Foucault and school discipline: Reflections on South Africa

Abstract

Discipline in schools, as a thorny issue facing the current South African education system, has been and continues to be a global concern. With the advent of the new democratic dispensation in 1994, adoption of South Africa’s 1996 Constitution, ratification of human rights and children’s rights, and banning of corporal punishment, disciplinary problems escalated in schools. Central to this paper is the assumption that repressive and authoritarian forms of discipline perpetuate domination. The purpose of this article is to offer a philosophical account and theoretical framework for the management of discipline in schools that is compatible with the Restorative Justice Principles and democratic values. The paper draws on the ideas of French philosopher Michel Foucault as conceptual tools to try and understand the politics of the escalating school disciplinary problems and to provide an alternative framework for re-imagining the practice of school discipline.