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Education and societal change
in the global age1
Michael Uljens
Åbo Akademi University2
22.2 2006
1.Introduction
Two perspectives today globally dominate the agenda concerning how education may or
should be related to societal and cultural issues. The perspectives referred to are: the relation
between education and economics (or labourmarket) and the relation between education and
cultural identity or citizenship. The latter is very much concerned with education and
democracy. Both topics are rooted in our modern European tradition. In essence then these
two questions are not new, but how they are answered, are partially new. The recent answers
offered are in many respects related to what we may call globalization or cosmopolitism.
To the first issue, education and economy, it should be uncontested that education and
development of human competence have received an ever increasing attention as driving
forces for Western economies since the beginning of the 70´s. Today this approach is global.
Public and private funding of higher education and investments in research and
developmental work has expanded very fast during the last 10-15 years. Consequently, also
the expectations on these efforts have increased, although understanding how educational and
research investments indeed transform themselves into e.g. economic progress is not well
understood.
To the second issue, education and citizenship, it may be claimed that, Europe,
among other continents, has been challenged by an increasing mistrust concerning what may
be called political and cultural citizenship including the citizen’s experience of herself as
1
In press.
E-mail: Michael.Uljens(at)abo.fi, Unit of Education and Adult Education, Åbo Akademi University, P.O.
Box 311, 65 101 Vasa, Finland.
2
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being a part of a coherent whole and being able to affect his or her life by engagement in
political affairs. The experience of being a global and a local citizen are both in a period of
transition. This is related both to the partial erosion of the nationstate and the simultaneous
establishment of larger political areas, such as EU, and to global scale challenges like the
problem of sustainable development. Also the establishment and the increasingly important
role played by transnational organizations, agreements, networks and institutions like UN,
IMF, Worldbank, OECD, WTO, only to mention a few, fundamentally affect not only the
single individuals experience of being involved as an active agent culturally, politically and
economically, but also directly intervenes with the politics of whole nations.
For both reasons, economical and political, we witness a strongly growing interest
into how education and societal development may, can or should be understood. In such a
landscape, the science of education, schooling and its governance, as well as research and
innovation, as an expression of Bildung or learning, have grown in importance. The
university discipline that explicitly is expected to deal with all this is the science of
education. How, then, is the relation between educational practices and societal change
understood within the science of education? To what extent and in what respects does the
modernist tradition of education theory help us to grasp what it means to develop a cultural,
political and professional identity in a postindustrial and local-cosmopolitan society? The
ongoing globalization affects education both from the perspective of changes in economics or
working life but also from the perspective of citizenship. How can education relate to these
both as practice and as an academic discipline?
The idea of this article is then, first to look at what the modernist heritage of
education offer us, and second, to clarify how we may understand the relation between
education/Bildung and societal change in general and, finally, to investigate, from four
perspectives, how education as practice, policy and as a scientific discipline can or should be
related to societal change.
2. The heritage of modernism in education
The premodern view of the world as being created by God and heading towards its own end
was in the 19th century replaced by a teleological view of history. The Christian idea of man
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being a picture of God and the view of the process of Bildung as the realization of the seed of
God inherent in man by birth, also survived in other nativist theories, not least through Kants
ideas about a priori categories, an approach that e.g. Piaget as a neo-Kantian carried further
through his theory of genetic epistemology. In the Christian tradition the mundane process of
Bildung was about developing an innate potentiality or image in order to be prepared for
eternal life. J.A. Comenius is a well known educationalist representing this view in his
Didactica Magna from 1632. This view survived to the mid 19th century in Finland
(Stenbäck, 1855), after which it was broken by both hegelianism and herbartianism.
For a long time Western educational thinking was also guided by positive,
teleological philosophy of history. Individual development (Bildung), by the help of
education, was seen as subordinated to a more or less predetermined process of historical
development, according to which cultural development meant reaching higher levels of
perfection. Darwin’s idea of the development of species supported, for its part, social
scientists orientation to develop a cultural stage-theory in which education played a role
(Höherebildung). Many of the 19th century philosophers seemed to keep to this idea (i.e.
Hegel, Schleiermacher). After the catastrophic 20th century many are pessimistic about a
positive view of the future and have difficulties to think that practicing science, education,
literature or the arts by itself would lead towards heaven on earth.
Today we have, generally taken, left both these views of Bildung, i.e Bildung as the
realization of something inherent and Bildung as process of historical development towards
perfection. Traditional religious metaphysical thinking as well as a predetermined idea of
humanity and its development is not widely supported as a point of departure in theorizing
education.
In a modern sense then, the question of how education as practice and science may be
related to the needs of the contemporary society and simultaneously meeting anticipated
future needs, has been on the agenda for about two centuries. The establishment of modern
educational theory between 1760-1830, from Rousseau, Kant and Fichte to Schleiermacher
and Herbart may be seen as a response to the shift from a premodern, tradition based and
reproduction oriented society towards a view according to which the future is radically open.
Man was from now on to be educated towards a future which in principle was not knowable.
In a situation where the future was seen as dependent on our own activities, based on
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autonomous thinking, rather than dictated by some external force or steered by some internal
logic, a new kind of self-awareness was required. The modernist discourse on Bildung met
this need.
Also, the differentiation of society into a public and private sphere and the
establishment of institutionalized education as an answer on new challenges and
requirements, called for renewed pedagogical thinking. Modern educational theory, as
represented by those philosophers we today recognize as the classics, constituted a part the
process of modernization. Thus, our heritage in educational philosophy is a modernist
heritage in the sense that it was developed as a response to and as a part of a new cultural,
economical and political situation. However, as it was developed, it itself has had a
significant influence on subsequent solutions for educational practice as well as in theorizing
education. In Gadamer’s terms we live in the “Wirkungsgeschichte” of early modernity.
Modernity is thus characterized by an interdependent relation between on the one
hand education as science, on the other the practice of education, technological development
and societal structures. There is thus an interdependent relation between education as societal
practice and education as a field of reflection and research.
The most obvious expression of the growing belief in the possibilities of science was
naturally the promotion of the idea of education as a science of its own by e.g. Herbart. The
interdependent relation between science and other fields of societal practice is similar to that
of education. The idea is the same: science creates a language by which the practitioner can
develop her thinking and, accordingly, her acting. Reaching such a language allows the
practitioner also to be able to publicly argue for one’s own decisions. However, the
practitioner can also be expected to be able to do so. In other words, developing a common
language through e.g. educational sciences allows private experiences to be translated into a
public communicational system. Science as a language includes both deliberative
possibilities, but it also, quite naturally, allow for external control.
