The governmentalization of learning and the assemblage of a learning apparatus

Educational Theory

Volumn 58, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 391-415

  Simons, Maarten ^a   Masschelein, Jan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEUVEN   (Belgium)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 65249131142     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2008.00296.x     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (126)

1. For an elaboration, see Michel Foucault, "Le Sujet et le Pouvoir" [The Subject and Power], 231-232;
2. Michel Foucault, '"Structuralisme et Poststructuralisme" [Structuralism and Poststructuralism], 448;
3. and Michel Foucault, "Qu'est-ce que les Lumiè res? [What Is Enlightenment?], 573, all in Dits et é crits IV 1980-1988, eds. Daniel Defert, Francxois Ewald, and Jacques Lagrange (Paris: Gallimard, 1994).
4. See also Frederic Gros, "La parrhêsia chez Foucault (1982-1984) " [La Parrhêsia in Foucault's Writings, 1982-1984] in Le courage de la vé rité , ed. Frederic Gros (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002), 155-165.
5. Michel Foucault, Naissance de la biopolitique, Cours au Collège de France (1978-1979) [The Birth of Biopolitics: Course at the Collège de France] (Paris: Gallimard/Le seuil, 2004), 5.
6. Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité 2. L'usage des plaisirs [The History of Sexuality, vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure] (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), 13.
7. We would like to stress here that our main aim is to offer an analysis, and thus our discussion of the presuppositions and theoretical implications of the framework (and foremost, the research attitude) is limited. For a more detailed analysis, see, for example, Michel Foucault, Naissance de la biopolitique, Cours au Collège de France (1978-1979) [Birth of Biopolitics: Course at the Collège de France, 1978- 1979] (Paris: Gallimard/Le seuil, 2004);
8. Michel Foucault, Sé curité , territoire, population, Cours au Collè ge de France (1977-1978) [Security, Territory, Population: Course at the Collège de France, 1977-1978] (Paris: Gallimard/Le seuil, 2004);
9. Nikolas Rose, Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999);
10. and Mitchell Dean, "Governmentality, " in Power and Rule in Modern Society (New Delhi: Sage, 1999).
11. For a discussion of this formula, see also Gerard Delanty, "Citizenship as a Learning Process: Disciplinary Citizenship versus Cultural Citizenship, " International Journal of Lifelong Education 22, no. 6 (2003): 597-605.
12. See, for example, Richard Edwards, "Mobilizing Lifelong Learning: Governmentality in Educational Practices, " Journal of Education Policy 17, no. 1 (2002): 353-365;
13. Richard Edwards and Nick Boreham, "The Centre Cannot Hold: Complexity and Difference in European Union Policy Towards a Learning Society, " Journal of Education Policy 18, no. 4 (2003): 407-421;
14. Richard Edwards and Katherine Nicoll, "Mobilizing Workplaces: Actors, Discipline and Governmentality, " Studies in Continuing Education 26, no. 2 (2004): 159-173;
15. Andreas Fejes, "NewWine in Old Skins: Changing Patterns in the Governing of the Adult Learner in Sweden, " International Journal of Lifelong Education 24, no. 1 (2005): 71-86;
16. and Kenneth Wain, The Learning Society in a PostmodernWorld: The Education Crisis (New York: Peter Lang, 2004).
17. For more on the notion "educationalization, " see Marc Depaepe, "Educationalisation: A Key Concept in Understanding the Basic Processes in the History of Western Education, " History of Education Review27, no. 2 (1998): 16-28.
18. The term "grammar of schooling" has been elaborated by David Tyack and William Tobin, "The 'Grammar' of Schooling: Why Has It Been so Hard to Change? " American Education Research Journal 31, no. 3 (1994): 453-479.
19. See Foucault, "Naissance de la biopolitique"; and Rose, Powers of Freedom.
20. Françxois Ewald, Histoire de l'état providence [History of the Welfare State] (Paris: Grasset, 1986), 209.
21. Michel Foucault, 'Il faut défendre la société', Cours au Collège de France (1975-1976) [Society Must Be Defended: Course at the Collège de France, 1975-1976] (Paris: Gallimard/Le Seuil, 1997).
