Lloyd Gray MA Social Justice and Education

Can Education Change Society?

“Throughout history, most individuals have been the victims of forces beyond their control.
Where you were born, both geographically and in class terms, was overwhelmingly likely to
dictate your future....Horizons were narrow, hopes limited, happiness a matter of time and
chance. But education provides a route to liberation from these imposed constraints.
Education allows individuals to choose a fulfilling job, to shape the society around them, to
enrich their inner life. It allows us all to become authors of our own life stories.” (DfE,
2010:6)

The opening quote from the current Secretary of Education, Michael Gove, encapsulates the
major issues and, as some would argue, assumptions about society and the role education
has within it. Firstly, highlighting an apparent evolution of society towards universal freedom,
framed in historical accounts of overcoming social inequalities. Secondly, that education can
provide the necessary knowledge and opportunities for individuals to change their
circumstances and live prosperous and sustainable lives, and thirdly, that education enables
individuals to develop a strong sense of identity and have absolute autonomy over their
decision-making. The idea, however, that education can play a part in the liberation of
individuals, or even that liberation exists in the first place, raises much debate and
questioning. This paper will investigate some of these competing ideas, focusing in general
on the relationship between the global government perspectives of classic liberalism and
neo-liberalism and the individual. While the emphasis is not on particular educational
policies or initiatives, these will be used as the beginning to examine this relationship, before
drawing on the ideas of Michel Foucault to analyse how the relationship works in practice. I
will then examine whether individuals have a choice about how to shape their lives in the
context of educational provision, firstly looking at the rules and practices within educational
institutions, before analysing the correlations between education and private spheres, such
as home and communities.

Over the past few centuries, education, in the sense of state provision, has been used as a
means to improve the standards of living for citizens on a global scale. Its perceived
benefits centre on the idea that through developing people’s awareness of foundational skills
and experiences, both practical and conceptually, and by providing a portfolio of ‘cultural and
moral heritage’ (Symes & Preston, 1997:13), they may play a part in preserving, shaping and
advancing the capabilities of society. For Symes and Preston (1997:5), education has
become part of a ‘large and diverse community’, attracting attention from businesses,
governments, unions and ‘moral crusaders’. The reference by Gove to the ‘inner life’ of

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individuals, however, suggests something deeper in terms of the role of education, namely to
develop individual’s understanding of themselves for the benefit of society.

The link between individual awareness and autonomy and the improvement of society came
to the forefront in the early 2000s in U.K. education policy. Stating that education is about
the building of ‘character’ as much as intelligence, a Department for Education and Schools
report titled ‘Explaining Personal and Social Development’ (DfES, 2003) examined the role
personal and social development had to play alongside academic studies. This political
momentum carried through to the enactment of the Children’s Act in 2004, which
emphasised the need to recognise children’s wellbeing and the social factors which impact
on their educational achievement (Crow, 2008). Although it was not made statutory,
Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) grew in popularity alongside other
behavioural programmes such as SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning),
embracing the idea of personalised learning, using individuals’ direct experience of home,
school, friendships and community, as well as ‘their inner world of feelings, thoughts, beliefs,
values, behaviour and character’, as the basis for reflection and learning (DfES, 2003:8).

“High quality personal, social and health education is vital to young people’s development in
and out of the classroom...to ensure that our young people are prepared for the
opportunities, responsibilities and experiences they will face in later life” (David Bell, Her
Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools, 2005 in Crow, 2008:43)

The importance placed on the ‘inner life’, to quote Gove again, has not sprung up in isolation
and is seen as a perceived response to national and global social and political effects. The
DfES report cites works by Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens to examine the social
structural changes from industrialisation to a technological age, where traditional social
institutions and ways of life have disintegrated, meaning capital, jobs, services, people and
information are increasingly mobile and rapidly changing (DfES, 2003:2). It continues to
argue that individuals need to change their own behaviour or circumstances to adapt to the
changes, advocating the adoption of ‘key transferable skills and attributes’ such as initiative
and enterprise to secure employment, taking advantage of the wide range of educational
resources ‘to which new technologies have yielded’, and contributing more to the
communities around us through ‘active citizenship’ (DfES, 2003:1). To assist individuals,
personal and social development programmes are viewed as necessary to instil ‘resilience’

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and ‘coping strategies’ in individuals at risk of poor outcomes in education, employment,

health and offending to recognise ‘that there are options available’ to them (DfES, 2003:3).