The view on what role rational thinking (science) can have for societal change, has
changed over the past 200 years. Some say that the change has moved from optimism during
the 19th century towards a more sceptical and even pessimistic view from the mid 20th
century an onwards.
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On the other hand, recognizing the contemporary investments in research and
education the change can be interpreted in a completely opposite direction as well, i.e.
towards a more optimistic view. The contradiction may be explained by that the societal task
of education and science has changed. From previously mainly being oriented towards a
moral betterment of the individual and society, the task of education has gradually changed.
Education has more and more come to be considered as an instrument for economic growth
rather as an instrument for personality development or moral development, as it still was
considered by our classics like Herbart, Humboldt and Schleiermacher. The change may be
characterized as a change from education for inner growth to education for outer growth.
Education has from the beginning then both been used as a deliberative force, but also as a
control mechanism in the modern nation state.
The question that arose was how education could be thought of so that we could
combine the reproduction of what was considered valuable in the society/culture with an
education aiming at a desired future state of affairs. In addition both of these intentions
(reproduction and transformation of society by education) had to be practiced so that
indoctrination was avoided and development of the individual’s autonomity and selfdetermination was accepted and supported. The task of education has since these times been
considered as a topic to be handled by the informed “Öffentlichkeit”, i.e. as an open question
that must continuously be answered anew.
However, not in every respect education has been considered an open question. The
idea of autonomy (Mündigkeit) of the subject has been a common educational point of
departure. This idea has been considered a defendable position as it has been considered to
correlate with a non-determined cosmology and a liberal, democratic and autonomous nation
state.
The layered concept of Bildung, and its various interpretations, has functioned as a
key concept for this discussion. The concept of Bildung is closely related to the idea of
autonomy, self-reflexivity and self-determination as educational goals, aiming at the
construction of critical citizenship. This view of the autonomous subject in the autonomous
nation state has functioned as the grand narrative concerning how to understand education in
relation to society and its development. E.g. Kants philosophy communicates a view
according to which the individual both constructs and obeys the laws of the nation state. If
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the law is no more given but constructed by individuals it naturally means that the question
of good life is seen as open and subjected to negotiation in order to be temporarily
established. In order to regulate legislation, which is a moral issue, Kant defended his famous
moral law as a regulative principle in this process. The individual was free to establish
mundane rules but had to develop an understanding of herself as being obliged to this moral
law telling e.g. never to treat another subject as a means for one´s own interests but to respect
the others freedom, i.e. to treat the other as a end for her/himself.
If the individual was offered this freedom, a correlating, responsible subject had to be
constructed (cf. Foucault, 1982). Not surprisingly much effort was during the 19th century
invested in how to foster the development of a moral character that would, in her actions, be
led by the idea of good (e.g. Herbart). Modernist educational theory and schooling may thus
be seen as a vehicle for handling the radical openness of the future, which was accepted to
the same extent as a predetermined cosmology was abandoned. One could say that education
became a project for risk reduction. As the future was open in a radical sense the question
that continuously had to be answered, again and again, was “what the older generation
wanted with the younger” (Schleiermacher)? Any given answer to that question did no more
exist, according to Schleiermacher, and had therefore to be the topic for an ongoing public
discussion. In modernist thinking education was thus a project in risk management in many
senses of the word. First, there was a risk of not reaching intended goals by the help of
education, and this so for two reasons. On the one hand, we did no more know the future and,
on the other, the view of the individual was turned towards not being determined by history,
birth, social class or the like. The openness of the future and the indetermination of the
subject are the first reasons to why education became a risk project: to reach a preset goal
was by no means self-evident. But it became a risk project also in the sense that the world
was handed over to free individuals who could create new rules and make new decisions.
This aspect had to do with the question cosmological determination of the world, which was
abandoned.
Against what is described above the science of education may very well be seen as a
risk management project from its very beginning. To talk about late-modernity as being a
risk society is true, but as we have seen this idea is not, in essence, new. However, the point
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made by Ulrick Beck is rather that the nature of risks and the awareness of them is new. Most
of these connect to various aspects of globalization.
Not unexpectedly, during modernity, the idea of (immature) ‘childhood’ was
established, which in part legitimized pedagogical actions, i.e. the construction of a certain
type of subjectivity. If content or direction of morality was not given, and could not be
specified, then it had to be developed. Further, if no objective values existed then the
growing individual had, by education, to be prepared and learn to live with the question of
good life as one’s life long companion, i.e. as a question that cannot be answered once for all.
The idea was to develop a subject that by him/herself was oriented, and wanted, to do good.
Moral education could no more be a question of leading the child to a given morality. Rather
the child had to be led to the question of morality itself. With respect to a continuously
changing world such a view of moral reasoning was naturally much more efficient and
flexible compared to an ethics determined by a certain and unchanging set of prescriptions.
Moral positions were to be continuously renegotiated. The latemodern modus of reflection in
educational theory may then be seen as an awareness of that the concept of Bildung including
the features pointed out above was about the development of a certain form of
governmentality (Foucault, 1982) that was functional for the modernist society.
3. Four models on education and societal change: Reproductive, transformatory,
normative and non-affirmative pedagogy
In the history of educational theory we can identify various models of how education should
be related to societal interests and development. Roughly speaking variations of at least
following models may be identified.
i. A pre-modern way of thinking understands education as located, so to speak, within
the existing society or culture. This socialization oriented model of education emphasizes
that the task of education is to prepare the individual for an existing society and culture
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whereby societal practices and norms work as the guiding principles. Education is in this
model subordinated to societal practices. Education does not get any developing role with
respect to society but is rather preparatory in its character. In this model the power of societal
transformation lies beyond the task of education. Education is reduced to socialization. This
position is typically found in educational sociology writings. Although Zygmunt Baumann
understands that education in its reproduction of society also produces deviations from
normality (negative socialization) he still very much moves within these frames.
ii. In contrast to the reproduction oriented model we are, since Rousseau, familiar
with the idea of education as a revolutionary force with respect to societal practices. In its
most radical form revolutionary or transformation oriented education is not only
disconnected from society but also superordinated with respect to societal interests.
According to Rousseau there is not much point to educate for an existing society if it is not
considered acceptable. Education would then only reproduce unfavorable constellations.