22. Émile Durkheim, "De educatie, haar aard en haar rol" [Education: Its Nature and Role], in School en maatschappij, ed. Manuela du Bois-Reymond and Anton Wesselingh (1922; repr. Groningen: Wolters- Noordhoff, 1981), 216 (our translation).
23. See also Ian Hunter, Rethinking the School: Subjectivity, Bureaucracy, Criticism (St. Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 1994).
24. For a more detailed elaboration of this point, see Thomas S. Popkewitz, "Rethinking Decentralization and State/Civil Society Distinctions: The State as a Problematic of Governing, " Journal Of Education Policy 11, no. 1 (1996): 27-51;
25. and Thomas S. Popkewitz, Struggling for the Soul: The Politics of Schooling and the Construction of the Teacher (New York : Teachers College Press, 1998).
26. Nikolas Rose, "Governing 'Advanced' Liberal Democracies, " in Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and Rationalities of Government, eds. Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne, and Nikolas Rose (London: UCL Press, 1996), 37-64.
27. Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Mirage of Social Justice, vol. 2 of Law, Legislation and Liberty (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973), 62;
28. and Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Political Order of a Free People, vol. 3 of Law, Legislation and Liberty (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 73.
29. Graham Burchell, "Liberal Government and Techniques of the Self," in Foucault and Political Reason, eds. Barry, Osborne, and Rose, 31.
30. See Foucault, "Qu'est-ce que les Lumières," 577; and Michel Foucault, "Le souci de la véirité" [The Concern for the Truth], in Dits et ecrits IV, 1980-1988, eds. Defert, Ewald, and Lagrange, 670.
31. Peter Drucker, The Age of Discontinuity: Guidelines to Our Changing Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), xi;
32. and Daniel Bell, De komst van de post-industriële samenleving: een sociale toekomstverkenning [The Advent of a Postindustrial Society: A Social Future] (Deventer: Kluwer, 1974), 128.
33. Drucker, The Age of Discontinuity, 313.
34. Ibid., 24.
35. Saskia Tjepkema, "Ondersteuning van de kenniswerker in een lerende organisatie [Supporting the Knowledge Worker in a Learning Organization], Opleiders in Organisaties/Capita-Selecta 26 (1996): 83 (our translation);
36. and Gerard Bomers, "De lerende organisatie [The Learning Organization], Gids voor de opleidingspraktijk 8 (1991): 5 (our translation).
37. Malcolm Adiseshiah, "Lifelong Education," in Lifelong Education and the School, eds. Ravindra-kumar H. Dave and Nalini Stiemerling (Hamburg: UNESCO, 1973), 28.
38. René Maheu, "Pour une education permanente" [For a Lifelong Education], 26; Frank W. Jessup, "The Idea of Lifelong Learning, 19; Adiseshiah, "Lifelong Education, 28, all in Lifelong Education and the School, eds. Dave and Stiemerling.
39. Edgar Faure et al., Learning To Be: The World of Education Today and Tomorrow (Paris: UNESCO, 1972), 104 and 209.
40. Torsten Huseen, The Learning Society (London: Methuen, 1974), 23.
41. Eduard C. Lindeman, The Meaning of Adult Education (New York: New Republic, 1926), 4-5.
42. Ibid., 6.
43. Faure et al., Learning To Be, 77-78.
44. Malcolm S. Knowles, The Modern Practice of Adult Education: Andragogy versus Pedagogy (Chicago: Follett, 1970), 56ff;
45. and Malcolm S. Knowles, Self-Directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers (New York: Association Press, 1975), 18.
46. See, for example, Carel F. Van Parreren, Leren op school [Learning at School] (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1976), 16-17.
47. See, for example, Robert M. Gagne, The Conditions of Learning (London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970).
