Power in Education Systems: Discipline and Autonomy in Focus

Supervision and surveillance, according to Foucault (1995:176) form an “integrated system” which allows the exertion of power. For him as for Gramsci, surveillance is implied in the architecture of schools, since the physical structure allows principals and supervisors to watch over activities within school and interaction among teachers and students. Foucault stated that schools´ architecture contributes to control, training and surveillance: “the school building was to be a mechanism for

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training. It was as a pedagogical machine that Pâris-Duverney conceived the École Militaire,” (Foucault, 1995: 172); whereas Gramsci compared schools´ architecture to that of prisons, making the analogy that punishment in schools is justified through examinations (Gramsci, 1957).

Gramsci and Foucault studied the methods of surveillance in different institutions, such as military and schools (Gramsci, 1957) and analysed the mechanisms used to exert power over individuals in institutions like prisons, military and psychiatric institutions. Foucault (1991) explained the methods of control through discipline, training, constant supervision and torture, through his study of the links between knowledge, power, domination, individuals (Ball, 2013). He provided an insight into how institutions exert power and how to recognize domination over individuals. He explained discipline in a context of prisons as places that aim for domination of the body in order to foster obedience and create “docile bodies” (Foucault, 1995:138) as an easier way to dominate. He also recognized that this method of domination is very similar in schools. Foucault saw the exertion of power as a process of acceptance between one side which exerts the majority of the power and one side that is subject to the power. For him this is a process where a complete imposition never happens since both parts possess power but in differing amounts. Therefore, rather than imposition, it is a process of acceptance which can also be referred to an unconscious process. Domination as a way to exert power was also clear to Bourdieu, however in contrast to Foucault he saw it as violent imposition from the authorities of a field. He studied such domination within the system of education and materialized it through his concepts of pedagogic actions that happened in education systems (as embodied violent impositions of arbitrary culture and power), pedagogical authorities (the institutions that exert power in education), and pedagogic work (the methods of training and of internalization of cultural practices) (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990: 4;31).

A structure of transmission and exertion of power in education is recognized by both Bourdieu and Foucault. However, their approaches diverge in the forms of transmission of power. It is true that Foucault went less in depth within schools and focused on prisons and other institutions. However, he depicted the micro perspective of power described as the ‘micro structures of power’ and instead of ignoring the framework of the field of education of Bourdieu, he focussed on the

25 implementation of mechanisms in a more or less homogeneous group, whereas Bourdieu exposed the skeleton of the education system through a macro system.

Bourdieu argued that power is exerted through institutions and actors in a determined field, whereas Foucault thought that power is exerted mainly through discipline. Bourdieu criticism of Foucault’s work stated that Foucault reduced his analysis to a view where only the disciplinary measures are taken into account in the transmission of power, ignoring the macro structures that influence the politics and practices of the field of education (Bourdieu, 1991: 90). Foucault, however suggested the analysis of power through the power relations among actors and exemplified in disciplinary practices in prisons, schools and hospitals, he focused on the process of transmission of power itself instead of a focus reduced on institutions (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1983: 153).

Discipline, as one of the oldest methods of control has been highly valued in religious, military and academic institutions. It provides domestication of human behaviour and an easier way to transmit ideas, values and ideologies. Bourdieu, Foucault and Gramsci approached discipline as a mechanism of power. Bourdieu recognized that discipline in education is present in different ways, for example as

“techniques of coercion” and “soft approach” (Bourdieu, 1990:16). Foucault (1995 [1979]) and Gramsci (1999 [1971]) identified discipline as an explicit control over individuals, as forms of punishment and manipulation of the body. For Foucault discipline “may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets” (Foucault, 1984: 206).

Gramsci criticized the high discipline embedded in systems of education that help to maintain control and power over individuals, but he also underlined that self-discipline has great advantages that lead to individual awareness through education and of the need for systemic changes. Discipline and good manners in most cultures are learned as practices established within schools, in a formal curriculum or taught through informal rules at school. Disciplinary practices are not only taught to students but also to the teachers. For teachers, certain codes of behaviour are expected to be followed and maintaining the discipline of their students reflects their own command and authority. For students, learning disciplinary practices in school is possible by repetition and by following the tradition which shows for example, how to behave in the classroom, how to greet the teacher, how to be

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silent during a lesson and how to use the right of a brief break time between class sessions.

Autonomy has been a controversial concept. If considered from the perspective of moral philosophy, autonomy is understood as the virtue or “the capacity to impose on ourselves a moral law” (Christman, 2015). But if seen from the perspective of politics, it means “having the right or power of self-government”¹⁰. In education, there has also been a debate concerning the questions whether autonomy can be considered as a moral virtue. Liberal education for example, emerged in the nineteenth century with the principle of rational autonomy or freedom to rationalize.

Foucault criticizes the approach of personal autonomy that formed the basis of liberal education¹¹ (Marshall, 1996). For Foucault the independence of individuals is not real, due to the fact that an individual is subject to a structure of power which acts through institutions and power technics on the basis of a “relative functional autonomy” (Foucault, 1988) that allows the functioning of the given system (e.g.

academic institutions and military). The exertion of power nonetheless despite is not a process of complete domination, it also reflects an unequal distribution of power.

Marshall (1996) studied Foucault´s reflections on autonomy and freedom and with him, criticizing the position that may link autonomy and morality, arguing that autonomy cannot be related to moral values, since moral values are laws universally recognized and autonomy is related to particular events or particular relations of power.

In contrast to these scholars, Gramsci saw autonomy as a tool to liberate civil society from the state (Forgacs, 1988). Gramsci (1999) recognized innovative movements in subaltern groups directed against hegemonic groups; he suggested that a way to understand such innovative movements is to study them through the autonomy they developed and the support gained from other groups. This study recognizes that autonomy in education can be studied through educational institutions, teachers as subjects positioned between the education system and the pupils and through education actors. Some examples of autonomy are institutional autonomy for schools, financial autonomy and pedagogic autonomy (see Chapter 3

10Merriam-Webster Dictionary, (2004), 11th ed., s.v. “autonomy”

11Liberal Education constituted the base for the Pedagogy of Freedom developed by the Brazilian Paulo Freire in São Paulo in a context of oppressed Brazilian society during the military dictatorship.

27 and Chapter 4). These examples of autonomy represent the amount of freedom of an institution (e.g. school) from the educational authority in relation to their internal structure and organization, decision making for the use of resources and the freedom to draw up their curricula.