Rather the role of education would be to develop something that is non-existing, i.e. work
towards ideals, which may, in the future, become real as a new generation enters society after
having received education. In this model education is superordinated with respect to societal
interests. During the last years this position has gained a renewed interest within an approach
called “critical pedagogy” (eg. Giroux & McLaren, 2001).
iii. For a third group of theories these educational models are insufficient taken alone
and as such. It is then thought that the strength of the reproduction oriented model is that
things considered valuable are being transferred to the next generation. To pass over valuable
practices or insights would then work as risk reductive operations. The strength of the
second, transformation oriented, model would be that education may function as an
instrument for developing the society. Also, this model may be seen as a form of risk
reduction pedagogy. If current affairs are pointing in unlucky directions then a new course
may have to be established by the help of education. To combine the two models would be to
decide upon what is valuable and what is not. Valuable dimensions of a culture are being
passed on, less valuable replaced by ideals, hoping them to become real in the future.
According to this third line of reasoning we should not choose either the first or second but
both.
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The similarity between all these three positions (i-iii) consist in that they are
normative meaning that a certain predetermined set of values are guiding educational
practice. In addition, these values are defined irrespective of the learner’s own interests. In
the third model, the same set up of norms should guide both reproduction and
transformation.
iv. A fourth line of reasoning opposes all the above mentioned by criticizing them for
being normative. Both the reproduction and the transformation oriented models are
normative in the sense that it is decided upon in advance either what is valuable or what an
ideal state of future affairs should look like. Therefore it is thought that the previous models
run the risk of indoctrination. The problem is that the previously mentioned models do not
develop the individual’s ability to, for him/herself, decide upon what is valuable and does not
prepare the individual for self-reflected decision making concerning the future of her self or
the society. As the future is thought of as being undetermined and as the question of morality
cannot be decided once for all, this reflective ability i.e. self-awareness and selfdetermination, is seen as a necessary ability to be developed.
In this last model education is note solely placed either “outside” or “inside” society
and is thus not either super- or subordinated with respect to society but balances in between
so to speak. In this thinking educational institutions are offered a relative independence with
respect to societal and other interests.
It is possible to identify many versions of this fourth position. Broadly taken, both the
classical and the emancipatory position in educational theory represent this view. A common
feature is the acceptance of that education is an inherent part of the society for which it
educates. If educational processes partly constitute the society for which it educates, then
education cannot be considered something lying totally outside society nor completely within
it. In this tradition it is often accepted that through educational processes a critical distance
can be created between the subject and the outside world, between the learners thinking and
acting, and this so by provoking or challenging the learner’s patterns of thought, experiences,
values, conceptions or the like. In order to create such a critical distance the teacher and the
learner are allowed to create and act in what may be called a “no-mans land”, “international
waters” or in pseudo public space in which ordinary conventions may be questioned. By
creating such a distance or a “free space” it is thought that the learner can become aware of
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her previously unreflected relation to the world, and reformulate a relation that up to a certain
point in time may have been unconsciously internalized or developed. Something that has
been unintentionally internalized cannot, for obvious reasons, be considered as a result of a
self-determined process or having resulted in individual autonomy. The tradition of Bildung
thus includes a critical moment or dimension as it is thought that the individual through her
own conscious efforts establishes her relation to the world (Masschelein, 2004). However,
the school as an example of a ship on “international waters” or a patrol in “no mans land”
exists as little outside of the rest of the system as do real international waters. These are
constructed fields allowing for certain types of activities. Thus a relative freedom for the
schools and other pedagogical institutions are allowed but only in certain issues and to
certain degrees. Even though the degrees of freedom for teachers’ and students’ may vary
between countries, the governing of these spaces are in every respect examples of
mechanisms supporting the construction of certain individual identities.
This last position represents a so called non-affirmative position with respect to
norms (see e.g. Benner, 2005; Uljens, 2002). This means that existing knowledge, values or
ideals are not dealt with normatively but reflectively. Reflective or non-affirmative education
means then to focus, in the pedagogical situation, the questions to which existing norms or
knowledge is seen as answers. Through this the learner is thought of to acquire an individual
relation not only to given answers (positive knowledge) but also to understand the questions
behind the answers. Of equal importance is to reach the ability to formulate questions to be
answered. The position argues, like e.g. Rorty, against moral realism (Rorty, 2003).
4. Four perspectives on the relation between education and society
As we have seen all reflection on the relation between education and societal change or
development must start from realizing that we are dealing with a complex issue. From the
above it is also obvious that we cannot approach the issue in an unhistorical manner. In the
following, four perspectives on the relation between education and societal change will be
investigated. These notes are thus to be read against the previous explication.
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i. Democracy, recognition and the relative freedom of educational institutions
In trying to define the relation between education and societal change we can start by asking
which tasks comprehensive, vocational and higher education, respectively, do have and how
these tasks are be related to various cultural and societal fields and interests? Comprehensive,
vocational and university education all have specific roles with respect to societal
development and change. However, a common issue for all these educational institutions is
what degrees of freedom and what type of freedom or independence these institutions should
have in relation to other societal forces, such as the state and politics, economy and the
private sphere (e.g. family)? A closely related question is what role a certain educational
institution has in the development of the individual’s citizenship. Concerning the freedom of
pedagogical institutions a tension between two traditional positions are easily identified:
according to one, education should prepare the individual according to existing societal
demands, according to another, education should execute a transformational force in and of
society. The former runs the risk of being conservative, the latter radical, but both are
normative, as we saw previously.
A closely related issue concerning the degrees of freedom for compulsory schools
concern, today as earlier, how large a variation will be accepted in e.g. the religious or
ideological profile of a specific school. In most Nordic countries these degrees of freedom
have increased during recent years, in the name of individual choice. The result may be seen
both in terms of locally differentiated curricula and in terms of a growth in the number of
private schools. The development in this direction, within the Nordic countries, has been
most obvious in Sweden. In general, the change may partly be explained by a new right
wing, or neo-liberal, oriented educational policy put into practice by emphasizing parental
freedom, rights and obligations. An increasing multiculturality has, for its part, also steered
educational policy in this direction. This latter aspect may be seen as a change from an
inclusive oriented policy to a policy accepting the otherness of the other as something
radically different.
However, whether the above characterized acceptance of a differentiation of the
school system on cultural grounds is an expression of a genuine recognition of “the other’s
otherness” for its own sake or if this policy, in the end, is an excluding policy, this cannot be
decided yet. Both interpretations are possible. They may, in fact, also be considered as two
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aspects of one and the same coin as recognizing the otherness of the other may also be
motivated by producing and upholding differences between groups. In Zygmunt Baumanns
terminology the school system produces normality and simultaneously deviations from
normality (Månsson, 2004). The question is rather a) on what conditions different subcultures
can execute their uniqueness and b) when the point is reached where a dominant culture feels
itself to be uncomfortable and reregulates the situation.
