Speaking Freely and Frankly in a School Context: A Foucauldian Approach to Schooling

This thesis explores the experiences of participants in educational contexts as they interact with authority figures in their roles as students, workers and parents. It uniquely focusses upon these experiences through the theoretical lenses of Foucault’s ‘technologies’ and Tolstoy’s writing on education, with further references to Barad’s ‘entangled interconnectedness of self’ and Berlant’s concept of ‘impasse’. Foucault’s technologies of production identify how participants change or influence their situations. His technologies of power contribute to understanding power relations, his technologies of sign systems provide insight into understanding and responses, and his technologies of the self are useful in noting how participants exercise personal autonomy. A new technology is coined, that of ‘truth-telling’, to describe the strategies used by participants in their interactions with authority. Within Foucault’s technologies, his account of the ancient Greek practice of parrhesia, or ‘fearless speech’, is embraced as a useful strategy to enable a more equitable model of interaction in power relationships. Whilst institutions often publicly proclaim their policies allowing free and frank expression, participants in this study find it problematic. Each of Foucault’s technologies help illustrate how participants either exercise their power or avoid coercive control of authority. The thesis draws upon a wide range of sources from humanities and social science, using a narrative methodology to highlight the diverse and creative ways in which participants respond as they navigate the, often challenging, situations they encounter. Findings suggest that hierarchy and fear of consequences or being labelled ‘a problem’ act to inhibit free and frank dialogue with those in authority. The issues that emerge have implications for schooling and the development of learner freedom and autonomy.