The idea that individuals, through supplementary education and training, are in a position to
negotiate and choose their identities is problematic and will be explored in detail later in this
article, however, it demonstrates how significant the idea of individual autonomy over their
circumstances has become and the role education plays in that. To understand the birth of
this apparent liberalisation and choice, Michel Foucault’s notion of ‘governmentality’ is useful
in describing how governments of nation states construct and justify particular rationalities
about how society should be structured and the way its citizens should respond (Fimyar,
2008:3).

Foucault’s ideas originate from developments in Western European societies from the 18 th
century onwards, in response to the rapid social changes brought about by the Industrial
Revolution, such as the large movement of people from rural areas to congested urban cities
and the new economic opportunities and risks available in business and factories (Jardine,
2003). Foucault argues that these societal changes reconfigured the relationship between
the state and the citizen as they occurred through the development of new technologies,
trade routes and exchanges, challenging ‘the idea of the State’s capacity to know all’
(Burchell, 1993:269) and do all. Classic liberalism rose as a critique of excessive
government, suggesting that the state is seen to run more effectively when government
governs less, with individuals understood to be in a better position to exercise rational
choices among the ‘economic networks in which they are enmeshed’ (Bansel, 2007:285).

The subsequent response by governments, eager to legitimise their existence, was to think
of new ways in which power could be exercised, using ‘the capacities of free acting subjects’
as a means of governing them and society at large (Besley & Peters, 2007:132). The idea
that people no longer bound together in feudal communities, brought into being the idea of a
population of individuals as living, working and social beings, each with their ‘own customs,
habits, histories and forms of labour and leisure’ (Dean, 1999:107). If the economic and
social development of this new population was to be maintained, however, it was important
that the welfare, health and efficiency of individuals were protected. Therefore, the

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management of the population became the perceived role of government as it was the basis
for the state’s future prosperity (Fimyar, 2008).

‘Governmentality’ examines the way in which governments went about formulating this new
society, based on the idea that certain ‘truths’, or knowledge, in social, cultural and political
spheres is used as the justification of such action (Fimyar, 2008:4). Firstly, through political
reasoning, ideologies and discourses provided in response to social dilemmas, the idea of
social welfare and improvement of the individual through education and health were
proclaimed. Secondly, the instrumental approaches, such as institutions, or policies used by
governments in response to these dilemmas were enacted. Finally, a third element of ‘bio-
politics’ centres on the relation between forms of governance and the processes of
‘subjectivation’ – the relation between the objectives of the government to how individuals
govern themselves (Fimyar, 2008:5). Through the uses of ‘techniques of power’, systems
employed by the government to monitor, control and coordinate the actions of individuals,
such as schools or police, governments went about creating governable subjects, hoping to
control and normalise people’s conduct to the benefit of society in terms of the economy
(Fimyar, 2008:5).

For Foucault, the ways in which external authority shapes the structure of the mind was
important in understanding how power operates and he questioned the role of knowledge,
produced through scientific reasoning about the biological and psychological traits of
humans, had in justifying these institutions and the way they organise and intervene in
whose lives they are responding to. This knowledge was also a way of classifying the
varying forms of individuals within a society deemed as ‘either contributing to the collective
prosperity or constraining’ its efficiency, thus possible to split populations into sub groups,
such as children, elderly, criminal and different workforces, for example, (Fimyar, 2008:6).

“Truth is centred on the form of scientific discourse and the institutions which produce it; it is
subject to constant economic and political incitement” (Foucault, 1980:131-132 in Jardine,
2008:42)

The DfES report, referred to earlier in this article, regarding personal and social education is
important at this stage to demonstrate further the ideas of ‘bio-power’ as it makes

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recommendations about particular populations needing intervention based on the inability to

make rational choices and not in a position to contribute to society. Central to the report is
that some communities or populations of people, mainly those in de-industrialised and urban
housing estates, are less prepared than others for change and a future of uncertainty and
‘bleakness’ will follow (DfES, 2003:3). The report appears to place full responsibility on
individuals in making the wrong choices in life, stating that ‘those who do not have the
personal skills to chart their path effectively often choose alternative sources of satisfaction
and identities’ (DfES, 2003:3).

