From Confinement to Attachment: Michel Foucault on the Rise of the School |
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Authors: | Roger Deacon |
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Institution: | University of KwaZulu-Natal , P.O. Box 50324, Randjesfontein 1683, South Africa E-mail: deacon@ukzn.ac.za |
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Abstract: | This article develops a Foucauldian account of the rise of the modern school, on the basis of a thorough examination of all references to education in Foucault's work. It analyses the seventeenth-century origins of mass schooling and traces its development up to the nineteenth century. It identifies several overlapping stages in this multifaceted and largely contingent development, particularly a fundamental shift from a negative to a positive conception of the school. This Foucauldian understanding of the rise of schooling as a disciplinary technology suggests that an initial focus on the exclusion or confinement of disorderly groups was gradually superseded by a focus on the inclusion or “attachment” of diverse individuals and on the development of their potential. It concludes by cautioning against over-simplistic applications of Foucault's work to the field of education. |
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