1 Introducing Monsieur Foucault Stephen J. Ball Michel Foucault is an enigma, a massively influential intellectual who steadfastly refused to align himself ...

This paper discusses some problems with the field of educational studies and considers the role of post-structuralist theory in shifting the study of education away from a 'technical rationalist' approach (as evidenced in the case of much research on educational management and school effectiveness) towards an 'intellectual intelligence' stance that stresses contingency, disidentification and risk-taking.

The paper examines the future prospects for educational research as conducted in UK universities and colleges of higher education in the light of current general changes in the organisation, funding and culture of higher education, and in respect of specific changes in the initial and in service training of teachers. It includes a critical examination of the claim made by some educational researchers that their research constitutes a special case, differentiated from other social science and humanities disciplines, both by the (...) routes into educational research and the concerns of those who practise it. It is suggested that the special case argument for the alleged distinctiveness of educational research is largely unjustified, and does not contribute positively to the future prospects of that research or help to ease the relative isolation of educational researchers. Alliances between educational researchers, and those researching in the social sciences are advocated as one strategy which will help both partners. It is also suggested that educational researchers should try to ensure that novel and existing modes of training new researchers such as doctoral programmes, make connections with the training of other beginning researchers, rather than dividing would-be educational researchers from their counterparts in other disciplinary or interdisciplinary areas. (shrink)

The paper highlights the urgent and radical questions and problems which postmodernism poses for educational studies in general, and the philosophy of education in particular. First, it outlines and interrelates the legacies of modernism in social and cultural theory. Next, it describes the reactionary anti-modernism of the Right, and contrasts this with traditionalism. It is argued that the current political and economic context of education is largely anti-modernist, not traditionalist. The stirrings of radical doubts about modernism are described and contrasted (...) with the antimodernism of the Right. A salient theme to this point is the variety of conceptions of the relationship between knowledge and power. Mature postmodernism is characterised centrally in terms of a reconceptualisation of that relationship. The metamorphosis of the concept of the self in postmodernism is described and related to new problems about ethics and a newly emerging importance for the aesthetic. Finally, the paper argues that while the fundamental issues for philosophy of education are unchanged - problems about instrumentalism and various issues of autonomy - these are radically recast in postmodernism, and present new difficulties. (shrink)