This example raises a few questions in relation to whether individuals have autonomy over
their lives, namely the assumption that individuals seek alternative identities out of choice.
In the context of current debates around liberalism, it demonstrates the extent to which the
idea of choice has reached. This form of educational intervention suggests a response to
the notion of ‘neo-liberalism’, a critique of classical liberalism which has historically seen as
problematic as markets and economies have gradually been regarded as intertwined with
society, rather than external to it, through political, legal and social conditions (Burchell
(1993:270). Neo-liberalism, on the other hand, attempts to create ‘a State on the basis of an
economic freedom’ (Burchell, 1993:270) and as a result, as Bansel (2007:285) argues,
greater levels of what is considered social is being opened up and framed in terms of
economics and ‘of the individual crafting’ itself. These include as education, training,
involvement in communities and values that person attributes to themselves. In terms of the
fragmented world, as described in the DfES report, Davies and Bansel (2007:285) add that
the social responsibilities once attributed to the state such as education, health and welfare,
are increasingly being shifted onto the individual, stating that even intervention will only
occur if a person is deemed to be making the wrong decisions or is not maximising ‘the
entrepreneurial conduct’ of the self.

The question of whether individuals are demonstrating or exercising these entrepreneurial

skills in themselves, or even if they really want to or able to, is raised by an observation by
Foucault in that liberal and neo-liberal operations give an illusion of individualisation through
choice, yet, is ‘totalising’ in the way it categorises individuals of making incorrect choices
(Foucault, 1983:216 in Nadesan, 2006). This viewpoint is supported by Dean (1999:99) who
sees individuals as ‘owning paradoxical meanings of life’ in that people are bearers of an

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autonomous domain through their bodies, whilst at the same time are the objects of
administration by the state.

This distinction by Dean brings highlights another of his ideas, the ‘modification’ of
government (Dean, 1999:102) in that the level of monitoring and administration by the state
towards subjects is based on them displaying ‘right disposition of things’ at the time, in
relation to pressures placed upon the government. In terms of the neo-liberal subject, the
modification of the government proposes that individuals should be ‘empowering
entrepreneurial subjects in their quest for self expression, freedom and prosperity’ in order
for them to compete in the current global climate (Davies and Bansel, 2007:250).

The issue of whether individuals adhere to formulating the ‘right disposition of things’ within
that state, or even if they have the opportunity to do so, is an important element of Foucault’s
‘technologies of the self’, which he admitted was to correct his overemphasis ‘on the
technologies of domination and power’ (Foucault, 1988:19). Technologies of the self, rather
than looking at how subjects had been objectified by the human sciences and divisive
practices, contributes to an understanding of how individuals constitute themselves by their
own means or with the help of others ‘to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom,
perfection, or immorality’ (Foucault, 1988:17). The difference is that individuals, rather than
being defined by what scientific or conceptual knowledge classifies as the self, are shaped
through a process of self-formulation based on ‘our own spontaneous experiences’
(Foucault, 1988:16). For Nadesan (2006:6), technologies of the self are crucial in
understanding the structures of neo-liberalism as it both, provides the basis for individuals to
resist the structures of its domination, whilst demonstrating its implicitness in justifying ‘state
attempts to shift more risk and responsibility to individuals’.

The ability to recognise the processes of both technologies of power and of the self were
important to Foucault, as simply obtaining the knowledge about the self through science
does not ‘give us power over ourselves but our will to establish power’ over ourselves
provides ‘our search for self-knowledge’ (Hutton, 1988:130). This is an important distinction
in the case of education and schooling as it essentially attempts to do both at the same time.
Proclaiming to promote personal development and self-advancement on the one hand,
whilst delivering particular types of knowledge, skill acquisition and accreditations on the

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other, perpetuating both neo-liberal practices of managing individuals through the ideas
individualism (Bansel, 2007) and the idea of paradoxical meanings of life set out by Dean
(1999).

