Foucault, Governmentality and

Education Research
Dr Andrew Wilkins
University of East London

@andewilkins

Theory is a detour on the road to

somewhere more important (S. Hall)
Pragmatic

Political
Polytheoretical
Practice-led

Theory as Method
Pragmatic

What matters is what works:

Demonstrates application by describing and explaining a
rapidly changing social reality.
Creates the conditions for intelligible and practical insight
leading to change.
A pragmatic approach to research paradigms:

Working selectively with concepts and theories as tools

with which to craft new intelligible frameworks for
thinking and engaging critically with the real world.

Theory as Method
Political

Abstention from criticism is complicity:

The act of deconstruction ideally affects practice in

the real world.
Crafting theories and concepts which describe, explain
and impact the social world:
Theorising as symbolic practices and systems of
representation with real discursive/material effects.
A form of social action that is educative and political.

Theory as Method
Polytheoretical

Let all noble thoughts come from all directions:

Different theories yield different insights, ways of

thinking/seeing/critiquing.
Inter-disciplinarity as a discipline.
Relative approach to applied theory/methods:
Bricolage of theory and methods.
Theory that is inter-directional, trans-mediated, cross-cutting.

Theory as Method
Practice-led

Grounded theory approach:

Working backwards from the data to theory (inductive
theorising).
Bottom-up approach to knowledge generation and theory
building.
Analytic generalisation through construct validity:
Establishing reliability or relatability of interpretations
of findings and/or application of recommendations for
change through re-engagement with key constituents.

ESRC SASE 2012-2015

Future Research Leaders Grant
October 2012 January 2015
Key focus: to explore the changing
role of governance, governing and
governors under new education
reforms in England

Key research questions

How do governors understand their role and
responsibilities?
How do governors and senior leaders understand and
practise governance?
Who gets to influence key decision making?
What is the relationship between governors, parents
and the wider community?
What is good governance?

Additional questions
To what extent do governors perform their duties through a
dependence on rules and norms? Whose rules/norms?
Who governs the field of judgement in which rules and
definitions of good governance are formulated/contested?
Are governors instruments by which government exercise
governing at a distance?
In whose interests is school governance exercised?
Who is included and excluded from the business of
governance? Why?

Research Methodology
Telephone and face-to-face interviews
In-depth, semi-structured interviews were carried out with
102 participants including senior leaders, school governors
and parents.
Observation material
Observations of 42 meetings were carried out, including
observations of full governing body and committee meetings.
Documentary evidence
Key governance documents were collected and analysed from
each school, including school improvement plans, governor
induction packs, annual budget reports, governor school visit
reports, minutes from meetings, headteachers report to
governors, articles of association and assessment data.

Structure
of feeling

New culture of school governance

amateurish approach
(Wilshaw)

Running a school is in many

ways like running a
business
(Lord Nash)

skills to contribute to
effective governance
(DfE)
Appointments need not be
based on any
representational niceties
(Leo et al. 2010)

make schools your

business
(SGOSS)

challenge heads
forensically
(Gove)
If you can't stand the heat,
stay out of the kitchen!
(UkGovChat)

Becoming
professional
culture of self-review and professional ethos (Lord Nash)
Training and professional development, e.g. Chairs of Governors Leadership
Development Programme for aspiring chairs (DfE)
Skill acquisition and confidence building
External and internal review reviewing governing body effectiveness
Ofsted inspection of governors under leadership and management
Data tracking and analysis RAISEonline and Ofsted Schools Data Dashboard
(OSDD)

Ofsted: enduring and permanent

absent presence
Yeah, but then I suppose when Ofsted come in they can call
the governors more to account, and I know they do, and
governance is something being looked at now very closely
by Ofsted, governors have to be informed.
Johanna, Headteacher, Richford

I think all these things they will have a greater impact, of

course, when they think another Ofsted inspection is
imminent. I need to look at it a bit more, in greater detail,
and its developed as we go through, so as we scrutinise
things like self-evaluation.
Peter, Community Governor, Montague

Governmentality
The organised practices (rationalizations,
strategies, programmes and techniques) by
which governments enjoin citizens to perform
certain freedoms and responsibilities
In effect
acting upon the actions of others in order to
achieve certain ends (Rose 1996: 12)

Neoliberal governmentality
The double movement by which welfare state
activities and subjects are removed from direct
control and bureaucracy, only to be enfolded
through new relations and practices which
require steering and facilitation.
What Foucault (1991) termed the conduct of
conduct and Kikert (1991) describes as
steering-at-a-distance.

Hard regulation
New Labour
1997-2010
203 academies opened

Direct control
Regional Oversight

Local
government

Soft regulation
Decentralisation
Steering and facilitation

Coalition
2010-2014
3924 academies opened

Local
government

Academy
Trust

Causes and consequences of local

authority restructuring
Decentralisation
and duplication of
bureaucracy

Remodelling of
relations of
accountability

Decentralisation
of power and
responsibility

Growth of soft and

hard federations

Hollowing out of LAs

Relocation of
local/regional
strategic oversight

Private sector
participation in
public sector
organisation

The changing role and

responsibilities of school governors
Reconstitution,
reorientation and
reculturing

Emphasis on
experts and
expertise

Supplant the
formal authority of
local government

Technocratic
specificity of role
(checks and
balances)

Academisation
Data tracking and
monitoring
(RaiseOnline and
OSDD)

Becoming
professional: CPD,
training, external
review.

Professional power
I mean weve got one girl, now she is good, she
works for the LEA and she has a child there so
she understands whats going on. But what
youve got there is someone whos professional
and understands whats going on. And Im not
trying to knock governing bodies or governors or
anything like that but I feel that governing bodies
should be run by a series of professionals
David, Community Governor, Canterbury

Professional power
I think they [governors] are worthy people who want to
show an interest. Emma [chair of governors] and I were
talking about this yesterday actually. We dont have
much strength on the governing body so there is a
need to appoint a lot more people but trying to find
people whove got the right sort of experience from
industry, commerce, that sort of thing, who want to give
the time, is quite difficult. But Emma has contacts in
the business world so she is actively trying to recruit
people
Tim, Community Governor, Canterbury

Post-Foucauldian governmentality
Mckee (2009) highlights several criticisms of a
governmentality perspective:
disregard for empirical reality;
its tendency to conflate thought and
practice;
its neglect of the role of the state; and
the adequacy of its politics of resistance.

Post-Foucauldian governmentality
As Bevir (2010: 425) argues
these accounts falsely portray forms of
power/knowledge as monolithic, with state
practices fitting seamlessly with practices of selfcreation. This synchronic focus often leads to
somewhat reified and homogenous accounts of
modern power, with little sensitivity to diversity,
heterogeneity, and resistance within and over
time

Governing through governors

Conditional autonomy intelligible as businesses
Constant monitoring and revision of the self as
willing, self-governing, entrepreneurial subjects
Deregulation and re-politicisation
Governors make themselves objects of scrutiny and
control
permanent vigilance, activity and intervention
(Foucault 2008: 132)
New culture of discipline intent on normalising and
correcting behaviour
New regulatory ensemble the market
Emphasis on technical knowledge and expertise
controlled de-control (Du Gay 1996)