Book Review: Rethinking the Politics of Education (Routledge International Studies in the Philosophy of Education)

Abstract

The central aim of Nick Peim's book is to argue that education has never worked as a mechanism to achieve greater social equality. The automatic association of education with social justice and democracy is also questioned. In addition, Peim is highly critical of Education Studies degrees and the Philosophy of Education. Drawing upon Foucault's account of the 'great transformation' that took place in the transition from forms of biopower rooted in physical coercion to forms of biopolitics rooted in 'capillary' forms of power, with the role of the school focused on policing the social and intimate life of the learner. Peim coins the notion of ontopolitics partly to avoid the problem of providing a conclusive definition of biopolitics and partly to explain that education is political in nature and function. Within educational institutions there are ritualised disciplinary practices that are crucial in the formation of identities, shaping the subject into a form desired by the institution and from which learners cannot escape. Education has a central role in maintaining social distinctions. Critical education studies as reflected in the work of Henry Giroux, Michael Apple, Stephen Ball, Gert Biesta, and others are underpinned by the unquestioned assumption that education can find its true enlightenment function; is essentially good itself and should be available to all. Barriers to participation, forms of exclusion and bureaucratic state intervention should be addressed allowing the true purpose of education to be enjoyed by all allowing humans to flourish.In contrast to the views that teaching and learning within formal education institutions in the period from 1945 until the present day can be understood to be in essence good as it aimed to promote individual fulfilment, social justice, and greater equality, Peim argues that formal schooling is about ranking, and ordering individuals based on formal assessment and testing that defines large sections of the school population as failures with limited aptitude, and flawed individuals lacking in academic ability and character when compared to their peers. The role and purpose of equality of opportunity is to propagate and maintain legitimate social distinction, hierarchy, and inequality and to convince people that it is possible to have inequality with a sense of fairness. The processes of socialisation have become managed by the state and performance in the education system comes to