DANGEROUS DISCIPLINES: UNDERSTANDING PEDAGOGIES OF PUNISHMENT IN THE NEOLIBERAL STATES OF AMERICA

• Authors: Christopher G. Robbins , Serhiy Kovalchuk
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Public schools deploy a range of processes and practices that help constitute the formation and legitimation of certain knowledge, relationships, skills, values and, ultimately, subjectivities. School discipline regimes are one of these practices. Exercising their power through pedagogical modes of address, these regimes are currently organizing relationships throughout school cultures that reflect the values and encourage role performances associated with neoliberal capitalism. This research paper describes and analyses two widely used discipline regimes - zero tolerance/hyper-criminalization and positive behaviour interventions and support (PBIS) — through Foucault’s theories of govern mentality and bio politics. These two regimes provide mirror images of the primary modes of punishing and disciplining under neoliberalism: criminalization and individualization. The paper will also explore how neoliberalism subjects schools to processes of enclosure, but also how schools themselves have become sites productive of neoliberal subjects through the content, values and interests embedded in the curricula of PBIS and criminalization which students must master.

Keywords

EN

ZERO TOLERANCE; CRIMINALIZATION; POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR INTERVENTIONS AND SUPPORT; DISCIPLINE; GOVERN MENTALITY; NEOLIBERALISM; BIO POLITICS; UNITED STATES; FOUCAULT MICHEL

• Publisher: Faculty of Education, Trnava University
• Journal: Pedagogický časopis (Journal of Pedagogy)
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 198 – 218

Contributors

author

Christopher G. Robbins

• Eastern Michigan University, Department of Teacher Education, 313 Porter Building, Ypsilanti MI 48197, USA

author

Serhiy Kovalchuk