The problem of accepting plurality is, as we easily see, related to the motives for
arguing for a either a comprehensive or a differentiated system. Expressed differently, we
may ask who is the one doing the recognizing and who is the one who whishes to be
recognized? For example, when it comes to differentiation based on language it may be that
some minority itself strives for cultural recognition by arguing for differentiation on the basis
of language. In many countries such a wish is not met for any minority. All this would be an
example of striving for recognition on the part of those who whish to be recognized.
On the other hand, one could ask if a differentiated system always is exemplifying
recognition on the part of those wanting to be recognised? Was, for example, the former
parallel school system in Finland an example of recognizing the otherness of the other for its
own sake or was it an example of producing and reproducing differences? Most of us answer
that the differentiated parallel school system was a system that reproduced social inequality.
Not surprisingly, it was abandoned for that reason. However, in this particular case the
interests of that minority which resisted the introduction of the comprehensive system, was
not recognized.
Again, when looking at inclusion and differentiation within the area of special
education the situation is different. Inclusion may then be motivated by economical
arguments or by that inclusion intends to allow students with special needs to be recognized
as ordinary students, only having special needs. Parents, on the other hand, may claim that
this is a misguided recognition: special schools would be better of in taking care of the
children with special needs.
The point with these examples is that the ongoing educational policy of increased
plurality is by some interpreted as an increase of recognizing the interests and needs of
individuals and various groups in a multicultural world. However, plurality is here hailed too
early as the increasing differentiation also may lead to e.g. increasing variation in school
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achievements for various subgroups. Second, the point was to show that the problem of
recognition is two sided: accepting the right for someone to be recognized means that
somebody else is obliged to execute the recognition. Third, when a balance is sought
concerning how far an individual’s interests are to be recognized this must be balanced by
the interests of the all others (Honneth, 2003).
Jürgen Habermas has suggested that the above described constitutive pluralism of
competing ideals and values may be handled by discourse ethics which refers to the equal
rights and possibilities to participate in the procedures of agreement on common norms.
Whereas Habermas takes his point of departure in rational principles and their application in
various situations Derrida (1997) and Levinas (1996) take their point of departure in the
particularity of unique human relations. But the “eternal responsibility for the Other”
(Levinas) is completed by a principle of the individual’s right to just treatment. Honneth
(2003) argues that in Derrida’s position, there is, intentionally, an unsolvable tension
between, on the one hand, our total responsibility towards the Other and, on the other, our
right to be treated equally. This means that living according to one of these principles
violates the other, i.e. treating everybody equally means that we cannot live up to our
asymmetrical responsibility towards the other, and living up to this responsibility towards the
unique Other hinders us from paying attention to all others on equal grounds. The position
defended by Derrida is here considered a constructive and fruitful position. The view offers a
specific guideline for practice: it requires continuous reflection and dialogue on how far the
responsibility towards the individual can be made real and how the principle of just treatment
can be used as a regulative principle in this process.
The question of how we relate to the plurality of cultural or societal interests on the
level of school structure is also connected to democracy. In fact, two different models of
democracy and education are involved in the two models of culturally inclusive education
and in the model of accepting a differentiated school system. Whereas the first model
emphasizes that democracy is best guaranteed by that pupils learn to live in their schools by
experiencing a variation on individual level, the second model argues that democracy is best
guaranteed by that individuals are reflectively formed according to some specific worldview.
The latter project, defended by for example Puolimatka (2004), is, however, a very risky one
as such a school system tends to be explicitly normative. The first model, the inclusive one,
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is more likely to be successful in avoiding indoctrination because the experience of plurality
involved in this model more obviously demands students to make up their own mind. This
demand to self-reflection is, so to speak, built in into or constitutive in the inclusive or
comprehensive model, whereas a confessional school accepts normative education but is
simultaneously forced to question the own point of departure in order to avoid indoctrination.
ii. Commodification of knowledge through state regulated neoliberalism
Secondly, when discussing education and societal change, we must observe that in our “postindustrial knowledge economy” the importance of our universities has radically increased as
producers of knowledge considered important for economic development. Innovation has
become a catchword. Therefore also the question of how and on what conditions research,
and not only university research, is carried out and controlled, is of importance in analyzing
the relation between education and societal development. In other words, how does scientific
research relate to societal development and cultural change and how is graduate and
postgraduate education expected to support this task? We are here talking about something
more and something else than just the mechanisms for financing research and the growing
interest in results from applied research.
The ongoing changes within the universities constitute one of the best contemporary
objects for analyzing the changing relation between education and societal change. Many
dramatic changes have been observed the last years. In Finland, as an example, there has
been an unforeseen increase in the “production” of exams. The number of masters exams
have gone up from 6.400 in 1985 to about 12.500 in 2005. Similarly, the number of doctoral
exams has increased from about 300/year in the mid 80’s to 1.400 in 2005. The financing of
the university education today is up to 80% based on the numbers of exams, i.e. results. The
administrative organization of the university has changed towards more flexible structures.
The democratic procedures are reduced and the role of heads of departments and deans are
emphasized. These carry out discussions with colleagues on productivity and goals as well as
about salaries which will be based on the efficacy of the individual staff member. Today
external members are elected to the university boards. The amount of external funding for
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research has increased, resulting in less “free” academic research. The ordinary budget
vacations are today bound to teaching and supervision, thus also reducing the time for
independent, “free” research. Interestingly enough 90% of the so called “external funding” is
state money. This means, in essence, that the mechanisms for financing the universities has
changed towards a competition oriented model: the funding is distributed on basis of project
applications, rather than on regional or other grounds. The large universities do not oppose
this as they are the winners, the small universities don’t have the courage to stand up against
the system. One more example must be mentioned and that is the dominating mechanism for
implementing this new culture of university administration. The first step of the strategy
applied is that national authorities propose e.g. radical cuts in the number of staff. This shock
treatment is accompanied with a humble invitation to the organization in question to propose
an alternative way of treating the problem. In applying this procedure, in this case the
universities, will be the ones who themselves suggest radical cuts. National authorities then
only have to follow the suggestions made by the organization itself. Through this process the
organizations will, naturally, commit themselves to also carrying out the cuts, as if they were
suggested by themselves.
More generally, this raises the question about the role of the university in the global
age, where research and knowledge has got an unforeseen economic impact, not only in the
western parts of the world. Further, this topic points at a need to understand how scientific
rationality, that regulates research and education, came to be one of the cornerstones for what
we understand by the modern society. One could say that the modernity of the modern
society is its post-traditionality where rationality is considered the highest authority. Since
200 years the individual’s own, autonomous, reflection and position taking has been the
governing ideal guiding education, research, politics and liberal economy. All this was
connected to the establishment of freedom of speech, religion and modern liberal democracy.
