On the Continuity of Power Relations in Pedagogy

Abstract

ABSTRACT While schooling has seen dramatic changes throughout the past century, there appears to be a certain continuity in the functioning of power relations in pedagogy. It is argued that this continuity constrains what we are in educational institutions and what changes are possible. Drawing on both Foucault's conception of power relations and a multi‐site empirical study which demonstrates micro‐level techniques of power, this paper contributes to the enterprise of thinking about how education might exercise power differently in order to improve the experience of schooling for students and teachers. Putting Foucault's ideas to use in a field‐based study of radical and mainstream, and institutionalised and non‐institutionalised sites, the paper also contributes to contemporary debates about the usefulness of poststructuralism, demonstrating rather than asserting what might be done.