Foucault and Me: Discipline in Education

Foucault and Me: Discipline in Education

In Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault’s discusses that in the 18th century execution was a political operation. This demonstrates an example of how discipline is rooted in control and power over individuals and groups. Although Foucault uses an 18th century example of execution to show this, there are many examples of how disciple in education is rooted in politics in the way it engages power to force people to assimilate and gate keep. This is important for me because Foucault’s use of discipline can be very helpful in my research. Through research I would like to explore how schooling is used to discipline social actors. In the paper I will attempt to make connections to Foucault’s examples of discipline and the politics of education.


During the time of his writing, Foucault talks about how discipline also had a function of reducing gaps. One example is the use of discipline to marginalize and reduce gaps in cultural differences through schooling. This can be noted in the early history of the United States in the ways that rapid immigration created cultural conflict and cultural stress in schools (Collins, n.d.). Hence, the schools became a site for cultural hegemony (Collins, n.d.). Although there has been a push for multiculturalism and intercultural teaching and learning, there are still tensions in schools around culture.

I would argue that multiculturalism and intercultural competence in schools is almost nonexistent. Due to most schools inability to do this, cultural conflict escalates creating the need for more discipline. Gloria Ladson-Billings, in a talk at the University of Minnesota on November 7, 2008, proclaimed that schools focus more on discipline than on teaching. This focus on discipline is between dominate and target cultures in conflict stemming from resistance to cultural assimilation and a history of oppressive colonization.

An example of Foucault’s notion in education is between African American and Native American communities in relation to Eurocentric schooling. When examining the trends of this society, this kind of power is exercised in a systemic way to force the target culture to assimilate. A Native American example is boarding schools. These schools were systemically created to punish Native American children if they did not take up Eurocentric culture (i.e. cut hair). This acculturation can been see in other examples such as examples include young people wearing their pants lower on their waist (“sagging”) than what is articulated to be acceptable by the dominate culture. These young people tend to be stereotyped and/or forced to conform especially in schools.

There are several other examples of the use of power for gap reduction in schools. These power plays include adults showing power over students through discipline. When a student does something that is not cohesive with the culture of the school penalties can range from what Foucault calls micro-penalties to more severe penalties. In the schools that I have worked in examples of micro-penalties would include instances such as requiring students to line up and silent in hallways or students arriving to class on time. The purpose of these micro-penalties in school is to control behaviors and ways of being. These penalties are punished to different degrees and are ways to control people and maintain the systems status quo. These systems included the status quo of my particular school to the larger society.

An example of a sever penalty includes paddling (corporal punishment). My personal experience with paddling is very intimate because I was paddled when I was in 7th grade. The reason was that I stopped attending classes (also known as skipping). When I was discovered by school personnel, I was made to go to the office. The consequence of skipping was two smacks (also known as licks). The principal made me put my hands on the edge of her table and administered the punishment. I remember it was not very painful, but very effective at that time. It was not the actual paddling itself that was effective but it was that immediately after my punishment (I think I may still have been in the office) my mother consequentially showed up at the school to pick me up early. She never found out about what happened until I confessed many years later (as an adult). I did not skip again at that school (I started skipping at other schools instead).

Another example of discipline to reduce gaps in schools is the practice of teacher evaluations. Teachers are evaluated a certain amount of times every year or every few years depending on if they are tenured or not. These evaluations are usually developed by the school district and administered by the principal. The principal is directly exhibiting power and professionally disciplining teachers by using his/her professional filters to evaluate a teacher on external criteria. Principals will also professionally discipline by going into teachers’ classrooms unannounced. Although in many Minnesota districts, they cannot formally evaluate you when they go into a room unscheduled, but are exhibiting their authority by shear presence as a way to discipline teachers to conform to a standard.

In addition to preK-12 schools, discipline is also manifested in post-secondary institutions’ doctoral examinations. As Foucault writes about how examinations serve a socializing normalization function. One example of how examination normalizes in education is the dissertation exam. This ritual is a gate keeping mechanism to examine if an individual has been normalized to traditional academic standards. It gives a person permission to “join us”, “you are now one of our colleagues”, or “you can be called a doctor now just like us”. Wasley gives an example of how this form of discipline through examination for some students can be very stressful and causing some students to take as long as ten years to complete their degree. Due a rethinking of educational practices, Wasley illuminates how some examinations have given way to alternative forms of assessments (discipline) such as portfolio. Regardless how a universities grant permission to “join the doctor club” and pass the examination gate, it is still a form of the type of normalization Foucault reminds us of.

As demonstrated institutionalized schooling socialize people through the use of discipline. The younger the student the more this institutions penalizes the body (i.e. tardiness and paddling). The older the student and the more advanced the degree is when the institution disciplines the mind to conform to the standards of that group of scholars/thinkers. For example, as a student in curriculum and instruction many professors expect me to narrow my discourse of schooling to preK-12. However, there have been times when I have been penalized when I attempted to write about institutional schooling beyond preK-12. This type of discipline is called the null curriculum. It is a mechanism to get students to perform in a certain culture (culture of power). Despite my misfortune, I do believe institutions are attempting to be more interdisciplinary and train students to be able to operate in the discourse of many disciplines but the progress is slow.

Attending to the topic of conditioning the mind to be anti-interdisciplinary, Foucault talks about how discipline is used to train, divide, and split things into separate cells (individuals). This notion is similarly related to how education separates subjects into single cells instead of interdisciplinary systems. The elementary schools I have worked in separates the subjects making it more difficult for students and teachers to see the interdisciplinary nature of these subjects.

Maybe this practice is based in a Western-Eurocentric way of thinking. Western culture has a strong focus on individuality (boot straps mentality) instead of collectivity (like in other cultures). When I went to Japan, I was able to visit many schools and students were expected to be collegial in more than just school work. They were expected to collaborate during lunch time (serving each others’ lunches and waiting until everyone is served before they eat) and cleaning the building (students cleaned a section of the building, i.e. hallway floors). However, many Japanese educators expressed their desire to replicate U.S. educational practices such as individuality. On the other hand, many U.S. educators want to replicate Japanese educational practices such as cooperation. Both Western and non-Western cultures have their educational strengths and weaknesses. They realize their limitations and are working to find a balance.

Conclusion

Foucault early writings allowed for me to make personal connections in how discipline is linked to schooling an a disciplinary institution. As discussed, one reason instructional schooling disciplines is to normalize and reduce cultural gaps. As I conclude this examination, a pondering question still remains: How can discipline be used for intercultural competence and social justice in schooling institutions?

References

Collins, R. (n.d.). The rise of the credential system. The credential society: An historical sociology of education and stratification (pp. 90-130). New York: Academic Press.

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline & punishment: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage Books.

Wasley, P. (2008). Portfolios are replacing qualifying exams as a step on the road to dissertations. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(44), A8.