Browsing by Author "Holmberg, Liila"

According to the analysis of governmentality, power in contemporary societies is not exercised through control and force as much as through softer and more persuasive techniques of governance. In governmentality, the attempt is to affect individuals' inner worlds – their wills, attitudes, and self-perceptions – in order to achieve certain political ends. The curriculum is analysed from the viewpoint of governing subjectivity. It is perceived to produce ideal subjectivity, ie. to conduct individuals to pursue a certain ideal of a good human being. The aim of this thesis is to analyse, what kind of ideal subjectivity does the curriculum produce and what kind of techniques of the self are promoted as means of attaining this ideal. This thesis draws from Michel Foucault's theorizations about subjectivity and subjectivation. Subjectivity is not seen as essentially existing, but as something that is constructed and shaped in practices that are entwined with knowledge and power. The curriculum represents the official discourse of the school and thus produces authoritative knowledge about what is good subjectivity and how it may be pursued. The curriculum is a normative document which affects all teaching in the school. Thus, it is important to analyse what kind of ideals the curriculum produces. Previous studies have analysed subjectivation within for example the discourses of lifelong learning and entrepreneurship education. However, the Finnish curriculum has not, as far as is known, been analysed from the Foucauldian viewpoint of subjectivation. The general parts of the Finnish national core curriculum for basic education served as data for the analysis. More specifically, the chapters that were analysed were those about the values and general goals for basic education (chapters 2 and 3). The analysis was executed through careful reading, utilizing methods of rhetoric discourse analysis. The ideal subjectivity was found to be constructed through the truth-discourse of the curriculum. The ideal subjectivity was composed most importantly of mastering various techniques of the self, bearing responsibility and internalizing the ideal of total learning. Future working life, ecological sustainability and culture and values formed the central areas in which subjects are expected to govern themselves in certain ways.