Contesting regimes of truth

The current landscape of early childhood education in the Republic of Ireland is fractured, with a somewhat unstructured, fragmented system. My research argues that this is due, in part, to a series of neoliberal practices. Foucault (2010) maintains that subjects are produced in the “conjunctions of a whole set of practices from the moment they become coordinated with a regime of truth” (p. 19). The early childhood education regime of truth is established on traditions, history, practices and politics collectively, and these have remained relatively unchallenged from an Irish perspective. Ball (2013) argues that this conjunction of practices and truths, what is referred to as neoliberalism, makes what does not exist become something. My research adopts a Foucauldian lens to trace the genealogy of the early childhood education regimes of truth by exploring the micro and macro physics of power within a neoliberal government. In doing so, my research presents a history of the educational present of early childhood education in Ireland.

One aspect of my research focuses on how neoliberal modes of power are embedded in early years policy, which are very often positioned as truths within Irish society. Central to Foucault’s governmentality studies is the premise that Western society is formed on the principles of liberty, autonomy and rule of law, alongside a political agenda that explicates these principles (Ball, 2013). Foucault was interested in the practices of knowledge produced through the relations of power. He examined how these practices of knowledge were used to augment and refine the efficacy and instrumentality of power in its exercise over individuals, institutions and society. Foucault’s discourse of governmentality demonstrates that neoliberalism is not the end point but a transformation of politics that restructures power relations in society. Ball (2016) makes an importance distinction about governmentality arguing that it is not only the point of application of power but also the vehicle through which power traverses. My research analyses how these practices of knowledge were produced, by exploring the genealogy of contemporary early years policy and how these policies are both shaped by issues of governmentality, governance and power and a vehicle through which power traverses.

“Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are but to refuse what we are” (Foucault, 1982, p. 785). In refusing not what we are, but who we are, Foucault’s suggestion encourages a liberalisation of oneself from state and a resistance of neoliberal practices. This liberation from the state empowers individuals to question regimes of truth. Ball (2016) suggests that if we question this regime, we also question our own positionality and in doing so, Ball (2016) poses the question, what kind of self, what kind of subject have we become? In challenging the ideological traditions upon which early childhood education has been developed, my research questions both my ontological and epistemological assumptions alongside a contestation of regimes of truth in early childhood education.

References

Ball, S. J. (2013) Foucault, power and education. London: Routledge.

Ball, S.J. (2016) Subjectivity as a site of struggle: refusing neoliberalism? British Journal of Sociology of Education, 37(8), 1129–1146.

Foucault, M. (1982) The subject and power, Critical Inquiry 8(4): 777–795.

Foucault, M. (2010) The birth of biopolitics: lectures at the College de France 1977–79. New York. Basingstoke: Palgrave.