Derrida,Foucault and critical pedagogies of friendship in conflict-troubled societies

The aim of this paper is to place Derrida's and Foucault's ideas on friendship in conversation and then discuss how those ideas provide a pedagogical space in which critical educators in conflict-troubled societies can promote new modes of being and living with others. In particular, the notion of critical pedagogies of friendship is theorized and the pedagogical implications that follow are examined in the light of the emotional complexities of troubled knowledge in conflict-troubled societies. It is argued that critical pedagogies of friendship that take into consideration the emotional complexities of troubled knowledge help us interrupt the enemy–friend binary and revamp our sense of compassion and responsibility to others. Most importantly, critical pedagogies of friendship enable the creation of new spaces of political subjectification that nurture the invention of new relations of emancipation.     

How Bourdieu bites back: recognising misrecognition in education and educational research

Having noted that some use of Bourdieusian concepts in educational research is superficial, this paper offers a view of the distinctiveness of Bourdieu’s concepts via the example of misrecognition, which is differentiated from the concept with the same name in Fraser’s work. An account is given of a recent research project on white middle-class identity and school choice, which suggests that whilst parents avoided a common misrecognition (regarding school quality), they were nevertheless reliant on other forms of misrecognition (regarding the qualities of their children) that are equally important in the relationship between social class and educational inequalities. Finally, the paper suggests that educational understandings, including some educational research, are predisposed to misrecognise Bourdieusian concepts, and four areas of tension are identified. The paper argues against ‘light usage’ of Bourdieu whilst acknowledging that the approach can produce a pessimistic account that is at odds with some educational values.     

Michel Foucault: liberation,freedom, education1

This article is a critical examination of practices and representations that constitute international education. While international education has provided substantial contributions and benefits for nation‐states and international students, we question the discourses and practices which inform the international education export industry. The ‘brand identities’ of receiving or host countries imply that they are welcoming, respectful of multiculturalism and have a well established intellectual history, in contrast to international students' embodied experiences. There is also a tendency to represent and regard international students as disembodied learners. We conclude that these disjunctures between disembodied representations and embodied experiences are undermining the kinds of cosmopolitan sensibilities that international education claims to provide.     

(Re)considering Foucault for science education research: considerations of truth,power and governance

This article is a response to Anna Danielsonn, Maria Berge, and Malena Lidar’s paper, “Knowledge and power in the technology classroom: a framework for studying teachers and students in action”, and an appeal to science educators of all epistemological orientations to (re)consider the work of Michel Foucault for research in science education. Although this essay does not come close to outlining the importance of Foucault’s work for science education, it does present a lesser-known side of Foucault as an anti-polemical, realist, modern philosopher interested in the way objective knowledge is entangled with governance in modernity. This latter point is important for science educators, as it is the intersection of objective knowledge and institutional imperatives that characterizes the field(s) of science education. Considering the lack of engagement with philosophy and social theory in science education, this paper offers one of many possible readings of Foucault (we as authors have also published different readings of Foucault) in order to engage crucial questions related to truth, power, governance, discourse, ethics and education.     

Judging Teachers: Foucault,governance and agency during education reforms

Over a decade after publication of Thinking Again: Education After Postmodernism (1998) contention still emerges among Foucaultians over whether discursively made‐up things really exist, and whether removal of the constituent subject leaves room for agency within techniques of caring for the self. That these questions are kept alive shows that some readers have not rethought Foucault, finding what possibly comes after postmodernism. Using Wittgenstein to ‘reciprocally illuminate’ Foucault (after Tully and Marshall), I open teacher inspection and reforms to problematization, as relations to bedrock rules governing games of truth. ‘How, upon entering classrooms, do inspectors know “teaching” is taking place and not crazy and fuzzy things in its name?’ Taking up Hirst's vexing question, I move beyond liberal‐analytic concept‐mapping and neo‐liberal individualism to more fully assay the political ground for judging teaching practices through genealogy. Epistemological, political and ethical concerns intersect as we approach the problem through Foucault's three axes of an historical‐ontology of the present: knowledge(s), power relations, and arts of the self. Drawing on recent Governmentality Studies in Education (Peters ., 2009), we aver the impasses of postmodern relativism while finding limited ranges of agency along each axis, as teachers practice freedoms by critiquing and renegotiating rules.     

