Research project The regime of deficient knowledge
The purpose of the thesis is to study the objectification of the teacher's knowledge in the Swedish Schools Inspectorate's review reports and the teacher education syllabuses and thereby make visible the knowledge regimes about the teacher's knowledge that are created in this context, as well as how these regimes discipline teachers.
In today's school debate, the teacher is seen as a central figure, as the most important factor for school success, at the same time the teacher is also seen as problematic and someone who lacks in his ability. That is, a position that has the potential to strongly contribute to the good society, but also a position that can fail and tear down and destroy what has been built up. When the teacher's ability becomes the symbol of the potential of the school, much attention is also focused on the teacher.
There is an interest in controlling the teacher in different ways. By studying how the teacher and the teacher's knowledge are handled as objects, I can analyze how the knowledge regime appears.
Project description
Among other things, it was argued that research in teachers' knowledge and competence would produce validated knowledge that could then be put into practice. However, some felt that this was problematic in a teaching context, as they saw the complication in bridging the gap between research knowledge and practice. For some, common sense, intuition, and experience were much more important aspects of the teaching profession. The emphasis on the competence of teachers has led to the introduction of various standards such as the description of teachers' skills. These lists and matrices of standards, Connell (2009) argues, do not come from any systematic review of pedagogy as a tradition of knowledge. Many times, the different items on the lists have nothing to do with each other, which means that they are easy to add or subtract items without affecting the framework. Furthermore, Connell believes that these declarations of competence in the form of lists, together with a culture of control in the educational system, construct the teacher as a technician. Connell (2009) identifies two trends in the education sector that clearly contribute to the construction of the idea of teachers' competence as the central idea of school. The first trend was a growing attention from policymakers to quantitative research on school and teacher effectiveness. The second trend was a neoliberal control of teaching itself.
In discourses, Foucault (1982b) argues that there is also an objectification of the subject. Objectification occurs when a knowledge of the subject is formulated and as an object this object is either divided within itself, that is, divided into different constituent parts and functions, or the object becomes dividedd and separated from other objects. According to Foucault, it is this process that objectifies the human being. This division refers to Foucault as differentiation. It is also this differentiation that allows the exercise of power. What the disciplinary power does is create a certain type of individual by producing new movements, habits and skills. The disciplinary power focuses on details and individual movements, on timing and pace. Quite simply, the disciplinary power organizes bodies in time and space, to control each movement for maximum effect. The disciplinary power accomplishes this by using rules, supervision, tests and controls. The activities follow certain plans, the purpose of which it is to lead the bodies to certain predetermined goals. In the archaeology of a knowledge, I must, firstly, treat events and statements as mere occurrences, with no connection to beliefs or pre-understanding. A first step involves ascertaining which events and statements occur in a particular context. Furthermore, in what context and by whom a statement can be made and in what context an event can arise or be carried out. Secondly, to see how an event, statement or subject position is related to other events, statements and subject positions. By seeing how social activity is legitimized, the overall discursive formations can be traced and thereby the connections between the discursive formations and the practice are made visible. Legitimation largely answers the question of why something should or should not be done or said.
What I study is how these two bodies (the Swedish Schools Inspectorate and a higher education institution's teacher education) objectify teachers' knowledge in their respective discursive practices. I do this by studying texts. Regarding teacher education, these texts are the higher education institutions' syllabi for a teacher program, as well as the degree objectives for this program. The syllabuses are produced at the higher education institutions on the basis of the degree objectives, which are state-produced. Regarding the Swedish Schools Inspectorate, these texts are the quality review reports, which are the result of review and inspection. The analysis for the thesis has been made based on the concepts of subject position, recontextualization, differentiation and discipline.
