Judging Teachers: Foucault, governance and agency during education reforms
Over a decade after publication of Thinking Again: Education After Postmodernism (1998) contention still emerges among Foucaultians over whether discursively made‐up things really exist, and whether removal of the constituent subject leaves room for agency within techniques of caring for the self. That these questions are kept alive shows that some readers have not rethought Foucault, finding what possibly comes after postmodernism. Using Wittgenstein to ‘reciprocally illuminate’ Foucault (after Tully and Marshall), I open teacher inspection and reforms to problematization, as relations to bedrock rules governing games of truth. ‘How, upon entering classrooms, do inspectors know “teaching” is taking place and not crazy and fuzzy things in its name?’ Taking up Hirst's vexing question, I move beyond liberal‐analytic concept‐mapping and neo‐liberal individualism to more fully assay the political ground for judging teaching practices through genealogy. Epistemological, political and ethical concerns intersect...