The question of whether education can change society, in terms of an individual’s

awareness of themselves to benefit society, through education and schooling is complex as
institutions come with intensified rules and guidelines about conduct and behaviour. These
complexities are highlighted by different tones of optimism by Foucault and Butler. Foucault
sees endless opportunities for subject formation that will ultimately benefit society, through
‘technologies of the self’ in response to the expanding variety of pedagogical styles and
provision within school (Nadesan, 2006), while Butler (1997, in Laws and Davies, 2000:217),
sees the idea of bad and unformed subjects as the starting point of identity formation,
constantly striving to be ‘not bad’ so to get recognised.

Symes and Preston (1997:4), seemingly supporting the viewpoint of Dean’s ‘modification’ of
government, argue that schools are simply just playing their part in contributing to the state,
producing outcomes to further the national interest, and in relation to Foucault’s bio-politics
are ‘underpinned with general and systematic views of the schooling process’. These
include a determination to make sense of teaching and learning, through the use of
educational research and knowledge, centred on the ideas of monitoring developmental
needs of children. Meanwhile, Nadesan (2006) note that the ‘contradictions of neo-
liberalism’ are more prevalent in educational institutions, displaying ‘even more intrusive and
intensive forms of child bearing’ built upon the acts of power and knowledge that govern
expectations about students’ abilities and behaviours around choice.

In support of Foucault’s notion of technologies of power, Laws and Davies (2000) raise
concern around the scientific knowledge in educational fields as it intensifies the paradoxical
conditions of neo-liberalism in those deemed as making rational choices. The shift towards
the rationalising of the mind led to the individualising of problems, rather than considering
many other social factors, and the idea of ‘psychological disability’ and a perceived threat to
society (Laws and Davies, 2000:212). It is assumed that only those who follow ‘good school
behaviour’ have individual agency and there is something wrong with those who do not.
They question the idea, however, that the belief of individuals as bearers of their own

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subjectivity, such as Foucault’s notion of ‘technologies of the self’, may be more damaging in
the long run, reinforcing the belief of poor behaviour and even concealing technologies of
power. If students, being given choices about how to behave and what the consequences
are of those who ‘choose’ not to behave in a required way, may be perceived as displaying
‘power’ (Laws and Davies, 2000:213). This behaviour assumes they know what the right
thing to do is but have formed as a subject who is trying to overpower the power delivered by
teachers or staff. This suggests that an individual challenging the initial recommendations
regarding correct behaviour, provides the platform of assigning that as an act of agency. In
that, if students are seen to have power to make choices, the initial subjection from
disciplinary forces is concealed and power emerges which appears to belong ‘exclusively to
the subject’ (Laws and Davies, 2000:217).

Aside from educational practices and specifically to the concept of personal and social
development initiatives, questions arise as to what else impacts on individuals and whether
this form of intervention can influence or change people’s circumstances. Nadesan (2006:3),
analysing a personal development programme operating in Arizona, U.S., based their
research on an examination of the course literature and classroom observations and found
that the central principles of the course were to develop students’ ‘inner-locus of control’ by
focusing on ‘free will and choice’. Despite admitting that they had limited opportunities to
research and observe, Nadesan discovered that the paradoxical problems of neoliberal
ideas may actually create increased apathy or resistance to engage in activities based on
choice and entrepreneurship skills (Nadesan, 2006:11). Furthermore, Nadesan raises an
important issue in regards to neoliberal forms of governance, which is taken for granted in
Gove’s opening statement, that there is an assumption that education and private spheres of
individuals are directly linked and will impact on each other (Nadesan 2006:2).

The relationship between neoliberal discourses and the private lives of individuals, via
education, has also concerned Berg (2010:170) who examined the range of language and
knowledges used by professionals working with ‘deviant’ students. Berg argues that the
‘utterances’, the language used to denote past and present beliefs about how an individual
should develop, can deny or severely limit opportunities for individuals to negotiate a role for
themselves or an identity (Berg, 2010:165). These include a diagnostic of what the individual
can mage, the problems they face and what may be a suitable course of action for following
and monitoring him in school and society. Berg (2010:171) adds that efforts on the part of an

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individual ‘to construct alternative versions’ of their identity are seen ‘as lacking authority
when it comes to defining what was at stake and assumed to be incapable of understanding
the problem.

