Foucault Disciplinary Power Analysis

Foucault’s third element of disciplinary power is the examination, the combination of the techniques of hierarchical observation and normalizing judgments. It is a mechanism that establishes the individual as the subject and object of the power. Where Foucault described the examination as:

“Disciplinary power, on the other hand, is exercised through its invisibility; at the same time it imposes on those whom it subjects a principle of compulsory visibility. In discipline, it is the subjects who have to be seen. Their visibility assures the hold of the power that is exercised over them. It is the fact of being constantly seen, of being able always to be seen, that maintains the disciplined individual in his subjection” (Foucault 1977 p. 187).

Policy technologies as described by Ball (2003) is the careful organisation and utilisation of skills and knowledge into a functioning network of power. Performativity, a policy technology of country x’s educational policy is a term first used by Lyotard in 1984, in which he implies that educational reform is preoccupied with efficiency and effectiveness, where efficiency is ”measured according to an input/output ratio” (Lyotard 1984, p.88); leading to schools in country X being judged on performance and outcome. The performativity of schools and teachers within the country is based on rewards and sanctions; the reward of achieving outstanding and raise fees or the sanction of teachers losing their jobs or schools closing. Ball (2003) suggests that the ”mechanics of performativity” introduces new methods of invisible social control through monitoring systems which includes ‘the appraisal meeting, the annual review, report writing, the regular publication of results and promotion applications, inspections and peer reviews that are mechanics of performativity” (Ball 2005, p.220). Whilst Perryman (2006 p. 148) goes further in describing the constant monitoring of outcome and performance of schools as “panoptic

The idea of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon was that within the structure, no-one was able to know when they were being watched and when they weren’t; as such people would behave in a disciplined manner as though they were being watched all the time. “It is the fact of being constantly seen, of being always able to be seen, that maintains the disciplined individual.” (Foucault 1977 p.187). The frequent inspections experienced by schools from either the School Inspection Service or some other accredited body leads teachers to perform panoptically. Described by Perryman (2006 p.148) as “a regime in which frequency of inspection and the sense of being perpetually under surveillance leads to teachers performing in ways dictated by the discourse of inspection in order to escape the regime.” On the announcement of an inspection, teachers within school x prearranged set lessons, whilst management ensured that all documentation and policies were in line with the accepted discourse of the Country x’s School Inspection Service. As such, the school focussed not solely on education but on achieving the accolade of