The article is devoted to the presentation of the reception of Foucauldian ideas in Polish pedagogical research over the past twenty years. This movement of thought is described as an oscillation between heterotopia and utopia, autonomy and heteronomy, emancipation and repression. As results of this analysis indicate, Polish pedagogues are most interested in those of Foucault's analyses which undertake an inquiry into the problems of discursive power or reveal the generative conditions shaping particular discursive formations. The concepts of disciplinary and pastoral power are adopted and utilised for analysing power relations inscribed in discourses of gender, market, childhood, youth, disability, homelessness and subjectivity. Apart from this, the article discusses the Polish reception of Foucauldian texts devoted to the critique of the autonomous subject and to his project of heterotopology. In conclusion, the author points to the inspirations issuing from the works of the French philosopher which encourage us to depart from a dualistic mode of reasoning. (Contains 7 notes.)