48. See, for example, Richard E. Mayer, Thinking, Problem Solving, Cognition (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1983);
49. and Neil A. Stillings et al., Cognitive Science: An Introduction (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1987).
50. See, for example, Jean Piaget, Genetische epistemologie: een studie van de ontwikkeling van denken en kennen [Genetic Epistemology: A Study of the Evolution of Thought and Knowledge] (Meppel: Boom, 1976);
51. and Ernst von Glasersfeld, Radical Constructivism: A Way of Knowing and Learning (London: Falmer, 1995), 68.
52. Habermas's perspective (drawing upon Piaget) - often used to reflect on learning and more specifically on collective learning processes - could also be located within this field of problematization. See, for example, Delanty, "Citizenship as a Learning Process." Equilibrium in Habermas's perspective is consensus ("Verstandigung"), presupposed within communicative rationality and involving learning processes.
53. John H. Flavell, "Metacognitive Aspects of Problem Solving," in The Nature of Intelligence, ed. Lauren B. Resneck (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1976), 231-236.
54. Gerard J. Westhoff, "Naar een didaktiek van de studeerbekwaamheid" [Toward a Didactics of Learning Competency], in Leren leren in didactisch perspectief, eds. Jan Kaldeway, Jacques Haenen, Sophie Wils, and Gerard Westhoff (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1996), 21.
55. Thomas J. Shuell, "The Role of the Student in Learning from Instruction," Contemporary Educational Psychology 13, no. 3 (1988): 276-295.
56. Philippe Pochet and Michel Paternotre, "'Inzetbaarheid/ Employability' in de context van de werkge-legenheidsrichtsnoeren van de Europese Unie" [Employability in the Context of the Employment Directives of the European Union], Observatoir Social Europeen (October 1998), http://www.ose.be/files/ employa-nl.pdf.
57. Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Beroepsprofielen en Basiscompetenties van de leraren. Decretale Tekst en memorie van toelichting [Profession Profiles and Basic Competencies of Teachers. Decree and Explanatory Memorandum] (Brussels: Departement Onderwijs, 1999).
58. Ibid., 1 (our translation).
59. Nico Verloop, "De leraar" [The Teacher], in Onderwijskunde. Een kennisbasis voor professionals, eds. Joost Lowyck and Nico Verloop (Leuven: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1995), 37.
60. Stewart Ranson, "Towards the Learning Society," Educational Management and Administration 20, no. 2 (1992): 68-79.
61. Nicoleta Chioncel and Theo Jansen, The Implications of the Research for Central and Eastern European Policy Design on Active Citizenship and Governance (Nijmegen: University of Nijmegen, 2004), http://webdoc.ubn.ru. n1/mono/c/chioncel-n/reviedant.pdf.
62. Rebekka Celis, An Snick, Veerle Stroobants, and Danny Wildemeersch, eds., Learning Citizenship and Governance in Europe: Analysis of Life Histories (unpublished Framework 5-funded project report, submitted to the Commission of the European Communities, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, 2001), http://www.surrey.ac.uk/politics/ETGACE/SEC3-B3.HTM.
63. See, for example, Delanty, "Citizenship as a Learning Process," 603. According to Delanty we should distinguish between "disciplinary citizenship" and "cultural citizenship." The former is mainly individualistic, related to formal education and promoted by (neo-)liberal policies. He uses the expression "gov-ernmentalization of learning to refer to this narrow form of citizenship. As an alternative, he suggests that we look at citizenship on a cultural level as combining both individual and collective learning. Although we cannot discuss this in detail here, in our opinion his conception of "governmentalization is rather limited. For us, governmentalization involves a particular form of self-government, and we doubt whether practices of "cultural citizenship indeed imply nondisciplinary effects and whether they are located outside the form of government and self-government we describe here.
64. Bomers, "De lerende organisatie, 3 (our translation).
65. Ibid., 4 (our translation).
66. Peter Senge, "The Leader's New Work: Building Learning Organizations," Sloan Management Review 23, no. 1 (1990): 14.
67. See Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 353;
68. and Fred J. Van der Krogt, Leren in netwerken [Learning Network] (Utrecht: LEMMA, 1995), 5.
