Abstracts
Abstract
Neo-liberal reforms in education have been sweeping the globe, undermining education as a public good, and diminishing its contributions to democratic life. Using post-structural perspectives, this article provides a critical discourse analysis of a proposed legislative bill in the province of Manitoba, Canada, as it relates to the construction of the “student.” Using Foucault’s conceptualizations of governmentality and historical ontology of the subject, we interrogate the government’s proposed Bill 64 in order to reveal how policy works to constitute particular subjects. Our analysis reveals that Bill 64 constructs the student—through its relations to knowledge, others, and the self—as objectified and homogenous, and as being valued for economic contributions, thereby marginalizing other ways of being. By revealing the oppressive effects of neo-liberal discourses on students’ subjectivities, this article aims to inform educators, education researchers, and policy makers in the pursuit of more equitable educational policies and systems.
Keywords:
- neo-liberalism,
- policy,
- construction of students,
- post-structuralism,
- public education
Résumé
Les réformes néolibérales de l’éducation ont balayé le monde, sapant l’éducation en tant que bien public et diminuant ses contributions à la vie démocratique. À l’aide de perspectives poststructurelles, cet article propose une analyse critique du discours d’un projet de loi proposé par la province du Manitoba, au Canada, en ce qui concerne la construction de l’« étudiant ». En utilisant les conceptualisations de la gouvernementalité et de l’ontologie historique du sujet de Foucault, nous interrogeons le projet de loi 64 proposé par le gouvernement afin de révéler comment la politique fonctionne pour constituer des sujets particuliers. Notre analyse révèle que le projet de loi 64 construit l’étudiant — à travers ses rapports au savoir, aux autres et à soi — comme un objet homogène, et comme valorisé pour ses apports économiques, marginalisant ainsi d’autres manières d’être. En révélant les effets oppressifs des discours néolibéraux sur la subjectivité des étudiants, cet article vise à informer les éducateurs, les chercheurs en éducation et les décideurs politiques dans la poursuite de politiques et de systèmes éducatifs plus équitables.
Mots-clés :
- néolibéralisme,
- politiques,
- construction de l’étudiant,
- poststructuralisme,
- éducation publique
Appendices
Bibliography
- Apple, M. W. (1992). The text and cultural politics. Educational Researcher, 21(7), 4–19.
- Apple, M., & King, N. (1977). What do schools teach? Curriculum Inquiry, 6(4), 341–358. doi.org/10.1080/03626784.1977.11075550
- Baker, B. (2002). The hunt for disability: The new eugenics and the normalization of school children. Teachers College Record, 104(4), 663–703. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9620.00175
- Ball, S. J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/0268093022000043065
- Ball, S. J. (2012). Performativity, commodification and commitment: An I-spy guide to the neoliberal university. British Journal of Educational Studies, 60(1), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2011.650940
- Battiste, M. (2009). Naturalizing Indigenous knowledge in Eurocentric education. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 32(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.14288/cjne.v32i1.196482
- Berliner, D. C., & Biddle, B. J. (1996). The manufactured crisis: Myths, fraud, and the attack on America’s public schools. Nassp Bulletin, 80(576), 119–121. https://doi.org/10.1177/019263659608057619
- Biesta, G. (2009). Good education in an age of measurement: On the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(1), 33–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-008-9064-9
- Biesta, G. J. J. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Paradigm.
- Biesta, G. J. J. (2017). The rediscovery of teaching. Routledge.
- Blackmore, J. (2019). Feminism and neo/liberalism: Contesting education’s possibilities. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 40(2), 176–190. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1569877
- Brown, W. (2015). Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism’s stealth revolution. Zone Books.
- Butler, J. (1997). The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection. Stanford University Press.
- Butler, J. (2010). Frames of war: When is life grievable? Verso Books.
- Butler, J. (2012). Critique, dissent, disciplinarity. Critical Inquiry, 35(Summer), 773–795.
- Camfield, D. (2018). Manitoba: Fiscal policy and the public sector under “Today’s NDP.” In B. M. Evans & C. Fanelli (Eds.), The public sector in an age of austerity: Perspectives from Canada’s provinces and territories (pp. 101–138). McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- Cannella, G. S. (1997). Deconstructing early childhood education: Social justice and revolution. Peter Lang.
- Cannella, G. S. (1999). The scientific discourse of education: Predetermining the lives of others—Foucault, education and children. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 1(1), 36–34. https://doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2000.1.1.6
- Carpenter, S., Weber, N., & Schugurensky, D. (2012). Views from the blackboard: Neoliberal education reforms and the practice of teaching in Ontario, Canada. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 10(2), 145–161.
- Cherryholmes, C. H. (1994). Pragmatism, poststructuralism, and socially useful theorizing. Curriculum Inquiry, 24(2), 193–213.
