Post-panopticism and school inspection in England |
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| Authors: | Steven J Courtney |
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| Institution: | 1. Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, Manchester, UKsteven.courtney@manchester.ac.uk |
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| Abstract: | In this paper, I draw on a study of school leaders’ experiences of inspection to argue that repeated changes to school inspection policy in England constitute a post-panoptic regime. Thinking with and against Foucault, I elaborate post-panopticism, here characterised by: subjects’ visibility; ‘fuzzy’ norms; the exposure of subjects’ failure to comply; the disruption of identity-constituting fabrications; its dependence on external ‘experts’; and its neo-conservative devalorisation of the interests of the socio-economically disadvantaged. The paper argues that post-panopticism depends on subjects having become disciplined through panopticism, whose apparatus it employs, and reveals the state’s explicit exercise of power. |
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| Keywords: | Foucault post-panopticism performativity fabrications school leadership school inspection |
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