Open this publication in new window or tab >>2024 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
In his groundbreaking work[CL1] , The Order of Things, Michel Foucault analyses the evolution of different knowledge systems and scientific discourse throughout various historical periods. The concept of ‘episteme’ is introduced as a means of dissecting the overarching frameworks that governed pre-modern era modes of thinking and understanding. Foucault illuminates how distinct epistemes underpinned specific scientific inquiry forms and the institutionalization of sciences. Moreover, these epistemes organized the means by which the world is perceived and comprehended. This paper explores formal education, specifically how examination practices in the grammar schools re/produces a distinct 'epistemic culture' by using knowledge organization and validation techniques to shape how learners understand the world and themselves as subjects. In these schools, examinations were regulated in the curriculum. The paper departs from a close reading of Swedish curriculums from late 16th century to early 19th century. One of the prevalent applications of Foucault in education concerns his delineation of examinations as instruments for organizational discipline and control of candidates, effectively making them objects for organizational (and mental) differentiation on the basis of their performances. In this paper, we examine examinations in relation to how oral and written tests shape different abilities, such as memory, judgement and imagination, and their connection to truths and reasoning in various school subjects. Our discussion expands on the typical understanding of Foucault's examination concept and introduces the organization of students as both objects and subjects of knowledge. Thus, examinations can be delineated into two categories of knowledge-producing practices: one administrative practice focused on organizing individuals and teaching practice on organizing knowledge and learning. The examination, as an administrative practice, can be construed as the production of knowledge about an individual's understanding. It served multiple purposes in relation to a more traditional Foucauldian understanding of examinations, such as admitting disciples, employing teachers, transferring disciples between classes, monitoring students, and ultimately dismissing teachers and disciples based on their knowledge adequacy. This function involved assessing either inadequate or full knowledge, contributing to the organization of individuals within the educational system. Simultaneously, the examination played a role in the organization of knowledge. It served as a rehearsal of crucial information, imprinting it in the disciples' minds. Moreover, it identified what was retained in the disciples' minds, transferring this knowledge to the schoolmaster's cognition or notebook. This dual ‘inscription’ effectively divided the educational experience, as disciples acquired Christian experience and memory while, concurrently, the process of acquiring this experience educated a new administrative memory. The examination, functioning as a knowledge assessment practice shaping the minds of the subject, laid the groundwork for an administrative assessment practice organizing them as objects. At the same time we can see how this practice of ‘the will to know what others know’ produced an ‘epistemic change’. Examining early school ordinances reveals an episteme characterized by an attempt to reconcile God, truth, and language. Speech and writing were deemed essential skills, with memory and judgment identified as spiritual qualities to be cultivated. The emphasis on memory aligned with the idealization of a nearly absolute reproduction of the Christian experience in Latin. David Hamilton's assertion in Curriculum History that this ‘absolutism’ tied knowledge to language underscores the necessity of separating language from truth to organize curricula for broader purposes. The onset of a transformative shift in the mid-1700s is discernible though, through two tendencies evident in Swedish school ordinances. Firstly, the transition of memory from oral communication to written text allowed for a clearer historical trajectory and facilitated comparisons over time; i.e. the possibility to assess change. Secondly, perhaps due to its ability to be documented, memory underwent a downgrading. Judgment, defined as the capacity to navigate the present with assistance from the past rather than dwelling in the past with present guidance, assumed a more prominent role; paving the ground for a more critical thinking. This transformation aligns with Reinhart Koselleck's thesis that the notion of the past as a repository of examples for correct living gave way around the mid-1700s to the concept of history as a dynamic process. The transmitted experience diminished in value as an organizing principle of society, replaced by emerging institutions such as economy, ideology, and management with a forward-looking perspective forming their own memory. In this new era, memory's value shifted from a reproduced experience to a produced experience, creating a disconnection between the learning mission of schools and their administrative functions. [CL1]Gör tydligt från början att det verkar orimligt att examinationen primärt tog form som kontroll, utan här söks en närmare koppling till lärandet
National Category
Pedagogy
Research subject
Education
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-116257 (URN)
Conference
The Foucault Circle, Boston, USA, May 23-26, 2024
2024-09-242024-09-242024-09-24Bibliographically approved