69. Rita Dunon et al., "De schooldoorlichting: een model-benadering van solo-optreden naar geregisseerd teamwork [School Screening: A Model Approach from Solo Performance to Directed Teamwork], T.O.R.B. 3-4 (1997-1998): 210 (our translation).
70. Jo M.M. Ritzen, "Investeren in mensen" [Investing in People], Tijdschrift voor Hoger Onderwijs 15, no. 1 (1997); 22;
71. and Jean-Luc Dehaene, De overheid en de informatiemaatschappij [The Government and the Information Society] (1995), 1 (our translation). For a detailed description and analysis of the European policy concerning lifelong learning (and its relation to employability),
72. see, for example, Andy Green, "The Many Faces of Lifelong Learning: Recent Education Policy Trends in Europe," Journal of Education Policy 17, no. 6 (2002): 611-626.
73. Frank Vandenbroucke, Onderwijs en vorming: Vandaag kampioen in wiskunde, morgen ook in gelijke kansen. Beleidsnota 2004-2009 [Education and Training: Today Champion in Mathematics, Tomorrow in Equal Opportunities. Policy 2004-2009] (Brussels: Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeen-schap, 2004), 112, own translation.
74. See, for example, European Commission, "Teaching and Learning: Towards the Learning Society (Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, 1995), http://aei.pitt.edu/1132/.
75. Ibid., 2.
76. Anthony Giddens, Paars. De Derde Weg. Over de vernieuwing van de sociaal-democratie [Purple, the Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy] (Antwerp, Belgium: Houtekiet, 2000), 130 (our translation).
77. Ibid., 114.
78. For a critical discussion of these issues, see also Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons, "The Strategy of the Inclusive Education Apparatus," Studies in Philosophy and Education 24, no. 2 (2005): 117-138.
79. See, for example, Edwards, "Mobilizing Lifelong Learning," 353-365.
80. It was Foucault who first focused on this figure of " entrepreneurship" and the "entrepreneurial self" in his analysis of neoliberalism at the level of governmentality (during his courses at the College de France). See Foucault, Sécurité, territoire, population, 232;
81. and Colin Gordon, "Governmental Rationality: An Introduction," in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, eds.Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), 44.
82. In the meantime, these ideas have been developed further: see Paul Du Gay and Graeme Salaman, "The Cult(ure) of the Customer," Journal of Management Studies 29, no. 5 (1992): 615-633;
83. Rose, "Governing 'Advanced' Liberal Democracies," 37-64;
84. Peter Miller and Nikolas Rose, "Mobilizing the Consumer: Assembling the Subject of Consumption," Theory, Culture & Society 14, no. 1 (1997): 1-36;
85. and Dean, "Gov-ernmentality. These ideas have also been introduced within educational research: Michael A. Peters, "Neoliberalism and the Constitution of the Entrepreneurial Self: Education and Enterprise Culture in New Zealand," in Curriculum in the Postmodern Condition, eds. Colin Lankshear, Michael Peters, Alicia De Alba and Edgar Gonzales-Gaudiano (New York: Peter Lang, 2000);
86. Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons, "An Adequate Education for a Globalized World? A Note on the Immunization of Being-Together," JournalofPhilosophyofEducation 36, no. 4 (2002): 565-584;
87. Richard Edwards, "Mobilizing Lifelong Learning: Governmentality in Educational Practices, JournalofEducation Policy 17, no. 1 (2002): 353-365;
88. and Stephen Ball, "The Teacher s Soul and the Terrors of Perform-ativity," Journal of Education Policy 18, no. 2 (2003): 215-228.
89. Israel Kirzner, Competition and Entrepreneurship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 33.
90. Giddens, "Paars. De Derde Weg, 73 and 129 (our translation).
91. Gary Becker, The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 173.
92. Foucault, Naissance de la biopolitique, 253.
93. James S. Coleman, "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital," American Journal of Sociology 94 (1988): 95-120;
94. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000);
95. and OECD, The Well-Being of Nations: The Role of Human and Social Capital (Paris: OECD, 2001), 41.
