Session Information
23 SES 05 C, Discourse and Regulation
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
This is a conceptual paper which draws on the work of Michel Foucault and of Murray Edelman as a means of understanding the modern governmental management of education policy, including such aspects as its uses of, and engagement with, research evidence, narrative, number, media, and presentation.
The paper seeks to explore the way in which education policy is typically packaged nowadays in respect of several key features:
· the ways in which research evidence is adduced
· the ways in which narrative is constructed
· the ways in which number is utilised
· the attention to media requirements
· the management of policy and policy promotion
The paper fuses the work of Michel Foucault on governmentality with the work of Murray Edelman on policy as spectacle. The paper thus explores the extent to which a focus on policy management and policy perception can be seen to represent a rationality of rule in itself, where symbolic political advantage is seen to outweigh issues around policy content and policy purposes.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Edelman,M. (1985). The symbolic uses of politics. Urbana/Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. Edelman, M. (1988). Constructing the political spectacle. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Foucault, M. (1991) Governmentality. In G.Burchell, C.Gordon, & P.Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect (pp. 87–104). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Foucault, M. (2000a). On the government of the living. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Michel Foucault, Ethics (pp. 81–85). London: Penguin Books. Foucault, M. (2000b). The birth of bio-politics. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Michel Foucault, Ethics (pp. 73–79). London: Penguin Books. Foucault, M. (2002). Omnes et singulatim: toward a critique of political reason. In J. Faubion (Ed.), Michel Foucault, Power (pp. 298–325). London: Penguin Books. Gillies, D. (2008). Developing governmentality: conduct3 and education policy. Journal of Education Policy, 23(4), 415-427.
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