Foucault News

Rebecca Smith, The emergence of the quantified child (2017) Discourse, 38 (5), pp. 701-712.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2015.1136269

Abstract
Using document analysis, this paper examines the historical emergence of the quantified child, revealing how the collection and use of data has become normalized through legitimizing discourses. First, following in the traditions of Foucault’s genealogy and studies examining the sociology of numbers, this paper traces the evolution of data collection in a range of significant education policy documents. Second, a word count analysis was used to further substantiate the claim that data collection and use has been increasingly normalized through legitimizing discourses and routine actions in educational settings. These analyses provide evidence that the need to quantify educational practices has been justified over long periods of time through a variety of documents and that the extent to which data governs educators’ thoughts, discourses, and actions has dramatically increased during the past century.

Author Keywords
Data; educational discourse; educational policy; genealogy; history of education; sociology of numbers; testing

Amber Hughes & Ron Laura, The contribution of Aboriginal epistemologies to mathematics education in Australia: Exploring the silences
(2017) Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(4), 338–348.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1359782

Abstract
Epistemology is a conceptual template for how we think about the world, and the study of how we come to know the world around us. The world does not dictate unequivocally how to interpret it. This article will explore this position on the fluidity of epistemic constructs through two prominent philosophical perspectives, those being derived from the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michael Foucault, respectively. These insights will be used to more deeply unfold the current situation for Aboriginal students within dominant approaches to mathematics curriculum in Australia, and the subsequent approaches to the inclusion of Aboriginal knowledge and epistemologies. It is suggested that the epistemic constructs most valued and thus credited as conveyors of ‘truth’, and therefore positioned as powerful forms of knowledge within dominant curriculum and education policy, are those derived from Western, Eurocentric origins. This privileging of particular epistemological constructs over others is reinforced unconsciously through the articulation of educational goals deemed most appropriate, or ‘socially just’, for the Aboriginal student population. The place of Aboriginal knowledge within such constructs is therefore reflective of broader ideation around the role of education within society and its failure to challenge existing structures of power and injustice. © 2017 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Author Keywords
Aboriginal knowledge; educational goals; Epistemology; Foucault; mathematics curriculum; social justice; truth; Wittgenstein

Gore, J. M. Reconciling educational research traditions. The Australian Educational Researcher, (2017) 44:357–372

DOI 10.1007/s13384-017-0245-8

Abstract
The field of educational research encompasses a vast array of paradigmatic and methodological perspectives. Arguably, this range has both expanded and limited our achievements in the name of educational research. In Australia, the ascendancy of certain research perspectives has profoundly shaped the field and its likely future. We (are expected to) identify ourselves in relation to particular theorists, theories, and methodologies, reconciling who we are as education academics with what we do as educational researchers. In this paper, I explore how we might reconcile seemingly incommensurate traditions. The analysis is anchored in my own experience, having traversed the terrain from poststructuralism to randomised controlled trials, and is elaborated through research conducted with colleagues on student aspirations and teacher development. I argue that it is critical to reconcile differences within educational research if we are to ensure the strength of the field and support the next generation of researchers to make a more profound impact on schooling and society.

Keywords
Educational research Traditions Methodologies Randomised controlled trials

Extract
[…]
My father, a Highways Department surveyor, asked a similar kind of question when he read my thesis and summarised my 3-years-in-the-making Foucauldian analysis in one sentence—which was shockingly accurate. He asked: ‘‘Jenny, why didn’t you do something useful—like in Special Education?’’ It sounds harsher now than I remember and, with an intellectually disabled sister, I want to believe he spoke from a caring place.

Not much later, upon returning to Australia, I was invited to give a seminar on my PhD at a Queensland university—my first-ever significant speaking engagement. The usual seminar structure unfolded; a 45-min presentation in which I articulated my argument, post-PhD, with a growing sense of authority over the ideas, followed by the obligatory question-and-answer time. I recall none of the questions posed. But in the mingling afterwards, I was asked a question that has stuck with me ever since. It was 1991 and she asked: ‘‘Jenny, how do you reconcile wearing lipstick with your work on feminist pedagogy?’’ This time, the request to reconcile meant aligning my ideas with a certain physical presentation of my self. My intellectual response came readily, drawing on Foucault’s (1988) notion of technologies of the self and critiques of the unified rational subject (Henriques et al. 1984). But at an emotional and bodily level, the question cut deep, such that I continue to think, for example, about how to style myself appropriately for different contexts—how to dress as the Radford lecturer, how to reconcile my ageing body with the hip person inside!