As early as the 1990s, educationists, and even some governmental policy makers in China, advocated suzhi (quality) educational reform, aiming to develop creative individuals, and to revamp the exam-oriented and authoritarian education system. However, this suzhi educational reform was not entirely successful, with education in China becoming a…

Key ideas in the work of Michel Foucault are explored and applied to the organized pursuit of knowledge in higher education. His association of power and knowledge accounts for deeply rooted practices in higher education that would need to be mediated or overcome for there to be a revolution in inquiry to occur, such as the one advanced by…

The body is a powerful symbolic form and all bodily activities are expressions of culture. The look, size, shape and physicality of bodies are perceived by all and compared to particular cultural standards. In this way the body is inscribed with culture and can serve as a site for social control. Various discourses of the body, including those…

In this article, the authors describe a class activity that uses a combination of strategies to overcome obstacles students face when learning about the reproduction of inequality in everyday life. Based on Schwalbe et al.'s (2000) piece on "generic social processes," and following the idea of "making the strange familiar and the familiar…

While Michel Foucault's "technologies of the self" are useful in explaining the convergence of liberalism and bio-politics, they fail to account for the appeal of juridical mechanisms that administer the conventions of bio-political control. A productive site from which to explore this convergence is provided by the "mall curfew," a bio-political…

This paper reports results from an ethnographic study of African-American youth subculture in a New Orleans high school. The paper contends that youth subculture remains an important construct to situate stylistic resistance among subaltern groups like urban black youth that confront demands for conformity from representatives of institutional…

The emergence of postmodern ideas in the educational literature has complicated the field?s understandings of oppression and resistance. While important, this postmodern influence has been problematic in its tendency to stress the relatively nurturing forms of "pastoral" control generally experienced by the privileged. Such a focus can direct…

In his "Rethinking Domination and Resistance: Challenging Postmodernism" ("Educational Researcher," January-February, 2004), Aaron Schutz questioned what he saw as postmodernism's fascination with the workings of pastoral modes of control, a preoccupation that prevents postmodernists from locating and opposing the disciplinary controls experienced…

This book offers a critical perspective in examining how the dominant power interests influence sport and its role in society. It provides insights into how government, big business, the mass media, and educational institutions gain and maintain power and wealth while sport participants and spectators look to sport for enjoyment, creative…

This paper considers the discursive production of violence in the context of educational markets. Drawing on a larger study of sexually violent incidents that occurred in an elite private boys' school in Sydney, Australia, in 2000, the paper examines disciplinary traditions and communicative practices surrounding these events. Insights from Michel…

Michel Foucault's critical studies concerning regimes of power are of special interest when applied to architecture. In particular, he warned of the hazards of building surveillance into architectural structures for the purpose of monitoring people and took as his historical exemplar English philosopher Jeremy Bentham's "Panopticon," a structure…

Addresses the role of ethics and its limits in professional activities such as language testing. Consideration is given to language testing as a means of political control, the definition of the test construct, the effects of language tests on the various stakeholders involved, and criteria for promoting ethicality in language testing. (six…

Discusses how to teach students in an introduction to sociology course about cultural capital as it relates to power relations. States that the course focuses on the relevance of sociological theory, how cultural capital is instilled in students through rules, and resisting rules. Provides examples of each topic. (CMK)

Explores pedagogical reforms as effects of power. Contains two sections: the first examines turn-of-the-century practices to professionalize teachers and redefine pedagogy; the second focuses on the redemptive culture of contemporary reforms. Argues that contemporary educational sciences inscribe principles of order related to changes in the…

Explores the background of Australia's shift from its National Policy on Languages (NPL) to the Australian Language and Literacy Policy (ALLP). Findings are that the ALLP's virtual reality serves the ideologies of a power elite; and the NPL's understandings are necessary to avoid the consequences of alienation and racism. (50 references) (CK)