The main theme for Berg is the manner in which individuals see themselves as a subject,
their ‘own narrative’ of their life is threatened by intervention programs. These programs,
aimed at empowering individuals, may ‘saturate’ into the individual’s social environment,
social relations and their general ‘construction of reality’ (Berg, 2010:166). The importance of
a subject’s life narrative is crucial according to Berg as it enables individuals to construct
their identities to the cultural conventions and definitions that underpin possible narratives,
the ‘stories, both historical and contemporary’. Therefore, denying particular narratives within
an educational environment may serve to neglect or make irrelevant particular narrative
choices, or even, reinforce that individual’s beliefs (Berg, 2010:166).

Zizek (1999) is similar in his approach, warning that the spread of institutional concepts
around education, family and identity, based on the aspects of choice, has blurred the
boundaries between institutions and individual’s private spheres. He is both critical of
neoliberalism and the theories, such as Foucault’s ‘technologies of the self’, that put forward
the idea of individuals shaping their identity is overestimated, focused too much on
subjectivity and ignoring the structural changes and inequalities throughout society.
Education, Zizek adds, was previously to ‘function as an antidote to the family’ but now is
simply another dimension of familiarisation (Zizek, 1999:345). The important factor in this
reconfiguration is that it is not something of the individual that resists subjectivity, or the
freedom to choose, instead, what is being ignored is another form of choice, the desire not to
be given a choice in the first place (Zizek, 2010). The choice, through the imposed notions of
neoliberal ideas, of shaping one’s identity denies individuals the decision to base their
identity in opposition to institutional repression through ‘secret acts of liberating
transgression’ (Zizek, 2010:345).

While Zizek is openly oppositional to forms of individual subjectivity, it raises the question of
other forms of governance, or governmentalities, which shape or affect individuals. Within all
aspects of life, such as schools, home or employment, particular values and practices are
mobilised in the production of the individual. Bansel (2007) proposes the idea of ‘pedagogy

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of choice’ to reflect these different forms of power that work ‘through us’, each with variable
tactics, technologies, discursive practices and effects’ (Bansel, 2007:91). Based on
interviews with further education students, Bansel discovered that individuals suffered
feelings of tension, anxiety and ambivalence when questioned on whether they had made
the correct choices in life, compared to a ‘conceptual framework’ in which discourses of
attaining ‘education to planning to the future, and securing work and income’ were dominant
values (Bansel, 2007:290). The assumption of choice assumes that all individuals are
equally placed to make productive or successful choices and the pressure, when individuals
cannot, creates a ‘sense of lack’ within them. The ultimate drive for individuals, in the
‘pedagogy of choice’, is the mobility through ‘local intersecting sites that may appear to have
little to do directly with work of government’, or neoliberal ideas about choice, and the
overarching aim is the ‘production of the choosing subject’ amongst the many forms of
discourses and power that surround them (Bansel, 2007:291).

The final point raised by Bansel (2007), regarding the variety of forces in play internally and
externally to people’s minds, provides the basis for the main concluding statements on
whether education can change society. In relation to Gove’s opening remark, that ‘education
provides a route to liberation’, then this statement is true. The course of that liberation,
however, depends on many factors and the individual in question. At this point of the article,
in light of the supporting evidence, I would like to raise the case of two forms of liberation
and the argument that education can indeed change society.

Education can, as Gove points out, provide an alternative viewpoint of the environment that
surrounds an individual and the particular choices education can provide may relate to that
person’s ideal needs. As the article highlights, and as some of the contributors to it may
agree, as individuals we all seek to have a sense of agency over our lives to some extent
and education may provide that when opportunities are missing elsewhere. On the other
hand, education may also liberate individuals, as Zizek and Bansel raised, in the sense of
that person may justify their experiences or subjectivity simply by being in opposition to the
intentions of education. The content and practices of education, as Foucault has shown, is
not neutral in its aims and just as the other form of liberation shows, an individual’s sense of
agency may arrive outside of what education promises.

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These two forms of liberation, I would conclude, play a part in shaping the role of education
within society and how society shapes the role of education. Without the knowledge of how
society is structured and the flow of power that runs through it, individuals may never be
given the opportunity to change that. Likewise, without the knowledge of the different
subjects and identities that are shaped within society, education will struggle to represent
anything or have meaning.

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