- Crenshaw, K. (2015). Black girls matter: Pushed out, overpoliced, and underprotected. Centre for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies/African American Policy Forum. http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53f20d90e4b0b80451158d8c/t/54dcc1ece4b001c03e323448/1423753708557/AAPF_BlackGirlsMatterReport.pdf”
- Curry, D., & Cannella, G. S. (2013). Reconceptualist her/histories in early childhood studies. In V. Pacini-Ketchabaw & L. W. Prochner (Eds.), Re-situating Canadian early childhood education (pp. ix–xxvi). Peter Lang.
- Dahlberg, G., Moss, P., & Pence, A. (2007). Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Languages of evaluation (2nd ed.). Routledge.
- Davies, B. (2000). Eclipsing the constitutive power of discourse: The writing of Janette Turner Hospital. In E. St. Pierre & W. Pillow (Eds.), Working the ruins: Feminist poststructural theory and methods in education (pp. 179–198). Routledge.
- Davies, B., & Gannon, S. (2005). Feminism/poststructuralism. In B. Somekh & C. Lewin (Eds.), Theory and methods in the social research (pp. 318–325). SAGE.
- Delpit, L. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. The New Press.
- Evans, B. M., & Fanelli, C. (2018). Introduction: The permanent unequal union: Canada’s provinces and territories in an era of neoliberalism. In B. M. Evans & C. Fanelli (Eds.), The public sector in an age of austerity: Perspectives from Canada’s provinces and territories (pp. 3–20). McGill-Queen’s Press.
- Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. (A. Sheridan Smith, Trans.). Vintage Books.
- Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777–795.
- Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the self. In L. Martin, H. Gutman, & P. Hutton (Eds.), Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault (pp. 16–49): Tavistock Publications.
- Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality (Vintage Books ed.). Random House. (Originally published in 1976).
- Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (pp. 87–104). University of Chicago Press. (Originally published in 1978).
- Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans., 2nd ed.). Vintage Books. (Originally published 1975).
- Foucault, M. (2007). What is critique? In S. Lotringer (Ed.), The politics of truth (pp. 41–82). Semiotext(e). (Originally published 1978).
- Foucault, M. (2007). What is enlightenment? In S. Lotringer (Ed.), The politics of truth (pp. 97–120). Semiotext(e). (Originally published 1984).
- Frankel, S. (2012). Poverty reduction in Manitoba under neoliberalism: Is the third way an effective way. Manitoba Law Journal, 36(2), 269–300. https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/themanitobalawjournal/index.php/mlj/article/download/836/836
- Friesen, J. (2000). Aboriginal spirituality and biblical theology: Closer than you think. Detselig.
- Giroux, H. A. (2015). Against the terror of neoliberalism: Politics beyond the age of greed. Routledge.
- Heydon, R., & Iannacci, L. (2009). Early childhood curricula and the de-pathologizing of childhood. University of Toronto Press.
- Hursh, D. W. (2015). The end of public schools: The corporate reform agenda to privatize education. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315752983
- Janzen, M. D., & Schwartz, K. (2018). Behaving badly: Critiquing the discourses of “children” and their (mis) behaviours. McGill Journal of Education, 53(1), 109–127.
- Jeannotte, M. S. (2010). Going with the flow: Neoliberalism and cultural policy in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Canadian Journal of Communication, 35(2), 303–324.
- Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. (2021). Bill 64 - The Education Modernization Act. https://web2.gov.mb.ca/bills/42-3/b064e.php
- Manitoba Education. (2019, January 23). Province announces new commission on K-12 education. https://news.gov.mb.ca/news/index.html?archive=&item=44959
- Maynard, R. (2017). Policing Black lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present. Fernwood Publishing.
- McBride, S., & McNutt, K. (2007). Devolution and neoliberalism in the Canadian welfare state: Ideology, national and international conditioning frameworks, and policy change in British Columbia. Global Social Policy, 7(2), 177–201.
- Peters, M. A. (2009). Introduction: Governmentality, education and the end of neoliberalism. In M. A. Peters, A. C. Besley, M. Olssen, S. Maurer, & S. Weber (Eds.), Governmentality studies in education (pp. xxvii–xlviii): Sense Publishers.
- Pinar, W. F. (2004). What is curriculum theory? Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Rogers, R. (Ed.). (2011). An introduction to critical discourse analysis in education. Routledge.
- Shaker, E., & Froese-Germain, B. (2008). Capitalizing on crisis in schools and society. Our Schools/Our Selves, 17(3), 19–24.
- Stonechild, B. (2016). The knowledge seeker: Embracing Indigenous spirituality. University of Regina.
- Swadener, B. B. (2010). “At risk” or “at promise”? From deficit constructions of the “other childhood” to possibilities for authentic alliances with children and families. International Critical Childhood Policy Studies Journal, 3(1), 7–29.
- Thomas, G., & Loxley, A. (2007). Deconstructing special education and constructing inclusion (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
- Todd, S. (2003). Learning from the other: Levinas, psychoanalysis, and ethical possibilities in education. SUNY Press.
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Canada’s residential schools: The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Vol. 1). McGill-Queen’s Press-MQUP.
- UNICEF. (n.d.). Convention on the rights of the child. https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention
- Winton, S. (2022). Unequal benefits: Privatization and public education in Canada: University of Toronto Press.