Making citizens governable? The Crick Report as governmental technology

Abstract

This paper considers the recent introduction of Citizenship Education in England from a governmental perspective, drawing on the later work of Foucault to offer a detailed account of the political rationalities, technologies and subjectivities implicated in contemporary education policy in the formation and governance of citizen‐subjects. This is understood in terms of making citizens ‘governable’, but importantly not unproblematically ‘governed’. I illustrate my account with interviews with members of the Crick Advisory Group and an analysis of the Crick Report, in order to explore the discourses and practices of educational policy‐making. Trends are identified in education policy research which serve to de‐politicise the policy realm and narrow the scope of ethical and political consideration. I therefore make use of Derrida’s poststructuralism to argue for an expanded conceptualisation of education and politics, and for further interrogation of the purpose, scope and temporal imperatives of education, in a theoretical–empirical approach which takes seriously the geography of power in education policy and practice.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Clive Barnett, Paul Cloke, Wendy Larner and John Morgan for their many helpful comments and conversations on earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also to the members of the Advisory Group on Citizenship and others who gave their time to be interviewed.