Foucault and a Politics of Confession in Education (Hardcover)

When looking at practices of education and lifelong learning today it is easy to see that those of confession have become widespread. The practice that started out in the catholic churches and spread out into secular society during the 18th and 19th centuries has now firmly exhibited itself in the form of confessional learning that can be seen in pre - schools, nurseries, schools, colleges, universities and workplaces all over the world. Subjects are invited to turn their gaze inwards, to produce and disclose knowledge of themselves, in order that they may be improved In this book scholars and researchers draw on the work of Michel Foucault to analyse what occurs through confession when the practice has become an intrinsic part of our lives and ways of being. It explores these practices and looks critically at the knowledges that recognise confession as a discursive and contemporary social reality.Pointing out that human sciences have not readily allowed for a particular form of criticality, one that asks questions about why such practice has been allowed to become a reality in education and through lifelong learning; this book asks what is actually happening through these practices, and whether the outcome is positive. The authors argue that it is only through formulating answers to this question that we will come to fully understand whether we want to formulate an alternate practice to counter the power of the present confessional one.