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In this book, the authors explore and clarify the nature of postmodernism and provide a detailed introduction to key writers in the field such as Lacan Derrida Foucault Lyotard They examine the impact of this thinking upon contemporary theory and practice of education, concentrating particularly upon how postmodernist ideas challenge existing concepts, structures and hierarchies.
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POSTMODERNISM AND EDUCATION
In this book, the authors explore and clarify the nature of postmodernism and provide a detailed introduction to key writers in the field such as Lacan, Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard. They examine the impact of this thinking upon the contemporary theory and practice of education, concentrating particularly upon how postmodernist ideas challenge existing concepts, structures and hierarchies. Robin Usher is Senior Lecturer in Post-compulsory Education at the University of Southampton and Richard Edwards is Lecturer in Postcompulsory Education at the Open University. Both have published extensively on educational theory and practice and on the impact of postmodernism.
POSTMODERNISM AND EDUCATION
Robin Usher and Richard Edwards
London and New York
First published 1994 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1994 Robin Usher and Richard Edwards All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-203-42520-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-73344-4 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-10280-4 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-10281-2 (pbk)
CONTENTS
1
Introduction 1 POSTMODERNISM, POSTMODERNITY AND THE POSTMODERN MOMENT
6
2 SPEAKING ‘TRUTHFULLY’: SCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY AND SUBJECTIVITY 33 3 KNOWING ONESELF: SUBJECTIVITY AND MASTERY
56
4 SUBJECT DISCIPLINES AND DISCIPLINING SUBJECTS: THE SUBJECT IN EDUCATION
82
5 EXAMINING THE CASE: COMPETENCES AND MANAGEMENT
101
6 THE ‘END’ OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROJECT
119
7 EDUCATION AND TEXTUALITY
136
8 TELLING STORIES: THE LEGITIMISING OF KNOWLEDGE 154 9 THE END OF THE STORY: EDUCATION, EFFICIENCY AND RESISTANCE 172 10 THE CULTIVATION OF DESIRE
186
11 CATCHING THE (LAST) POST
207 229 238
References Index
v
INTRODUCTION
There is a continuing and growing interest in postmodernism as a ‘system’ of ideas and as a way of understanding contemporary social and cultural trends. There is now a great deal of published work which examines, often critically, postmodern perspectives and concepts and their implications for the study of a wide range of contemporary phenomena. This work is found in areas such as philosophy, feminist studies, cultural studies, literary criticism and to a lesser extent psychology. Furthermore, the postmodern is not simply a body of thought, a way of theorising, but also a way of practising—there is a postmodern architecture, art, literature, and even a postmodern psychology. Education as an area of study, however, has remained largely immune from this trend and there is little outside the work of critical and feminist pedagogy that relates postmodern ideas to the pr