Fetish of the self-improvement in the Polish Lifelong Learning discourse

Author(s):

Helena Ostrowicka(presenting / submitting)Magdalena Kucińska(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education

Format:

Poster

Session Information

23 SES 05.5 PS, General Poster Exhibition

General Poster Session during Lunch

Time:

2012-09-19

12:30-14:00

Room:

FCEE - Poster Exhibition Area

Chair:

Contribution

This project corresponds with the interdisciplinary research on the consequences of the changes in higher education emerging from the creation of European Higher Education Area. Its theoretical part has been inspired by Michael Foucault’s findings taken from the research on the practices of constructing the individual identity within institutional relations between knowledge and power. The object our research interests focuses on the technologies of constructing the subject of young person. We have made the object of our analysis two aspects of constructing subjectivity: self-constitution of the subject and political technologies of the management of the individual. The starting point is the issue of educational function of discursive practices and defining their meaning by socio-cultural and structural contexts which are examined as a factor constructing (creating and transforming) the identity. The ways of transforming a human being through discoursive practices into a subject of a particular kind are the subject of Foucault’s genealogy.

Research are focused on analysis of national documents and research reports representing the education policy in Poland. Curiosities of the Polish discourse are being discussed in the context of the influence of the European Lifelong Learning discourse.

Method

The methodological framework of the research is discourse analysis as formulated in terms of Foucauldian and critical approaches. The assortment of texts for analysis was limited to published publications by Foundation for the Development of the Education System. The complete research procedure consists of three fundamental stages: 1. Collecting the empirical material (archives analysis). 2. The empirical material analysis (qualitative text analysis) The collected empirical material was subjected to text analysis at two levels: content dimension and meanings organization dimension. Meanings organization analysis allows reaching more general ideas contained in the statements and documents. At this stage of research, we move on from the empirical level to the theoretical one. The starting point for the meanings organization reconstruction is the choice of concept categories which are put on the analysed text and examining their relations with the meanings contained in the statements. 3. Problematization. The results obtained at stage 2 of the conducted research will provide the basis for this stage analysis of the discourse elements which are employed in political strategies and relations between discourses and events of different kind (e.g. economic, political, social).

Expected Outcomes

As a result of conducted analysis it is possible to express the following conclusions: 1. On the basis of an analysis of publications issued by the Foundation for the Development of the Education System it is possible to reconstruct technologies of the self. 2. Analysis of chosen texts allows to state that the Lifelong Learning idea can be read out as the techniques of the self - technologies of performance - the self-improvement. 3. The idea of the self-improvement in Polish educational policy is being spread in methods of the audit and the comparability. 4. The research reveals “hidden programme” of juvenilism, which is manifested in attributing a unique or essential role in society to youth and entrusting young people with the mission of realising social changes.

References

Fairclough N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Foucault M. (1977) The Archeology of Knowledge. Translated by A. Siemek, Warszawa: PIW. Foucault M. (1995) The History of Sexuality.Warszawa, Czytelnik. Foucault M. (1998) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Warszawa: Aletheia, Warszawa. Foucault M. (2000) Technologies of the Self. In Philosophy, History, Politics. A Collection of Writings, M. Foucault. Translated by D. Leszczynski, L. Rasinski.Warszawa – Wrocław: PWN, 247-275. Marody M. (1987) Technologies of Intellect. The Linguistic Determinants of Everyday Knowledge and Human Action. Warszawa: PWN Marshall J. (1992) “Foucault and Educational Research”. In Foucault and Education: Disciplines and Knowledge. Kraków: Impuls. 23 – 43. Van Dijk T. (ed) (2001) Discourse as Structure and Process. Translated by G. Grochowski. Warszawa: PWN. Walters W., Haahr J. (2005). Governing Europe. Discourse, Governmentality and European Integration. London: Routledge.

Author Information

Helena Ostrowicka (presenting / submitting)

Kazimierz Wielki University

Institute of Pedagogy

Bydgoszcz

Magdalena Kucińska (presenting)