Andreas Fejes

Discourses on Employability: Constituting the Responsible Citizen.

In the last couple of decades, there has been a shift from speaking about employment to speaking about employability. The interest in this article is directed at how discourses on employability are mobilised in the wider discursive terrain of governance. How does governance operate, what subject is produced and, more specifically, who is positioned as responsible for the employability of the citizen through such discourses? These questions are addressed by analysing three different kinds of texts: transnational policy documents on lifelong learning and the labour market, a Swedish policy text on in-service training in the health care sector and interviews with employees at six nursing homes for elderly people. A discourse analysis is performed inspired by the concepts of governmentality and the enabling state. The analysis indicates that the individual is constructed as responsible for her/his own employability, and the state and the employer are construed as enablers. However, this is not clear-cut or deterministic as different kinds of texts produce different kinds of positioning. This kind of analysis might help open up a new space for thought and action.

Recognition of prior learning as a technique for fabricating the adult learner: a genealogical analysis on Swedish adult education policy

This article focuses on the recognition of prior learning and the figure of thought it represents in Swedish policy on adult education. It can be seen as a technique for governing the adult learner and a way of fabricating the subject. We are tracing this thought back in time to see how it has changed and what it consists of. The material analysed consists of Swedish official documents published between 1948 and 2004. We draw on two concepts from the Foucauldian toolbox: genealogy and governmentality. The result shows that this technique for governing and fabricating the adult subject is not new. It has been present during all periods analysed. However, there is a difference in how the ideas of competence and knowledge are stressed. Today the focus is on the subjects specific experience, which means competence. You are constructed as an adult with experiences that are to be evaluated. During the 1960s and 1970s the focus was rather on general experience. There was also discussion concerning the subjects ability to study. During the 1950s this figure of thought focused on ability was dominant. Those with the talent/ability to study were to be accepted for adult education.

The Planetspeak Discourse of Lifelong Learning in Sweden: What Is an Educable Adult?.

This article focuses on the idea of the educable adult subject in Sweden and the ways this idea has re‐emerged in different practices during the twentieth century. It’s a policy analysis where official documents from the twentieth century and early twenty‐first century concerned with adult education in Sweden are analysed based on the Foucauldian notion of governmentality. The results show that the idea of the educable adult subject has been present during the major part of the twentieth century. But there are differences in how it is inscribed into the practices. The main difference is that the educable subject today is created in relation to a new rationality of governing where it is governed and constructed through its own choices and actions instead of through institutions based on knowledge produced by the social sciences and experts. Further, the ambition today is that everyone should be included in lifelong learning. At the same time, these ambitions also create exclusion. What happens to those who cannot or do not want to participate in lifelong learning? I argue that such practices of inclusion/exclusion are present in all the documents analysed, but that today, this practice has taken a specific shape.

Governing nursing through reflection: a discourse analysis of reflective practices

AIM This paper is a report of a study to analyse reflection as discourse and a technology of confession which produces a certain desirable subjectivity within nursing practice. BACKGROUND Reflection and reflective practice are common themes in nursing practices and in the literature on nursing. These practices are often construed as positive and empowering, and more critical analyses of them are needed. METHOD A Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis based on the concepts of governmentality and technologies of the self was conducted. Transcripts of interviews conducted in 2006-07 with 42 managers, supervisors, teachers and participants in an in-service programme to prepare healthcare assistants to become Licensed Practice Nurses in the elder care sector were analysed. FINDINGS Reflection as confession operates as a governing technology within the nursing practice analysed. Programme participants are encouraged to reflect and scrutinize themselves about their work as a way to improve their competencies and practice. Through appraisals, they are invited to reflect about themselves as way to achieve their desires. In this way, active, responsible, problem-solving, self-governing practitioners are constructed. CONCLUSION Through a Foucauldian reading of reflective practices it is possible to illustrate that reflection is not a neutral or apolitical practice. Instead, it is a governing practice that does something, in discursive terms, to nursing subjectivity - something that can create a space for reflection about what reflection discursively does to subjectivity.

European citizens under construction : the Bologna process analysed from a governmentality perspective

This article focuses on problematizing the harmonisation of higher education in Europe today. The overall aim is to analyse the construction of the European citizen and the rationality of governing related to such a construction. The specific focus will be on the rules and standards of reason in higher education reforms which inscribe continuums of values that exclude as they include. Who is and who is not constructed as a European citizen? Documents on the Bologna process produced in Europe and in Sweden are analysed drawing on the Foucauldian notion of governmentality, showing a neoliberal rationality of governing. The European citizen needs to become flexible, autonomous and self‐regulating as a way of facing the threats of the constantly changing future. The technique of diversity is a condition of possibility for constructing such a citizen and for harmonising higher education in Europe. Further, the current power relations in the discourse define what is and what is not European, thus constructing ‘the other’, the one who is excluded.

