Session Information
23 SES 08 A, Education as a Site of Struggle: Discourse and Subjectivity
Paper Session
Contribution
In this study I explore the emergence of ‘default subjectivities’ as mediated and sustained by education policy and practice.
Do the restrictions and possibilities created by policies shape subjectivity in specific ways? If this is the case, how do they reach the individual and how is the individual’s subjectivity challenged by them? Could these policies develop in a ‘default subjectivity’, through reinterpretation by institutions and individuals? What are the material and symbolic conditions necessary for this to happen?
I take Chile as a case study where I present evidence of how a specific default subjectivity can be produced and delivered. This paper argues that the emergence of a default subjectivity requires the presence of four elements: a set of coherent polices in line with a broader political rationality; an institution that provides the experiential and emotional contexts for the reinterpretation of those policies; a public domain that consolidates the new meanings of the social practice establishing a common language and a shared set of possibilities and constraints.
Through the analysis of a set of education policies in Chile (students assessment, teachers assessment, schools assessment and university entrance examination), I discuss the possibility that the education system provides the setting for the constitution of a default subjectivity by the introduction of rational choice and competition as a common understanding that makes possible common practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy (Taylor, 2004). The ‘competition school’ becomes an essential institution of the ‘competition state’ (Jessop, 2002), delivering a specific subjectivity not through the teaching of concepts but through the engagement of pupils, parents and teachers in everyday practices of competition.
I will consider subjectivity as the ‘patterns by which experiential and emotional contexts, feelings, images and memories are organised to form one’s self image, one’s sense of self and others, and our possibilities of existence’ (De Lauretis, 1986, p. 5). In my view, the political and institutional regulations and norms we deal with from our early childhood through the education system play an important role in the formation of subjectivity. In fact, I would like to draw attention to two aspects of this definition. First, it refers to the contexts as both experimental and emotional. This means that our subjectivity is shaped by them and more intensely if experience and emotion are bound together. Second, the result is the mutually dependent notions of self and otherness, which develop in our possibilities of existence.
In accordance with this definition, and combined with the effects of totalization and individualization technologies, I developed the concept of default subjectivity, which is the ‘ready-meals’ or ‘off the shelf’ combination/amalgamation of skills and visions that are provided through experiential and emotional contexts in compulsory attended spaces. These are generally articulated with inter-dependent needs and interests of other groups, thus frequently excluding the possibility of thinking beyond them.
The possibility of discussing if the European countries are producing default subjectivities through their education systems is the main purpose of the submission of this paper at the ECER Conference.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Ball, S. J. (1998). 'Big policies/small world: an intruction to international perspectives on education policy'. Comparative education, 34 (2), 119-130. Ball, S. J. (2006). Education Policy and Social Class. The selected works of Stephen J. Ball. New York: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble : feminism and the subversion of identity. (10th anniversary Ed.). New York ; London: Routledge. Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. (2007). Research Methods in Education. (6th Ed.). New York: Routledge. De Lauretis, T. (1986). Feminist studies, critical studies: Indiana University Press. Flick, U. (2007). Designing Qualitative Research. London: SAGE Publications. Foucault, M. and Faubion, J. D. (2000). Power. London: Penguin. Foucault, M. and Rabinow, P. (1991). The Foucault reader. London: Penguin. Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Jessop, B. (2002). The future of the capitalist state. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kvale, S. (1996). InterViews : an introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, Calif. ; London: Sage. Matear, A. (2007). 'Equity in education in Chile: The tensions between policy and practice'. International Journal of Educational Development, 27 (1), 101-113. Rose, N. (1996). Inventing our selves: psychology, power and personhood. New York: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, C. (2004). Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. Torche, F. (2005). 'Privatization Reform and Inequality of Educational Opportunity: The Case of Chile'. Sociology of Education, 78 (4), 316-343. Vincent, C. (1994). 'The market forces? the effect of local management of schools on special educational needs provision. '. British Educational Research Journal, 20 (3), 261-277.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.