In essence there is no need to question the achievements of all this. However, there seems to
be is nothing in this tradition that as such hinders universities to be instrumentally used as
servants for the “market”.
The question of the role of the university in the global age is thus very much related
to the ongoing large scale “economization” of university research and the commodification
of the results of research. As such, this phenomenon is in no way new. Industrial,
16
technological and medical research has for a long time combined economic benefits with
general interests in the society. The establishment of technical universities in the beginning
of the 20th century reflects this interest. The establishment of those universities may be seen
as a culmination of the European tradition of being focused on making practical use of
human reflection, a view that at latest, started during 14th and 15th century in Europe (see e.g.
Spengler, 1996). This suggests that a fundamental feature of the European culture and
science from the very beginning was an orientation towards expansion, control, as well as
pragmatic and economic interests. The establishment and development of universities have
also followed this logic, in addition to having supported the establishment and the
development of the modern nation state (nationalism). These very tasks of higher education:
to boost economy and to participate in the construction of the nation state mark the relation
between (higher) education and the society in the rise and development of the modern nation
state. Kvieck (2005) observes that “The emergence of the universities in Berlin and Paris
marked the termination of the long process for the incorporation of the university to the
state”.
Today what is new, from a European perspective, is rather that education itself is
developing into something we (the university) can sell and buy (students as consumers).
What is also new is that education is to a growing extent seen as a private good instead of a
public good (Englund, 1994). This correlates with the view of the student as the customer
choosing among existing alternatives and buying what one likes. We talk about the university
as the “smorgasbord”. However, to the English speaking parts of the world, this is not new.
The difference between that part of the world and the European (continental and Nordic)
tradition may be explained by how the role of the state is defined in relation to the individual.
Extremely simplified the formula is: less state support for the individual correlate with less
state control of the individual and with more individual (economic) responsibility, e.g. for
one’s education.
In the European model the universities have, free of charge for the individual,
delivered a substantial part of the labor force both for the state (administration, health care,
education, law, army, etc.) and the private sector or market. From the beginning of the 90’s
the public sector in Finland adopted a new result oriented way of functioning with the private
sector as the ideal model. In coherence with this the higher education policy changed as well.
17
From this perspective the Anglo-American university model based on fees is
expanding, while the European and Nordic tradition is taking steps back. Parts of all this can
be seen as results of the year when the 20th century ended, 1989.
Irrespective of the above mentioned differences, in all modern democratic countries
the state has guaranteed a relative autonomy for their universities. Relative autonomy means
here that the universities have been guaranteed “freedom of research”. The autonomy of state
funded universities also means that it has been the state, in terms of legislation and research
funding, that has also produced the existing degrees of freedom for the university (Jaspers &
Rossman, 1961, p. 25ff). Otherwise “the seeking of truth”, for its own sake, would not have
been possible: the public responsibilities towards the state and the market would dominate in
terms of production of relevant labor force and “useful” research results.
In a similar way, legislation also guarantees the liberal model of economic life. Thus,
“classical” liberalism means that the state does not intervene in market related issues. In turn,
“neo-liberalism” explicitly means, contrary to a widespread conception, that the state does
intervene the market. It does so by taxes, laws and various other regulations. In that sense
liberal market economy is not hindered but made possible by the state. Following Foucault
we then may see neo-liberalism as political rationality or an art of government as Mark
Olssen (2005) has argued.
The degrees of freedom of the university and the market vary qualitatively and
otherwise, but are, in Western democracies, constitutively defined by the state and to a
growing extent by transnational agencies. Recent technological developments, without which
there would not exist the kind of globalization that we experience, together with political
changes after 1989, has challenged the traditional possibilities of the nation state to regulate
the market by taxes and laws. In this sense we might talk about “neo-neoliberalism”. This
expression refers to a version of liberalism as a market economical model which is originally
engineered by the state, but in which the or responsibility or care of the individual has
diminished, as a result of moving political power beyond the nation state and by making the
individual more responsible for her own life (i.e. life politics as a form of individualization of
the society, Giddens).
When the notion of “knowledge economy” is added to this picture, meaning that an
expanding part of the success of western economies depend on developmental work requiring
18
insights resulting from schooling, higher education and research, it is no more surprising that
the role of higher education and the universities role is new. A market oriented logic has now
been extended to a field which traditionally has followed a logic of intellectual
craftsmanship, national solidarity and active citizenship where professional identity has very
little to do with one’s incomes.
How efficient is such a model is in the long run? To think in terms of cost-benefit,
usefulness and applicability is often, unfortunately, shortsighted. According to the modernist
view of the world the future is open, the world is a risky world, a place where we cannot
predict what challenges we will meet. Therefore it is, for strategic and rational reasons alone,
important to uphold research and education also on seemingly non-useful areas. In the end
the question is of course who has the right and power to set the agenda for academic
research. Obviously the renewed and recently accepted university law in Finland is a good
example of reducing the freedom for the universities to, for themselves, set the agenda for
their research.
The latest example of how higher education is expected to relate to societal change is
reflected by the heavy investments in doctoral schooling in Finland (i.e. the fourth
educational level). As noted above the annual number of doctoral exams has increased
radically during the last 20 years. From having been a kind of intellectual apprenticeship
education, doctoral education has become schooling. It is primarily the increasing number of
students that has been pushing the system in this direction. As it is obvious that all new
doctors will not receive a job at the universities, new elements preparing the students for a
broader labour market have been included in the doctoral education programs. In some
countries, like in England, there are nowadays two different doctoral exams in education: a
traditional PhD and the new EdD. The latter is more oriented towards professional
development being based on more course work and a lighter dissertation. All this reflect how
nowadays even doctoral education has become more oriented towards explicit needs of the
working life. And indeed there is room for many with a doctoral exam outside the
universities: of all those 70.000 people in Finland working with research and development, a
relatively seen high number of people in an OECD perspective, only a small portion today
have received the highest academic degree.
19
Finally, a word on evaluation. The assessment culture adopted on every level of the
educational system reflects an obvious change in how the relation between education and
societal change is understood. This evaluative approach falls also very well into the
utilitarian view on education and its effects. Traditionally legislation, financing and
evaluation have been very effective steering instruments of the educational system. Today
the role of the legislative approach has been reduced while evaluation connected to financing
has been developed (accountability). The role of ranking educational institutions has become
a central element in providing “customers” with relevant information concerning the success
of a specific institution. It goes without saying that ranking is an extremely efficient way of
raising productivity. Getting reliable information from ranking procedures is dependent on
that participating institutions may be compared. Therefore the harmonization of the
educational system is important, of which the European Bologna process is a very good
example.
iii. The educational sciences and professional needs
A third aspect of the relation between education and societal development is the question of
how education as a university discipline is defined, developed, financed and practiced. Of
equal importance is the fact that today, many other disciplines in addition to the educational
sciences, deal with the government of human competence development. It indeed appears
that not even the rapid expansion and differentiation of the educational sciences has managed
to keep up with societal needs concerning learning outside schools.
