Foucault - friend or foe in learning?

Michel Foucault, a prominent French philosopher and social theorist, had an enormous impact on critical theory and education as taught in universities. From the 1980s onwards his ideas infused everything, apart arguably, from actual practice. As one of the structuralist Gang of Four with Levi-Strauss, Barthes and Lacan, he is difficult to pigeon-hole, as his writing is often obtuse, abstruse and conceptually difficult. Despite this, he remains a towering figure in critical theory as expressed in the structuralist movement with a huge influence in the humanities, feminism, genre, race and post-colonial studies.

As for his influence on education and training, while profound it has been criticised for its potential negative consequences. His focus on power relations has led to an overly cynical view of education, overshadowing other important aspects like learning and critical thinking. Foucault's scepticism about objective truth also fosters relativism, undermining the authority of teachers and the value of expertise. This scepticism about the existence of objective truth has permeated educational theory, encouraging a postmodern approach that questions the legitimacy of established knowledge and expertise, where all perspectives are seen as equally valid. This influence on curriculum design has also resulted in politically charged programs that prioritise social critique over foundational knowledge. Yet there is much to think about in his work.

Philosophy

Foucault is an intellectual pioneer to some, a shameless fraud to others. His archaeology of culture uncovers power structures, ‘epistemes’ that dominate, define and control all knowledge. The individual, their movements, behaviours, interests, desires and even bodies are merely the subject of imposed, oppressive, power relationships. Cultural relativism therefore emerges as individuals are subsumed and emerge as oppressors and the oppressed. Foucault also sees philosophy as in need of the decolonisation of even time, space and subjectivity, through the whole-scale rejection of Eurocentric norms and language. This postmodern destruction of boundaries led to cultural relativism, certain forms of language as epistemically constructive and power plays between groups, not individuals or universal principles. It places gender, race and other distinctions into cultural contexts where the application of power socially constructs and uses language to oppress certain groups. 

Discipline and Punish

His early interest in mental illness and psychiatry led to the book Madness and Civilisation (1960). This fits into the Critical Theory tradition of seeing society as pathological. But it is in Discipline and Punish (1975) that the idea of ‘training’, in the wider sociological sense of the word, is exposed as stages of domination in society, moving into schools and systems of education. Learning becomes institutionalised through a shadow form of monastic enclosure, where the architecture of the school follows that of the Panopticon prison. Supervision and the serial delivery of classes in separate rooms, marching from one room to another room, with teachers policing the formal restrictions of movement and behaviour, result in strictly timetabled control. Designed for prescriptive supervision, the building is a ’pedagogical machine’ that reduces the individual to a documented object. Examinations bring this form of supervision to a head, with the labeling of subjects before release.

Teaching and learning

Foucault’s views on teaching emphasise the ways in which traditional teaching and learning serves as a mechanism of social control and power. Education is deeply embedded in power relations and play a crucial role in shaping what is considered knowledge and truth. These views emerge from his broader analyses of power, knowledge, and discourse. His perspectives challenge traditional notions of education and emphasise the relationship between power structures and learning practices.

Knowledge is power and what is taught and learned in schools, Universities and the workplace is not neutral information but shaped by power relations within those organisations and society. Knowledge is produced and controlled through a nexus of power structures, and education serves to perpetuate these structures. Schools and universities, according to Foucault, are sites where power operates to shape what is considered true knowledge and who is authorised to teach it.

They are part of a broader system of social control that disciplines individuals. Schools function to normalise behaviours and maintain social order through the relentless administration of examinations, surveillance, and hierarchical observation, all used to monitor and regulate students. These practices create a disciplined and docile body of students who internalise norms and expectations.

