Analysing the direction of socialisation from a power perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe and illustrate an approach that facilitates a study of power and governing processes in teachers' and students' interactive actions and dealings. This approach is inspired by Foucault's work on power and the research field emanating from the concept of governmentality. The approach is illustrated through an analysis of texts of teacher and student interactions derived from video-recorded physical education lessons conducted in Swedish nine-year compulsory schools. This analysis is used to demonstrate how governing processes appear in Physical Education practices, and the socialisation content of this governance. Here the term socialisation content refers to the direction of governance, which constitutes a discursive resource for the constitution of particular forms of subjectivity.

Keywords:

• Foucault
• methodology
• power
• governance
• socialisation content
• video recordings

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the research network Studies of Meaning-making in Educational Discourses (SMED) research group for helpful comments on various versions of this article. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their important remarks on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

1. The approach is based on a discourse theoretical tradition. In general, research based on a discourse theoretical tradition includes certain basic assumptions (Wetherell et al., 2001; Winther-Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002; Börjesson, 2003; Börjesson & Palmblad, 2006).

2. It can also be said that studies based on a power and governance perspective are mainly historical studies in which issues relating to power and governance are dealt with in a political sense. The studies are mainly undertaken by analyses of text material. It is less common, however, to use a power and governance perspective to study practices in which people's interplay is in focus.

3. For a more detailed discussion, see Foucault (1977/1991, p. 58).

4. With regard to Foucault's concept of power, see Foucault (1977/1980), Foucault (1976/1980) and Foucault (1982/2002). A detailed discussion of Foucault's concept of power has been conducted by Deacon (2003).

5. In order to understand this kind of power we have to abandon notions of power that can be linked to authorities, laws and the state's judicial sphere and not regard certain social institutions as systems with complete control over people. This complete control is not a starting point for analysis. The state's sovereignty or homogenous control systems can instead be a result of the investigation (Foucault, 1976/1990).

6. Discussions relating to political rationality/governmentality have been conducted by scholars such as Foucault (1978/1991), Burchell et al. (1991), Rose (1998, 1999) and Danaher et al. (2000).

7. This governance perspective separates here the presented methodological approach from other discourse analytical approches which also analyse how discourses function in interaction such as discursive psychology (Potter, 1996; Wetherell et al., 2001). The ‘wider’ governance perspective allows me to understand everyday actions by relating them to general political tendencies in our society, and vice versa.

8. See also (Palmblad and Eriksson1995, p. 24) for a discussion of normative governance.

9. The video recordings used in the illustrations were carried out within the framework of a national evaluation as to how the subject of PEH was characterised in nine-year compulsory and upper secondary schools in Sweden (Eriksson et al., 2003). A total of 15 PEH lessons from Years 2 to 9 were recorded. Twelve teachers—four women and eight men—of varying ages took part in the study. The study's empirical material has a rich geographic spread in that schools from large cities, medium-sized towns and rural areas are represented. Parts of this material have also been used in an article published in Swedish in the journal of Utbildning & Demokrati/Education & Democracy, 2008, no. 3, pp. 69–88.

10. Other forms of governance are occasional in the lessons. Getting students to want to do the right thing of their own free will is the main focus in the governing processes studied. All students do not display such willingness, however. If the will to do the right thing doesn't exist, other governance forms step in: undesirable actions are not only met with nonchalance, corrections (point with the hand) or indifference, but also with other forms of reprimand in a coersive way (expressed by the teachers as ‘you are lazy’). It seams like when self-governance doesn't work, other governance forms take over.

11. For a detailed discussion on self-regulation and learning individuals, see Edwards (2008, pp. 31–32), who discusses the discourse of lifelong learning from a governance perspective.