The morphodynamics of modern education systems: On the relation between governance and governmentality as analytical tool in explaining current transformations

Abstract

Against the background of a changing relation between the state and “its” education system, the present contribution focuses on two concepts that can be used as tools in order to explain the current transformations. “Governance” is more concerned with technical issues: with instruments and modes, procedures and actors, and with their constellations and forms of cooperation. It focuses research on questions such as: who provides educational services or what is the connection between public and private education. It has been employed to investigate the relation between the various levels of analysis and has proven particularly useful in creating an adequate theoretical understanding of the role of international organizations in shaping educational policies. Sociology and political science are the two disciplines most prominently associated with elaborating the concept under various perspectives. Governmentality, although sharing many characteristics with governance, is a Foucauldian term concerned with the generation of different subjectivities and collectivities through techniques and modes of ruling and guiding in an encompassing sense. A governmentality perspective thus focuses investigations on the typical Foucauldian knowledge/power nexus. While “governance” may be said to be more descriptive, more concerned with the “how” of current transformations, “governmentality” may be drawn on to argue that the changes are related to a reworking of the very modern Weberian notion of rationality, thus stressing the morphodynamics but not the reinvention of education. At stake is the increase of effectivity in order to augment and increase the “usefulness” and thus the value of the population.

Citation

Karin Amos, S. (2010), "The morphodynamics of modern education systems: On the relation between governance and governmentality as analytical tool in explaining current transformations", Karin Amos, S. (Ed.) International Educational Governance (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 79-104. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2010)0000012007