96. Gordon, "Governmental Rationality: An introduction," 44.
97. Ulrich Bröckling, "Gendering the Enterprising Self: Subjectification Programs and Gendering Differences in Guides to Success" (lecture delivered to the international symposium "Welcome to the Revolution," at the College of Design and Art in Zurich, Switzerland, November 9-11, 2001), 3.
98. Thomas Lemke, Eine Kritik der politischen Vernunft. Foucault's Analyse der moderne Gouvernementalitat [A Critique of Reason: Foucault's Analysis of Modern Governmentality] (Berlin/Hamburg: Argument, 1997), 253.
99. See, for example, Jürgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns [Theory of Communicative Action] (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981), 182 and 293.
100. See Rose, "Governing 'Advanced' Liberal Democracies"; and Dean, "Governmentality."
101. See Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité 2. L'usage des plaisirs, 33;
102. and Mitchell Dean, "Governing the Unemployed Self in an Active Society," Economy and Society 9, no. 3 (1995): 47-68.
103. David Kolb, Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development (Engle-wood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1984), 1.
104. For an illustration of the disciplinary challenges of new spatiotemporal orderings, see Edwards, "Mobilizing Lifelong Learning, 359ff.
105. Ibid.
106. Peter Sloterdijk, Eurotaoïsme. Over de kritiek van de politieke kinetiek [Eurotaoïsm: On the Political Criticism of the Kinetics], trans. W. Hansen (Amsterdam: uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, 1991), 42-43.
107. Ibid., 43.
108. Theodore W. Schultz, Investment in Human Capital: The Role of Education and of Research (New York: Free Press, 1971), 28.
109. Rose, Powers of Freedom, 162.
110. Menucha Birenbaum and Filip Dochy, eds., Alternatives in Assessment of Achievement, Learning Processes and Prior Knowledge (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1996).
111. Vandenbroucke, Onderwijs en vorming, 111.
112. For the notion of apparatus, or "dispositif," we draw upon Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité 1. La volonté de savoir [The History of Sexuality, vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge] (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), 125.
113. For the idea of assemblage, or putting components together "fabricated" in different (temporal, spatial) contexts, see Rose, Powers of Freedom, 53;
114. Dean, "Governmentality," 29;
115. Burchell, "Liberal Government and Techniques of the Self," 26;
116. and Ian Hunter, "Assembling the School," in Foucault and the Political Reason, eds. Barry, Osborne, and Rose.
117. See also Rose, "Governing 'Advanced' Liberal Democracies," 43.
118. Michel Foucault, quoted in Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Brighton, UK: Harvester, 1982), 187.
119. For this idea, we draw upon the concluding remarks in Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité 1. La volanté, de savoir.
120. For an example of this approach, see Chioncel and Jansen, The Implications of the Research for Central and Eastern European Policy Design on Active Citizenship and Governance.
121. See also Gert J.J. Biesta, Beyond Learning: Democratic Education for a Human Future (Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm, 2006).
122. Nikolas Rose, Powers of Freedom,20.
123. Michel Foucault, "La philosophie analytique de la politique" [The Analytical Philosophy of Politics], in Dits et éecrits IV 1976-1979, eds. Daniel Defert, François Ewald, and Jacques Lagrange (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 540-541.
124. See Michel Foucault, "Interview with Michel Foucault," in Power: Essential Works of Foucault, vol. 3, ed. James D. Faubion, trans. Robert Hurley et al. (New York and London: Penguin, 2000), 326-348.
125. See Michel Foucault, "Vivre autrement le temps" [To Live the Present Otherwise], in Dits et écrits III 1976-1979, eds. Defert, Ewald, and Lagrange, 790.
126. For an elaboration of this point, see Masschelein and Simons, "An Adequate Education for a Globalized World," 565-584.