Students' understanding of theory in undergraduate education

This paper investigates undergraduate students' application of theory in their analysis of problems presented in authentic leadership cases. Taking a phenomenographic research approach, the paper identifies two levels at which students understand ‘theory’: Level 1-Theory as knowledge acquired from books; Level 2-Theory as support for problem solutions. Only the students at Level 2 understanding achieved the highest learning outcome described by the Bologna Reforms. This result may be accounted for by the difference in the students' pre-conceived understanding of the events and relationships in the analysed cases. The phenomenographic assumption explains why the authentic cases are problematic. The high relevancy of the learning object – as an authentic case – may reduce the effect of variation, in this case the educational environment that is the mechanism for learning according to variation theory.     

Globalizing policy sociology in education: working with Bourdieu

This paper uses Bourdieu to develop theorizing about policy processes in education and to extend the policy cycle approach in a time of globalization. Use is made of Bourdieu’s concept of social field and the argument is sustained that in the context of globalization the field of educational policy has reduced autonomy, with enhanced cross‐field effects in educational policy production, particularly from the fields of the economy and journalism. Given the social rather than geographical character of Bourdieu’s concept of social fields, it is also argued that the concept can be, and indeed has to be, stretched beyond the nation to take account of the emergent global policy field in education. Utilizing Bourdieu’s late work on the globalization of the economy through neo‐liberal politics, we argue that a non‐reified account of the emergent global educational policy field can be provided.     

Bourdieu on Education and Social and Cultural Reproduction

Bourdieu's work has attracted considerable interest and, not withstanding criticism of his style and obscure theoretical formulations, has introduced some powerful concepts into social theory. This paper examines Bourdieu's contribution to the sociology of education and especially his account of socially differentiated educational attainment. Particular attention is given to issues of structure, agency and habitus, the cultural autonomy of the school, arbitrary and necessary school cultures, and the distinction between primary and secondary effects on educational differences. Some specific criticisms, for example Elster's charge of a double account of domination, are also addressed. Bourdieu's concentration on habitus as the most significant generator of practice is held to be a theory of socialisation and the paper examines the nature of the explanation of social practice provided by such theories. The argument concludes with a plea for critical tolerance with respect to Bourdieu's work but with a suggestion that his account of socially differentiated educational attainment in terms of habitus is finally inadequate.     

Global field and global imagining: Bourdieu and worldwide higher education

This paper maps the global dimension of higher education and associated research, including the differentiation of national systems and institutions, while reflecting critically on theoretical tools for working this terrain. Arguably the most sustained theorisation of higher education is by Bourdieu: the paper explores the relevance and limits of Bourdieu’s notions of field of power, agency, positioned and position‐taking; drawing on Gramsci’s notion of hegemony in explaining the dominant role played by universities from the United States. Noting there is greater ontological openness in global than national educational settings, and that Bourdieu’s reading of structure/agency becomes trapped on the structure side, the paper discusses Sen on self‐determining identity and Appadurai on global imagining, flows and ‘scapes’. The dynamics of Bourdieu’s competitive field of higher education continue to play out globally, but located within a larger and more disjunctive relational setting, and a setting that is less closed, than he suggests.     

Ethnography,case study,grounded theory,and distance education research

The purpose of the paper is to encourage researchers in distance education to utilize, when appropriate, methodologies successfully used by sociologists and anthropologists. Specifically, the main strengths and weaknesses of ethnography, case study, and grounded theory are discussed. It is argued that these methods can improve the quality of conceptualization and theoretical development in research, thus contributing to the development of distance education as an academic discipline.