Recognition of prior vocational learning in Sweden

Abstract Initiatives in the recognition of prior learning (RPL) have been taken in Sweden in recent years, mainly focusing on prior vocational learning among immigrants. The government started different projects to find methods for recognising a persons prior learning in the field of vocational competence. This article presents a study of how these projects were organised and their starting points. Differences are identified concerning whether they were integrated with, or parallel to, the school system, and whether the starting point was a few vocations or a number of different vocations (depending on the background of the participants). The article then looks at some problems that arise when trying to recognise prior learning. We find that knowledge of the Swedish language is essential in this process, but that the demands are flexible and the criteria informal. The article also discusses the relationship between RPL and the educational system, where most of the projects had problems in not being too influenced by the school tradition where the main documentation of competence is grades. Finally, the article discusses conditions for the development of trust in RPL.

New wine in old skins: Changing patterns in the governing of the adult learner in Sweden

This paper explores the ways in which the adult learner has been governed in recent years and whether the techniques for doing this have changed over the last 50 years. The focus is first on which adult subject (adult learner) is constructed in the material analysed. What kinds of subjects are governed? This is followed by an analysis of what kinds of techniques are used to govern the adult learner. Official reports from the present time and the mid 20th century on Swedish municipal adult education are analysed using the Foucauldian notions of genealogy and governmentality. The results show that a different, more individualistic, subject is construed in the contemporary texts compared with the texts from the mid 20th century. The subjects should be autonomous and be mobilized by being included in lifelong learning. In the mid 20th century, the adult learners were the talented ones who were supposed to develop their inner potential and by doing so reach self‐fulfilment. However, several of the techniques used for governing these subjects are the same. Guidance and risk calculations are used during both periods. However, as will be argued, they differ in how they are used. Today, the techniques employed are in line with a more individualistic view where the subjects conduct their own conduct; they plan their own education supported by study counsellors as well as make their own risk calculations. In the mid 20th century, the subject was governed by society in a more direct way; it was the study counsellors who decided whether an adult would study and they (and a board of exemptions) made the risk calculations. The techniques are the same but different; new wine in old skins.

To be one’s own confessor: educational guidance and governmentality

Educational guidance is often seen as something good and empowering for the individual. In the present article, such taken‐for‐granted ideas will be destabilised by analysing educational guidance as a practice in which confession operates as a technology that fosters and governs specific subjectivities. White papers produced by the Swedish Ministry of Education will be analysed drawing on Foucault’s concepts of technologies of the self and governmentality. I shall argue that the practice of educational guidance fosters our will to learn through the technology of confession. We are not only confessing ourselves to, and are the confessors of others, we are also our own confessors; that is, we confess our inner desires to ourselves, thus participating in shaping desirable subjectivities. Our desires in life coincide with the political ambition to govern, and thus we govern ourselves.

Grading systems, features of assessment and students' approaches to learning

The Bologna process aims at harmonising the higher education systems in the Europe. One of the most important tools proposed for such a purpose is the European Credit Transfer System. A significant element of this system is a common seven-step grading scale. It has previously been shown that assessment characteristics impact on students’ approaches to learning. Furthermore, there is also empirical evidence that judgement criteria have an effect on students’ learning. The focus of this article is on the relationships between grading systems, assessment characteristics and students’ learning. Empirical evidence from a Swedish survey study indicates that multi-step grading scales may have detrimental repercussions on the nature of the assessment tasks and thereby indirectly on the students’ approaches to learning. We suggest that the effects of grading systems need to be considered in the current discussion in order to support quality in learning.

Vocational teachers’ identity formation through boundary crossing

Vocational teachers’ prior occupational experiences are construed as those that will guarantee high-quality teaching in vocational education, although individuals are no longer required to have formal teaching qualifications to be employed as teachers in Sweden. This lack of strict requirements raises the issue of the preparedness of vocational teachers to teach their subject matter. Drawing on a socio-cultural understanding of identity, and based on twenty semi-structured interviews with vocational teachers in different subject areas, this article addresses vocational teachers’ identity formation through boundary crossing; these individuals cross boundaries between the community of the prior occupation’s practice, the teaching occupation and the community of teacher training. The analysis illustrates how teachers who manage to balance their teacher identities with their occupational identities by maintaining their participation in the different communities seem to be the best prepared to teach their vocational subjects. As many of those we interviewed do not manage to keep such a balance, we argue for the need for in-service training for vocational teachers to help them keep up to date with, participate in and continue to belong to the communities of their former occupations.