How, then, should educational theory and education as a university discipline be developed
in the future? And, further, how should we determine the relation between the discipline
itself and various university programs in education?
Traditionally the discipline of education, as other disciplines, manifested itself
paradigmatically in and through the contents of the studies, i.e. the university curriculum for
a master’s exam. However, during the last 30 years there has been an increasing
specialization and professional, labor market orientation of the university studies. In Finland
the renewed profession oriented model for the universities started 1979, when also teacher
education for primary schools was made a 5 year masters degree. Since then, an ever
20
increasing differentiation and development of pragmatist curiculas has been observable. At
least three steps may be identified in this process.
The first differentiation consisted in making adult education, special education and
sloyd education autonomous academic disciplines. These changes created frustration but fell
generally taken well into an academic structure and also met clear professional needs. As
academic programs more clearly started to follow professional needs also new university
departments were established and these did not necessarily follow the disciplinary structure.
The departments of teacher education exemplify this. The connection between the discipline
and the department was lost.
Second, during the 1980’s and 1990´s the strong subject didactic (Fachdidaktik)
tradition in Finland expressed clear ambitions to develop into something own.
Simultaneously the concept ‘associate professor’ was eliminated, partly as a strategy for
raising the relatively seen low salaries of university professors. The associate professors in
subject didactics became professors, but they were still not holders of chairs, i.e. responsible
for a discipline of their own. This, for its part, boosted the interest for differentiating
education as a discipline within the departments of teacher education. In addition, at Helsinki
University educational psychology, in addition to education, was accepted as the main
subject for becoming class teachers. Thus the 150 year long connection between the
discipline of education and the profession of teaching was lost.
A telling example of the confusing situation was when, in the mid 90’s, a business
school in Finland started to offer bachelors and masters programs which considerably
differed from the established structure: the study program was carried out by the continuing
education centre but was sanctioned by the department. Only an English name for the
program was used (i.e. Master program for…). All this resulted in that participating students
too late realized that the continuing education oriented program really did not result in any
established masters degree from a university. Eventually the case turned up in the court.
Third, in the mid 90’s, the tertiary education system in Finland was restructured by
the introduction of polytechnics (Fachhochschule). This step did not directly affect the role of
education as a discipline at the universities, but it certainly challenged the university system
as a whole as the polytechnics were expected to offer tertiary education on bachelor’s level.
Students having completed their studies at the polytechnics’ today get a certain amount of
21
their studies approved when the studies are continued at a university. The idea of the concept
of academic discipline eroded partly on these grounds. From the perspective of higher
education and societal change the establishment of the polytechnic system reflects two ideas:
on the one hand an expectation of an increasing need of a higher educated population in the
country, on the other that higher education should become more oriented towards practical
needs. In this latter respect the polytechnic system is a continuation of the higher education
policy that started in 1979.
Fourth, as a result of the recent Bologna-process the idea of masters programs were
taken further and the situation nearly exploded in the hands: suddenly it was possible to
develop new masters programs, favorably cross disciplinary ones with high relevance for the
labour market. But which was the status to be of these new programs? In any case, an
intensive activity started within the faculties of education in Finland to create new masters
programs with the hope that these new programs were to be considered equal to the
traditional major academic disciplines. The Ministery of Education still kept the right to
decide which programs the respective university was allowed to offer. In the end, of the
massive amount of proposals for new masters programs (read disciplines) only a few were
accepted. The situation is however still chaotic: which programs are primarily counted as
professional development programs (PD) and examples of continuing education, which
programs are accepted to be included in doctoral studies, etc.? Simultaneous developments
may be observed in other countries as well, e.g. in Sweden where “Educational work” and
“Learning” are considered new “disciplines” in teacher education. For the situation in
Germany see Teichler & Tippelt (2005).
If the differentiation has increased within each country it is indeed also amazing how
differently education as a scientific discipline is understood among the European countries.
Textbooks and introductions to the discipline are very varied within different countries. In
some countries there are not only one but many, parallel, educational sciences (as is the case
in Finland and Germany) while in others education is more considered a field of research
relying on sociological and psychological theory in its theoretical foundations. To develop a
common frame of reference with respect to the science of education is in the long run an
urgent task for an economic area like EU if things like harmonization and communication
22
between European cultures on the educational field is considered important. For the time
being we are very far from such a common understanding.
One may also ask if not the ongoing differentiation an erosion of education is partly
contradictory to the idea of having becoming professionals in education (i.e. teachers) to
study Education as a discipline. One of the fundamental ideas of placing the education of
professionals at the universities is to educate rational, critical and creative professionals. It is
thought that academic studies can support the development of enlightened reflection and thus
support practical action. An equally important dimension is to provide becoming
professionals with a language enabling them to legitimate professional action by rational
argumentation in relation to the enlightened public. All this was already suggested by
Friedrich Schleiermacher in his lectures on education from 1826. Now, assuming that we
witness an erosion of academic disciplines into a myriad of subdisciplines and –fields, the
question must be raised if not the ongoing process is contraproductive with respect to the
mentioned aims. From this perspective a too far driven specialization will rather hinder the
realization of these aims. To implement mechanisms questioning the traditional role of the
disciplines naturally diminishes the autonomy of the university as a critical institution in the
society. Today very few seem to long for critique. Rather what is hoped for is useful and
applicable results that can be transformed into economic success. In moving towards such a
culture we have been witnessing a change in the invisible ranking of professors so that those
who have been successful in getting “external” research funding also are those who are
recognized. Similarly the awareness that some professors are holders of “chairs” has
disappeared. To make salaries dependent of achievements also means that those academics
ready to act as scouts with respect to societal needs are saluted. At the moment the
intellectual resistance criticizing all these changes is weak in Finland.
An additional important challenge for educational theory is to develop educational
theory. It may sound odd to claim such a thing, but considering what role psychology and
sociology has played the past 100 years in education we understand that this is not small
question. Especially during the past 10-15 years the interest for constructivist learning theory
has grown, while sociological approaches were more dominating during the 60’s and 70’s. If
educational studies fall back on e.g. philosophy, sociology, psychology or the teaching
subject it is obvious that education is reduced to a field of practice applying results from
23
other disciplines. It would and could not be an academic science of it own. The position in
this chapter strongly disagrees with such an understanding. Rather, education is considered a
science of pedagogical activity and learning (Bildung) trying to explain, theoretically and
empirically, on what grounds some form of human activity may be called pedagogical at all
and how such activity is then related to the constitution of the empirical identity and the self.
