Inquiring into ‘techniques of power’ with preservice teachers through the ‘school film’ The Paper Chase

Abstract

In working with preservice teachers, I have often coupled academic readings with “school films” to take up critical issues. In this article, I discuss a project I designed to introduce preservice teachers to the idea of “techniques of power” through analyses of the film The Paper Chase (1973), analyses informed by Gore's (in: T. Popkewitz, M. Brennan (Eds.), Foucault's Challenge: Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Education, Teachers College Press, New York, 1998, pp. 231–251) articulation of eight “techniques of power” and certain elements from Foucault's (Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Random House, New York, 1977) Discipline and Punish. I also explain how preservice teachers began to view teaching and disciplinary practices through the lens of techniques of power.