In a study of power and disciplining techniques in school, I have focused on logbooks and so called "development conferences". More than two millions conferences are performed every year within the Swedish school system and since 1994 they are compulsory. The talks are supposed to focus on students future development and aim to "make the best" of every individual. The study concerning development talks contains twelve recordings with participants: two teachers, parents and the students, aged twelve. In this paper I will concentrate on one of the talks which I will analyse as a drama. The participants are thus involved in a communication where feelings, power and different kinds of strategies will go on for 30 very concentrated and condensed minutes. Using dramaturgic tools as presentation, escalation, turning point, point of no return, as well as protagonist, antagonist and heroes, the games of power staged within development talks will appear with sharper outlines. In this drama the teachers will create the heroes, the student the protagonist, the mother second protagonist and school as institution will shape the antagonist. In the beginning of the drama the teachers present the student as a very gifted young boy, but with a bad attitude, lazy and talkative during lessons. The boy creates the role of a silent protagonist saying no more than yes and no while the teachers and the mother play the game. In the end the three of them have verbally created a bright new student. Now he is hungry to learn wanting to be number one in his class. Analysing the development talk as a drama gives an enhanced perception of double bindings, asymmetries and pastoral power. The outcome of the drama will present heroes who do not act according to expectations. Heroes in dramas are supposed to help and support the protagonist, but instead they show a strange intimacy with the antagonist as well as with the protagonist. In this paper I draw on a foucaultian concept of power strategies and pastoral power in combination with the concept of intimacy. In the Swedish antiauthoritarian school system of today students are supposed to discipline themselves rather than listening to orders or obeying rules. Thus the pastoral or mild power will play a main role when teachers try to discipline, develope and educate their students. Communication, intimacy and friendly support are instruments used when teachers are negotiating students identity in development talks.

Live recordings of development talks

My findings will show how pastoral powers are staged and shaped within a development talk