many fields of social science. These papers not only demonstrate the practical applicability of Foucault to things ‘cracked’ and things ‘intolerable’ in making them ‘not as necessary as all that’; they are also transposable, in that they offer forms and methods of analysis which can be taken up and applied and used in other settings, sectors, and policy fields.

`Education policy is now a global matter and all the more complex for that. Mark Olssen, John Codd and Ann-Marie O'Neill do us an invaluable service in producing a carefully theorised guide to current issues and key concerns - this is an important, erudite and very practical book' - Stephen J Ball, Education Policy Research Unit, University of London `Given the global reach of neoliberal policies, we need cogent books that enable us to better understand the major effects such tendencies have. Education Policy is such a book. It is insightful and well written--and should be read by all of us who care deeply about what is happening in education in international contexts' - Michael W Apple, Author of 'Educating the "Right" Way and John Bascom Professor of Education University of Wisconsin, Madison `I really am taken with the book, the range and depth of analysis are truly impressive. This book is a magnum opus and everyone in the area should read it'- Hugh Lauder, University of Bath `In their insightful and comprehensive book on education policy Mark Olssen, John Codd and Anne-Marie O'Neill wrestle with the big questions of citizenship and democracy in an age of globalization. They argue that ducation policy in the 21st century is the key to security, sustainability and survival. The book, anchored in the poststructuralist perspective of Michel Foucault, traverses the whole territory of education policy not only methods and approaches of policy analysis and the dominant political perspectives that influence policy-classical liberalism, social democracy and neo-liberalism--but also those policy areas that require the closest scrutiny: markets, trust, professionalism, choice, diversity, and finally, community, citizenship and democracy. This is the new policy bible for educationalists - it is at once systematic, provocative and instructive' - Michael A Peters, Research Professor, University of Glasgow 'It is rare indeed for books with such ambitious scope as this one to appear within educational scholarship... This is an important book for any graduate student who is undertaking work on any aspect of education policy' - Education Review This book provides an international perspective on education policy, and of the role and function of education in the global economy. The authors present a Foucauldian perspective on the politics of liberal education, within a theoretical framework necessary for the critical analysis of education policy. The authors set out the analyses necessary for understanding the restructuring in education and social policy that has occurred in many countries affected by the resurgence of neo-liberal political theory. They examine education policy in relation to globalization, citizenship and democracy. The authors argue that globalization is an extension of neoliberalism and is destructive of the nation state, community and democracy. They show the importance of education in building strong democratic nation states and global communities based on cultural identity and inter-cultural awareness. This book is essential reading for students of education policy studies and social policy analysis.

Foucault, Power, and Education invites internationally renowned scholar Stephen J. Ball to reflect on the importance and influence of Foucault on his work in educational policy. By focusing on some of the ways Foucault has been placed in relation to educational questions or questions about education, Ball highlights the relationships between Foucault's concepts and methods, and educational research and analysis. An introductory chapter offers a brief explanation of some of Foucault's key concerns, while additional chapters explore ways in which Ball himself has sought to apply Foucault's ideas in addressing contemporary educational issues. In this intensely personal and reflective text, Ball offers an interpretation of his Foucault--That is, his own particular reading of the Foucauldian toolbox. Ideal for courses in education policy and education studies, this valuable teaching resource is essential reading for any education scholar looking for a starting point into the literature and ideas of Foucault.

Education has a long tradition of opening itself up to new ideas and new ideas are what Working with Foucault in Education is all about. The book introduces readers to the scholarly work of Michel Foucault at a level that it neither too demanding not too superficial.

Canadian Education: Governing Practices and Producing Subjects is an absolutely critical volume bridging a number of key areas in Canadian education – classroom politics, schools, teachers’ work, higher education, and much more – with the theoretical contributions of Michel Foucault. The result is illuminating, engaging, and critically provocative. The essays are carefully chosen and utilize Foucauldian concepts such as governmentality, discipline, subjectivity, and genealogy to excellent critical effect. With a skillfully crafted introduction that nicely brings the entire collection into sharp focus, the editors have provided a text that is a must read for critical scholars and students alike. Mona Gleason, Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia This excellent text presents a Foucauldian analysis of selected educational practices, contemporary reform initiatives, and current educational policy, in the Canadian context. The authors demonstrate how rich theoretical constructs such as bio-power, governmentality and disciplinary power can illuminate everyday practices and policies, making “the cultural unconscious apparent” (Fouacult, 1989, p. 71). Canadian Education: Governing Practices and Producing Subjects is essentially a hopeful book: it demonstrates the radicalizing role of theory as we try to understand and complicate educational structures and processes. This is an essential text for all those interested in Foucauldian analyses of education and a must read for undergraduate and graduate students in Canadian faculties of education. Anne M. Phelan, University of British Columbia This volume is most useful in the ways in which it achieves a close look and a wide sweep of education policy, its deployment and its effects, as these are embedded in schooling practices, educational strategies, and pedagogy. It offers the ground from which to consider the potential for education to be aimed at the development of a socially just citizenry while also helping to reveal the structures of power and processes of social control that operate within current neoliberal technologies of governmentality. It is against these that reform-minded educators and curriculum and policy developers can set themselves. While theoretically complex and original in its conceptual approach, this book is also practically informative and eminently readable, making it useful to teachers, school administrators, education policy developers, parents, students, and communities at all levels of the schooling spectrum.” Magda Lewis, PhD. Professor and Queen’s National Scholar, Queen’s University, Kingston. Magda Lewis, Ph.D. Professor and Queen’s National Scholar, Queen’s University, Kingston

This book considers Foucault as educator in three main ways. First, through some consideration of what his work says about education as a social and political practice. That is, education as a form of what Allen (2014) calls benign violence – which operates through mundane, quotidian disciplinary technologies and expert knowledges which together construct a ‘pedagogical machine’. Second, through an exploration of his ‘method’ as a form of critique. That is, as a way of showing that things are ‘not as necessary as all that’, a way of addressing what is intolerable. This suggests that critique is education of a kind. Third, through a discussion of some of Foucault's later work on subjectivity and in particular on ‘the care of the self’ or what we might call ‘a pedagogy of the self’. Each chapter introduces and discusses some relevant examples from educational settings to illustrate and enact Foucault’s analytics.

First published in 1990, this book was the first to explore Foucault's work in relation to education, arguing that schools, like prisons and asylums, are institutions of moral and social regulation, complex technologies of disciplinary control where power and knowledge are crucial. Original and challenging, the essays assess the relevance of Foucault's work to educational practice, and show how the application of Foucauldian analysis to education enables us to see the politics of educational reform in a new light.