Understanding the Role of Socialisation and Social Institutions

Critical Practice

Mini Lecture

Dr Fiona Beals

Social institutions are often about the control of deviance (or

difference) and getting individuals to conform

Schools and Prisons ….

How are they the same?

How are they different?

Radical thinkers in education

0 Argue that the purpose of education (both formal and informal) has more to do with the economic needs of a society than the needs of the individual

0 Talk about education (particularly schools) as a places of social reproduction and conformity

0 See classrooms as places in which following the rules is more important than learning to think for yourself

Noam Chomsky0 Is a professor at MIT0 Has contributed to

psychological theory and to critical theory

0 Critical of right wing politics in the USA

0 Critical of the use of mass media as an institution of socialisation

Noam Chomsky0 Power and consent0 Work and freedom0 Media

0 A tool of propaganda0 A means to manufacture

consent0 General critic of US society

(http://www.theblackvault.com/ftopicp-498957.html)

Chomsky and Education

0 Schools provide an “ideological” service geared at conformity and socialization

0 Schools are “institutions of indoctrination” (Macedo, 2000, p.2)

0 This means that what matters in ‘education’ is discipline not original, or innovative, thought

0 Universities are just another ‘cog’ in the system

“If you happen to be a little innovative, or maybe you forgot to come to school one day because you were reading a book or something, that’s a tragedy, that’s a crime – because you’re not supposed to think, you’re supposed to obey, and just proceed through the material in whatever way they require”

(Chomsky, 2003, p.28)

“Actually, I happen to have been very lucky myself and gone to an experimental-progressive school [based on Dewey’s ideas] … children were encouraged to challenge everything … you were supposed to think things through for yourself … it was quite a striking change when it ended and I had to go to the city high school, which was the pride of the city school system. It was the school for academically-orientated kids … it was the dumbest, most ridiculous place I’ve ever been … For one thing, it was extremely competitive – because that’s one of the best ways of controlling people”

(Chomsky, 2003, p.29)

“Real education is about getting people involved in thinking for themselves – and that’s a tricky business to know how to do well, but clearly it requires that whatever it is you’re looking at has to somehow catch people’s interest and make them want to think, and make them want to pursue and explore”

(Chomsky, 2003, p.27, author’s emphasis)

It’s no surprise that for some young people school is like prison ….

But is it really?

Foucault – More than Coincidence 0The history of the modern

prison0Two periods of time and two

forms of power0Contemporary society is one

of panoptic power0Pedagogical practices work

as a form of social control

0 Societies can be examined and critiqued across four dimensions:

1. How the society thinks about deviance or crime2. How the society thinks about power3. How the society thinks about the individual4. How the society thinks about social control

Foucault’s Thesis

The Time of Punishment0Crime was against the

sovereign0The sovereign

exercised overt (visible power) over society

0The individual was subject to the sovereign

0Overt punishment

Braveheart – Scottish Hero and The Hammer Against England

0 William Wallace and King Edward 1 (Longshanks)

0 Committed the crime of rebellion against the king instead of being a passive subject

0 This rebellion was conceptualised as an attack on the King himself

0 After capture Wallace’s body was cut up into pieces and sent across Scotland as a message

http://www.magicdragon.com/Wallace/Brave2.html

The Time of Discipline0 Modern society and

industrialisation0 Crime is against society

(everyone)0 This requires people to be

self-disciplined0 The individual is

autonomous and self governing

0 Covert/panoptic discipline (docile bodies)

Panoptic Power

0 Power is invisible but everywhere … it flows0 Because we don’t know when we are in the gaze of

power we are self-disciplined0 Social institutions (school, prison, hospital, military

etc) are places of socialisation where self discipline is enforced through architecture, techniques, and practices

(http://www.bloganything.net/funny/funny-pic/low-cost-mobile-phone-camera)

Panoptic Power Enforces Self-Discipline

It is Big Brother … Without a Big Brother

Panoptic Arrangements Encourage Self Discipline along with

Psychological and Pedagogical Techniques

Self-Discipline and Docility Through Practices

0 Enclosure 0 Control of activity0 Observation0 Normalizing judgements0 Examination0 Panoptic surveillance 0 Informed by psychology0 Informed pedagogy

The Abnormal

The Normal

The Elite

The Experiment0 German Movie/BBC Reality Show0 Stanford Experiment0 Guards and prisoners under camera surveillance0 Looked at overt forms

of power but reallyshowed psychology asa covert power

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,714927,00.html

0 Deviance and crime0 Are controlled through social institutions, knowledge,

and practices0 Power

0 Is seen as something that is connected to the control of crime and engrained in social practices reflective of the society in which it is embedded

0 Individual0 Currently defined through psychology and through

ideas of power as self discipline0 Social control

0 The purpose of institutions, knowledge, and power

Foucault’s Dimensions

But is youth work connected to this???

0 Foucault would point to the genealogy and argue that the original purposes has traces throughout history

0 In general, youth work is always connected to our definitions of youth, society, ‘progress’ and …. Control (especially if it is seen as needed by all society).

Just think …