To develop unique, own concepts within the field of education has been on the agenda since
Herbart. Contrary to a widespread misunderstanding Herbart did not propose to derive the
goals for education from ethics and the methods from psychology. This would exactly have
been to reduce education into a field of applied practice. This is, of course, not a denial of
that education would be an ethical practice, that psychological insights are meaningful or that
a teacher need insights in the subject in question.
If we want to understand the relation between education and societal change or
development we have to focus on such theory developing activity in which the practical level
of education (practice) is conceptually and coherently explicated in relation to societal
conditions and consequences for this activity. The Anglo-American tradition of keeping
educational psychology, educational sociology and educational philosophy apart will have
difficulties in developing an understanding of how classroom interaction is related to societal
change through or as a result of education. It is in this perspective the tradition of both
Didaktik and Allgemeine Pädagogik in Germany offers fruitful paths also for the future.
When we discuss the relation between education as a university discipline and
societal change it must be observed that developments in social and human sciences often
reflect more general cultural changes. For example, the growth of the current interest in
constructivist learning theory emphasizing the learners activity, thus forgetting how
pedagogical efforts are related to this learning activity (study activity), obviously coincides
with the contemporary individualistic orientation in most fields of societal practice. It is more
or less obvious that constructivism correlates with a current political-cultural state of affairs
where the individual’s responsibilities have increased and where ethics seems to substitute
for politics. In the end, constructivism results in educational reasoning that reduces the
responsibilities of the collective. The Hegelian tradition in turn, in the shape it takes within
contemporary learning theory, i.e. the cultural-historical school of thought, naturally differs
fundamentally from constructivism that represents a Kantian tradition. The cultural-historical
24
approach accepts the necessity of cultural or pedagogical intervention for individual
development. The popularity of the cultural-historical approach may in turn be explained by
that it offers us a language to talk about the relation between individual change and societal
change in something reminding systems theory. It belongs to the group of theories that point
at the relation between various forms of societal practice and individual learning. This
tradition seems to especially have gained interest among anglo-american learning
researchers, i.e. among researchers that traditionally have lacked concepts for relating the
individual learning process with cultural processes. Yet, both the cultural-historical and the
constructivist approach are examples of psychological, rather than educational, theories and
remain mute concerning many important pedagogical issues (like normativity).
It may be that the decline in interest towards educational theory partly can be
explained by that the fact that education as a science has traditionally been strongly
connected to learning inside pedagogical institutions. Today learning takes place everywhere
and all the time. Traditional school oriented pedagogy has obviously not been well prepared
to take care of all this. As a consequence not only work psychologists, but also economists
and many others focus on competence development outside schools. This research is as
important as any, yet not very encouraging for the development of education as an academic
discipline. This ongoing rapid expansion of researchers, that often are not aware of what the
pedagogical tradition has to offer, run the risk of either inventing the wheel again or then to
develop a very instrumental view of education.
iv. Education, educational science and cosmopolitism
A fourth way of addressing the issue of education and societal change is the observation that
education as science and societal practice varies over cultural contexts and changes within
these. Accepting this we realize that the ongoing globalization offer new challenges both to
theory and practice of education in relation to societal changes. Globalization, whether
understood as technology, politics or ideology (e.g. cosmopolitism as an educational ideal), is
demanding especially as educational theory and practice very much has developed with the
idea of the autonomous nation state as its frame of reference (cf. Beck, 2004).
What is needed is a renewed and extended discussion on cosmopolitism and
education. Of course, the 19th century tension between cosmopolitism and e.g. nationalism
25
was a widely discussed topic, occurring in most European countries. We know that in their
reaction against the aristocratic society both Kant and Herbart proposed cosmopolitism as an
educational ideal. “Das Weltbeste” was to be the aim, instead of private or national interests,
writes Perander in 1883. Perander was the one and, for the time being, the only professor of
education in the beginning of the 1880´s in Finland. These ideas were never transformed into
the curriculums of the compulsory school. Rather, the Hegelian idea of the nation as the
primary frame of reference was widely accepted and became very influential in Finland
through J.V. Snellman’s works.
Interestingly enough, the global mission in terms of a responsibility towards humanity
was accepted as a task for the universities around the world during the era of establishing and
developing the nation state. In Finland the university law told us for years that the task of the
universities was educate the students so that they were prepared to serve the “Vaterland” and
humanity.3 The law was recently changed. The global task remained, but was completed with
a paragraph telling that the universities had to “act together with the society” as well as to
foster the impact of research results in society. Local, pragmatist, utilitarian motives were
thus added. Today, when the world has indeed become global and many societal problems
and challenges have dimensions beyond the nation state the non-global, national and local
tasks of the universities are emphasized. One tentative explanation to this paradox might be
that the global mission of the universities intending to serve the humanity which previously
was seen as important, was, in fact, used by the universities in order to defend their
“autonomy” against too strong national and political interests. The universities were
“allowed”, by the state, to be “successful” in this mission as long as they fulfilled their task
of serving the state. Today this noble mission of serving humanity is no longer interesting for
the nation-state to the same extent as earlier.
5. Conclusions
3
Universitetslagen (2005) 4 §: ”Universiteten har till uppgift att främja den fria forskningen och den
vetenskapliga och konstnärliga bildningen, att meddela på forskning grundad högsta undervisning och att
fostra de studerande till att tjäna fosterlandet och mänskligheten. Universiteten skall fullgöra sina uppgifter
i samverkan med det övriga samhället och främja forskningsresultatens och den konstnärliga
verksamhetens genomslagskraft i samhället.
26
In relating education to society and its development within the European4 tradition of
educational theory a key question has been what is referred to by expressions like the
autonomous or self-determined subject and how we specify the mechanisms through which
pedagogical efforts supports the establishment of such an “independent” subject. Today the
idea of a self sufficient “Ich” is widely questioned, mainly within philosophy of language, the
philosophy of mind and within ethics. A core issue running through all these discussions is
how we explain what it means both to become and to be a subject. Much of these writings
take their point of departure in a critique of idealist theory of the subject. Especially the
Kantian, egological, philosophy is criticized. The two central aspects of Bildung, i.e.
Mündigkeit and emancipation, are questioned as well: if self-determination, critique, selfreflection and autonomy is organically coherent with western liberal democracy and with the
development of the society within the frames of such an educational and political model, then
the mentioned human characteristics have to be brought to existence through means offered
by education. The modernist tradition of Bildung would then be functional and therefore
lacking a real critical potential.
