Just over a decade on from a spike of interest in Jacques Rancière’s writing within educational philosophy and theory, I revisit his interventions on democracy and education to make the case for (re)engaging with Rancière’s writing now to address important questions about contemporary education policy, the role of schools in democratic societies and public debate over the curriculum. Specifically, I argue that Rancière’s interventions on the Platonism that characterises both ‘progressive’ and ‘traditional’ arguments about school curricula in such contexts offer (...) a vital tool for understanding the shifts in education policy and educational debate that animate our current political moment. Building on work that has applied Rancière’s writing to analyse neoliberal education policy, I argue that Rancière’s writing provides a distinctive analytical lens for interpreting a recent shift towards neo-conservative education policy agendas, and the imbrication of schools within the ‘culture-wars’ that characterise the contemporary political landscape in several national settings. Taking recent policies concerned with the teaching of values in England as an example, I argue that a Rancierian perspective on such policy is helpful for revitalising research concerned with education and the role of public schooling in societies that wish to maintain some claim to democracy. (shrink)

In recent years the French philosopher Jacques Rancière has addressed the predicament of artists and curators who, in their eagerness to convey a critical message or engage their viewers in an emancipatory process, end up predetermining the outcomes of the experience, hence blocking its critical or emancipatory potential. In this essay I consider Rancière’s writing on this topic and draw out the parallels with the predicament of teachers and curriculum designers who have critical and emancipatory objectives. The risk of education (...) that strives for emancipation is that it can become so directive in steering students to the “right” outcomes that it does not leave these students any intellectual room. Rancière’s work is helpful in reminding us that teachers and curricula with explicitly critical, political, emancipatory objectives can defeat their own purposes and become stultifying if they do not leave the student room to use her or his own intelligence. (shrink)

This paper provides a queer critique of the European Court of Human Rights’ use of ‘European consensus’ as a method of interpretation in cases concerning sexuality rights. It argues that by routinely invoking the notion of ‘consensus’ in such cases, the Court (re)produces discourses and induces performances of sexuality and Europeanness that emphasise sameness and agreement, while simultaneously suppressing expressions of difference and dissent. As a result, this paper contends that the Court’s use of European consensus has ultimately functioned to (...) uphold and sustain the heteronormative order that underpins both the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and European society more generally. This is so, despite the role that European consensus has played in the Court’s recognition of ‘new’ rights for lesbian, gay and bisexual people under the ECHR. Drawing on insights from queer theory, as well as the work of Rancière and Foucault, this discussion is carried out through a close reading of Strasbourg cases relating to sexuality. (shrink)