Discourse, Power, Resistance: Challenging the Rhetoric of Contemporary Education - Softcover

"While the book evidences perhaps more ideology critique than deconstruction and I am less sanguine than some of the authors regarding "the liberating possibilities [that] are offered simply through the act of naming a regime of truth" (p. 98), the book speaks well to the putting of such theory to work in thinking through academic practices under conditions of a range of discourses of power." -- International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education "There are subtle, interesting and compelling insights about how apparently pastoral forms of governance draw in students, teachers, researchers and mentors into self-regulating, disciplinary regimes and how these processes affect one's identity, both personal and professional. It is clear that the organisers and contributers have hit on some of the most profound problems in education." -- British Journal of Educational Studies.

This work exposes the practices that are controlling education and reducing it to little more than skills development in preparation for work. It is a call to educators to recognize and resist the rhetoric around education and to question oppressive practices. The contributors reveal how persuasively students all over the world are being controlled by education. It offers the example of the rise of testing and accountability, arguing that it has fostered the decline of teacher professionalism and local control, thus achieving compliance and making contestation all but impossible. It questions the strategy of mentoring to show how its dynamic requires docility from the learner and thus perpetuates inequality. In Part Two of the text, it suggests ways in which to provoke and enable students to critique the system, resist their educational oppression and take greater control of their learning. The text should be useful for students, teachers, trainers, lecturers, and researchers.