Today, as a result of the late- or postmodern critique of the transcendental subject as
an unconditional point of departure, it appears more clearly than ever that the position
developed by Michel Foucault (1997) is motivated. In the first part of this article it was
shown how the modernist concept of Bildung may be understood as functional with respect
to the conception of the world developed. Also, with reference to Foucault, it was shown how
the contemporary neo liberal educational policy may be understood as state regulated activity
upholding certain mechanisms and procedures through which the degrees of freedom and the
art of activities for the universities are governed. Also Jan Masschelein (2005) point at that
the role of critique is built into the Western tradition in order to optimize its functioning. But
the idea of critique being an organic part of the societal system is not something that is
invented as late as in the beginning of modernity. In many cultures critique as distanciation
has been inbuilt through arts, science and philosophy and religion.
In the Western tradition, especially the (Dionysian) critique in the arts and (Apollinic)
critique within science partly substitute the religious form of critique. In addition critical
reflection can occur both as theoretical reflection (episteme-theoria), as practical reflection in
4
For an analysis of Europe see Delanty (1996).
27
relation to moulding the physical world (techne-poiesis) and with respect to the social,
human, world (fronesis-praxis) (Saugstad, 2004). Many times it is difficult to draw a very
strict line between practically and theoretically oriented critique. It is easily seen how the
arts (theatre, literature, etc) and philosophy and sciences (university research) as well as the
freedom of public speech and thought through the press and massmedia (Agora) ideally
function as instances for critique. Yet, western modernity is characterized by rational
reflection as the main instance of critical reflection.
In the Western tradition, critique has taken the both form of opinion and critical
reflection (doxa vs episteme). Critique as insightful reflection on the relation between
something universal and something particular (principle-example, ideal-real) in which the
intellectual agent publicly and rationally argues, is something different than the sole
expression of an attitude or an opinion, as which not necessarily have to be well argued
(Peukert, 2005). In e.g. politics rationality and opinion are ideally unified into a whole.
If the governmentality of modernity (Foucault) is considered an art of producing
freely choosing, rational and “autonomous” subjects then we may ask what theoretical
concepts in educational theory has formed the conceptual basis for such an activity. A first
distinction relevant for this is the one between instruction (Unterricht) and education
(Erziehung) where the former refers to learning conceptually some content and the latter
refers to the formation of one´s identity or personality (individuality). Also Herbarts concept
of Bildsamkeit and Fichte´s idea of Aufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit as they are developed
for example in the non-affirmative position by Benner (2003) previously discussed, are such
concepts (see eg. Uljens 2002). In addition the simultaneous individuation and socialization
may be seen in this light.
The issue is relevant for educational theory because the roots to the idea of that “man
becomes man only among men”, and not by himself, stems to a significant degree from
Fichte’s critique of Kant’s transcendental philosophy on the ‘I’. In essence, Fichte’s critique,
carried further by Hegel, is a proposal to replace the idea of transcendental subjectivity, pure
Kantian Autonomity, with an empirical other. Thus, the individual, according to Fichte,
reaches her experience of freedom as mediated by the Other, i.e. education. The point is that
from the very beginning modern educational theory, the transcendental subject was
decentered by pedagogical activity, i.e. accepting that experience of freedom is something
28
mediated and not an aprioristic point of departure. That “autonomy” is partly an effect of a
historical process than rather solely being a point of departure explaining self-determination
through “disciplinarization” of thought was understood and elaborated by the classics.
This shows that classic educational theory is not unaware of the idea that the task of
education is “to produce” critical and empirically “autonomous” subjects and that this is
possible by education. This tradition of educational theory knows about that learning to work
with oneself, reaching an understanding of oneself as having the right and obligation to
understand oneself as “free”, reaching a self-understanding through self-determination,
seeing oneself as “subject of moral choice” is not a capacity we enter the world with, but is a
result of a process of Bildung. Education was from the beginning thought as a science for this
cultural activity. Therefore Schleiermacher’s position may be called a modern theory for a
modern society (Uljens & Mielityinen, 2004). Being aware of all this Foucalt’s critique
seems to loose some of its radicality. It appears as if that critique on the government of
individualization, would argue that the modern educationalists would not have been aware of
what they were doing in producing their theories. To some extent this is true because it is
motivated to understand latemodern theorizing as a tradition of thought which expresses
precisely that kind of awareness as Foucault does, i.e. that modernist Bildung is a functional
tradition of thought.
On the other hand, one might say that in producing or arguing for some specific
theory its own genealogy is not necessarily visible for the theorist in question. Having
realized that we may see modernist educational theory in terms of Foucauldian
governmentality of individualization (of a certain kind), we must realize that also that very
theoretical position may be analyzed from a functionalist perspective. I.e. what type of
critique does that Foucault position support? What happens if we use Foucault’s approach on
Foucault’s position?
What is valuable in Foucalt’s approach is the focuse on that governmentality of
individualization exemplify a view of power as a constitutive feature of the relation between
individuals put into practice, e.g. that this governmentality works through “dividing
practices”. Examples of this kind of power exhibiting dividing practices were discussed in
relation to the contemporary neoliberal educational policy which increases individual choice
and in which differentiates the school system according to specific interests. The neoliberal
29
policy may be seen as a radicalization of individualization simultaneously expanding local
collectivity towards a global one.
Modern rationalization exhibits a feature according to which the individual is
disconnected from his traditional life-world. A reflective identity is always capable of
objectivating oneself. In one sense this attitude is supportive in formulating an opinion of
one’s own but also the rationalist paradigm is also silencing the subject as the subject in this
tradition views herself, so to speak, from an outside perspective. If the subject is only loosely
connected to various societal groups then one typically represents only oneself. To act in this
manner increases the likelihood for a polite and decent, but also low profiled, public
discussion: self-reflection may, in other words, function as self censorship. An rational
intellect is often not the one that strongest expresses opinions publicly. The selfunderstanding of analytic individuals may limit the productive argumentation to an ethos of
analyzing a situation, whereas the role of the intellectual as a position taking personality falls
into the background. Thus, an increased level of education as such does not necessarily lead
to a more vivid cultural debate, central for a deliberative or procedural democray. Indeed we
today witness an opposite cultural state of art. The tradition of Bildung, that still forms the
general framework for educational policy and theory, has indeed been functional in the sense
that its “critical” orientation has not been successful in supporting the growth of position
taking identities. It has rather produced servile subjects willing to invest their creative
capacity in the name for private and public economic success.
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