Governmentality, Biopolitics, and Curriculum Theorizing

Abstract

This chapter develops an analytical framework for curriculum studies through synoptic analysis of Foucault’s theorization of governmentality and biopolitics. The chapter discusses contemporary coercive accountability discourses as a system of governmentality and concludes with Foucault’s analysis of the development of counter-conduct, which suggests that governmental systems contain spaces in which to contest, subvert, and reconfigure institutional power. The embodiment of counter-conduct in systems of biopolitical governmentality illustrates the subjective struggle noted by Pinar through which academic study contributes to the reconstruction of the self and the social.