Session Information
23 SES 05 A, Teacher’s Education and Professionalism
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper highlights the debate about the so-called Social Dimension in contemporary teacher education policy in Europe, using the Nordic countries as cases (Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland). We take a genealogical approach to our analysis, i. e. we trace how 19th century figures of thought about ‘the social question’ are reproduced in the present.
Contemporary as well as 19th century debates about the social dimension and the social question deal with social integration. The recent London Communiqué of Ministers emphasizes the importance of the social dimension in higher education in terms of fostering social cohesion, reducing inequalities and raising the level of knowledge and competences in society. Higher education, in this case teacher education, is supposed to develop potentials of individuals and maximize “their contribution to a sustainable and democratic knowledge-based society” Consequently, student cohorts should reflect the diversity of relevant populations “without obstacles related to their social and economic background” (London Communiqué, 2007).
In the 19th century the social question was raised in a context of industrialization of societies. It dealt with disintegration of predominant social structures and the management of social and political unrest, poverty and lack of morality (Popkewitz, 2009).
In the name of European Union social integration is thus organised differently as compared to former times. There are, nevertheless similarities. In both cases educational systems become key arenas for integrating social groups that are considered to be potential threats to societal hopes for the future. Despite these similarities there are differences when it comes to the question of the governance. In the case of the past the configuration of governance took place in a national context. Today the configuration takes place in a supranational context.
The study is rooted in a pos-Foucauldian tradition as well as in contributions formulated by Deleuze and by Hardt and Negri. In Foucauldian terms educational policy thinking is concerned with bio-politics,i.e. with a focus on the political governance of entire populations as well as of separate individuals. The concepts of bio-politics and governmentality are particulary suited to link analyses of the governance of the actions of individuals with the governance of, for instance, supranational organisations and nations (Foucault 1991, Masschelein, Simons, Brockling & Pongratz 2007, Olsson, Petersson, Krejsler 2011). Deleuze (1990) further develops the perspective on governance by hinting at the hypothesis that the disciplinary society described by Foucault may well be moving in the direction of what could appropriately be termed control societies. Disciplinary society’s closed institutional systems (cf. panopticon) seem to be increasingly replaced by open and network-based forms of governance (cf. synopticon), i. e. key features of control societies.
Hardt and Negri (200) further develop the concept of political governance in relation to what they perceive as more fragmented and boundary-less societies.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
- Berg, Fridtjuv. 1883. Folkskolan såsom bottenskola. Ett inlägg i en viktig samhällsfråga. Stockholm, Sweden: Lars Hökerbergs förlag. - Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon & P. Miller (Eds.). The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. - Hardt, M & Negri, A (2001). Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. - Bologna Process. Stocktaking Report 2009. -Masschelein, J., Simons, M., Bröckling, U., & Pongratz, L. (Eds.), (2007). The Learning Society from the Perspective of Governmentality. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. - Petersson, K., Olsson, U., & Popkewitz, T. S. (2007). Nostalgia, Future and the Past as Pedagogical Technologies. Discourse, Mars 2007 - Popkewitz, T. S. (2009). Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform. Science, Education, and Making Society by Making the Child. New York: Routledge. - Bologna Process. Stocktaking Report 2009. Available at: http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/conference/documents/Stocktaking_report_2009_FINAL.pdf [Accessed 2 September 2009] - London Communiqué (2007) Available at: http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/documents/MDC/London_Communique18May2007.pdf [Accessed 10 jan 2011]
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