This paper presents an overview of the elements which characterize a research attitude and approach introduced by Michel Foucault and further developed as ‘studies of governmentality’ into a sub‐discipline of the humanities during the past decade, including also applications in the field of education. The paper recalls Foucault's introduction of the notion of ‘governmentality’ and its relation to the ‘mapping of the present’ and sketches briefly the way in which the studies of governmentality have been elaborated in general and in (...) the context of research in education more particularly. It indicates how the studies of governmentality can be related to a cartography of the learning society, a cartography which helps us to get lost and to liberate our view. (shrink)

I will argue in what follows, following the insights of James Marshall on busno‐cratic power, that resistance to this new power is already well underway, and that this resistance is potentially problematic and potentially transgressive (in Marshall's words ‘a reflective reconstitution’). The self is not only a chooser in busno‐cratic land, it is also re‐commodifying itself and in so doing, beginning to struggle at the limits of its commodified situation. I will argue that commodified selves, as much as they are (...) constrained, are also potent sites for resistance. Part of that resistance is being waged in the terrain of the high stakes test, where the self that could ‘choose’ runs headlong into a product that definitively limits its range of choice. In order to engage critically with this resistance, I examine the cracks in the monolithic power of testing, cracks that point to the uncertainty of numbers and the ambivalent anxieties of test takers. (shrink)

(1997). Michel Foucault: Problematising the individual and constituting ‘the’ self. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 32-49. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.1997.tb00526.x.

(1997). Education and the philosophy of the subject (or constitution of self) Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. v-xi. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.1997.tb00523.x.

It is taken for granted that the complexity of the information society requires a reorientation of our being in the world. Not surprisingly, the call for lifelong learning and permanent education becomes louder and more intense every day. And while there are various worthwhile initiatives, like alphabetisation courses, the article argues that the discourse of lifelong learning contains at least two difficulties. Firstly, the shift from a knowledge‐based to an information society has revealed a concept of learning with an emphasis (...) on skills related to information retrieval, dissemination and evaluation. Learning now is the constant striving for extra competences, and the efficient management of the acquired ones. Secondly, the discourse of lifelong learning suggests the autonomy of the learner. However, educational practices are organized in a way that ‘choosing to learn ’ has become the contemporary human condition. With reference to Marshall's notion of ‘busno‐power’, it is argued that—contrary to what one likes to believe—lifelong learning has become a new kind of power mechanism. (shrink)

The claim may be made that the Foucauldian analytics of power, in its detailed attention to the question of how modern societies are rendered governable, has superseded classical and radical analyses. This paper points to problems occasioned by Foucauldian governmentality's reliance on Foucault's flawed conception of the subject. These problems undermine the ambition of this style of research to outline possibilities for political intervention. It is suggested that educational critique can draw usefully on the scrupulous specificity of Foucauldian governmental analysis (...) but that only a critique firmly based in a normative framework aligned to an idea of democratic sociality can aspire to political effectiveness. (shrink)