From Confinement to Attachment: Michel Foucault on the Rise of the School

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 ident...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe European legacy, toward new paradigms Vol. 11; no. 2; pp. 121 - 138
Main Author Deacon, Roger
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 01.04.2006
Subjects
Area studies
Cultural history
Education
European studies
Foucault, Michél
Pedagogy
Philosophy
Regression analysis
Schooling
Social values
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Summary: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technology suggests that an initial focus on the exclusion or confinement of disorderly groups was gradually superseded by a focus on the inclusion or "attachment" of diverse individuals and on the development of their potential.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.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:1084-8770
1470-1316
DOI:10.1080/10848770600587896