ERIC Number: EJ1150418
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006
Pages: 11
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0256-0100
EISSN: N/A
Michel Foucault on Education: A Preliminary Theoretical Overview
Deacon, Roger
South African Journal of Education, v26 n2 p177-187 2006
Michel Foucault's work is already well-known in the field of education. What is not yet well-known is that Foucault's oeuvre as a whole incorporates within itself and offers for wider consumption a number of key educational themes. For purposes of clarity, these themes can be reduced to three, dealing with what might be called the past, present, and future of schooling, or, its development, its functions, and its prospects. These three themes, the subject matter of this article, can be described more accurately and specifically using some of Foucault's own terminology: (1) An historical or "technico-political" account of the rise of the school, from its negatively oriented seventeenth century origins to its more positively conceived nineteenth century entrenchment and expansion; (2) an explication of the everyday mechanics of schooling as a disciplinary technology or "moral orthopedics"; and (3) the implications for contemporary educational institutions and practices of a model of education as a "block of capacity-communication-power". The two primary aims in this research project were: (1) to excavate, explain and understand the implications of Foucault's work for education in the abstract and in general, and for curriculum development and pedagogical practice in particular; and (2) to shed critical and substantive light on, and offer additional or alternative policy directions for, current debates about the relevance, utility and effects of the outcomes-orientated, globally aligned education policy research and practices in South Africa.
Descriptors: Educational Philosophy, Educational Theories, Teaching Methods, Curriculum Development, Educational Policy, Outcomes of Education, Relevance (Education), Educational Practices, Educational History, Moral Development
Education Association of South Africa. University of Pretoria, Centre for the Study of Resilience, Level 3, Groenkloof Student Centre, Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, George Storrar Road and Lleyds Street, Pretoria 0001, South Africa. Tel: +27-12-420-5798; Fax: +27-12-420-5511; Web site: http://www.sajournalofeducation.co.za/index.php/saje/index
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A