ERIC Number: EJ1094681
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-May
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0741-7136
EISSN: N/A
Adult Education as a Heterotopia of Deviation: A Dwelling for the Abnormal Citizen
Sandberg, Fredrik; Fejes, Andreas; Dahlstedt, Magnus; Olson, Maria
Adult Education Quarterly: A Journal of Research and Theory, v66 n2 p103-119 May 2016
We argue that municipal adult education (MAE) can be seen as a place for displaced and abnormal citizens to gain temporary stability, enabling their shaping into desirable subjects. Drawing on a poststructural discursive analysis, we analyze policy texts and interviews with teachers and students. Our analysis illustrates how two distinct but interrelated student subjectivities are shaped: the rootless, unmotivated, and irresponsible student; and the responsible, motivated, and goal-oriented student. The difference is that the latter of these subjectivities is positioned as desirable. MAE provides a temporary place in time, a heterotopia of deviation, allowing students to escape precarious employment. The heterotopia places the students in a positive utopian dream of the future. A utopia is not a real place, and what is to become of the students after finishing MAE is not determined; the students themselves should shape it. If they fail, in line with a neoliberal governmentality, it is their own fault.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Adult Education, Public Education, Discourse Analysis, Educational Policy, Interviews, Adult Educators, Adult Students, Student Characteristics, Postmodernism, Employment, Student Motivation, Student Responsibility
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Adult Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Sweden
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A