His ‘Archaeology of Knowledge’ and ‘Genealogy of Education’ trace the historical development of educational practices to understand how they have been shaped by power dynamics. Only then can we uncover how certain norms and values have become entrenched. This understanding can reveal the contingent nature of what is often considered natural or inevitable in education. ‘Regimes of truth’ legitimise certain types of knowledge by promoting some, marginalising the rest. Curricula, textbooks, and academic disciplines are swayed by these regimes, which dictate what is taught and considered valuable knowledge.

Learning tries to form the identities of individuals by influencing how they understand themselves and their place in society and use disciplinary mechanisms to control and regulate individuals. The teacher is a figure who enforces the norms and values of the prevailing power structures, authority figures who help inculcate societal norms in students. They contribute to the formation of subjects who conform to the expectations of the power structures within which they operate.

Critical pedagogy

On the other hand, he acknowledges the potential for education to be a site of resistance and transformation by fostering critical awareness and questioning of dominant discourses, hence seeing him as a critical theorist. Despite his critical view of educational institutions, he also saw potential for ‘resistance’ within education and believed that by understanding how power operates, individuals could challenge and subvert dominant discourses. Education can then become a site where individuals develop a critical awareness of how power shapes knowledge. This awareness can lead to questioning and transformation of existing power relations.

Critique

This shift to seeing education in terms of power relations has been influential. Yet in a democracy, where citizens vote on the major issues of the economy, health and education, the idea that everyone is deluded into playing the role of puppets, with no real agency, seems far-fetched. Critical thinking when expressed at this level seems to tip over into abstruse political theory disassociated from the reality, wishes and needs of most people. Additionally, it sets up a form of intellectual snobbery, where academics see themselves as the true arbiters of what is important and what is emancipatory.

This idea of education as activism is dangerous as it undermines the mechanisms through which democracy and stable institutions work. It puts education into the hands of a few, often against the view of the many. Foucault is not a Marxist but he is clearly influenced by Marx’s focus on social structures, class relations, and the critique of capitalism. What he does is replace economic forces with power at the institutional level.

Few solutions are offered in his critiques. This is a general problem in Critical Theory. Foucault’s idea of power is problematic in being relentlessly negative, the exercise of oppression, not liberation. It is all very well drawing parallels between prisons and schools, and there is some wisdom in being sceptical about the formalities of supervision and Victorian architecture, however, most want to see sensible behaviour management and the applications of restrictions necessary for attention and education. To caricature school supervision as ideologically driven punishment, is just that, a caricature. 

Foucault’s idea of power, a core concept in critical theory and structuralism, is that it is always assumed to be a deficit or negative, a flow of oppression. Yet power, in both politics and education, can be used positively, to free and liberate. The problem with de-anchoring everything is that you also de-anchor yourself and your own theories, setting everything adrift.

Influence

His influence on modern thought, philosophy and critical theory in academia is undoubtedly enormous. His influence on educational and learning theory is, however, oft quoted but minimal and seldom applied. After his death in 1984 his reputation was strengthened as critical theory became a dominant force in the humanities, especially in degrees which critics jokingly call ‘Grievance Studies’. While recent theorists on feminism, gender studies, queer theory (Butler), race, post-colonialism (Said, Spivak) and, even Fat studies (Bacon), all draw on Foucault’s epistemic relativism, theorists in Critical Race Theory and Feminism, such as Angela Harris (Critical Race Theory) and Kimberle Crenshaw (Intersectionality fame), have at least been consistent in rejecting Foucault and Derrida, which would have shocked them, as prime examples of oppressive white men and Eurocentric theory.

Bibliography

Foucault M. Madness and Civilisation: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, 1961.Abridged; translated by R. Howard. London: Tavistock (1965)

Foucault M. Archaeology of Knowledge 1961. Translated by A.M. Sheridan Smith. London: Routledge (2002)

Foucault M. Discipline and Punish  The Birth of the Prison 1971

Foucault M. The History of Sexuality 1976 - 84 Vol I: The Will to Knowledge, Vol II: The Use of Pleasure, Vol III: The Care of the Self, Vol IV: The Confessions of the Flesh