Foucault on early education

Despite Michel Foucault not having study the processes of education it isn’t such a far cry to use some of his theories in relation with education. Deacon’s article “Michel Foucault on Education: a preliminary theoretical overview” exemplifies this. In the article he talks about several ways in which Foucault’s ideas can be accurately used to describe the development of the education system and its affects on society. It is through his concepts that many different techniques and aspects of schooling have been developed, one of which Deacon discusses which he calls “moral orthopedics”.

According to Foucault’s ideas part of the reasoning behind developing institutions to educate youth rather than educating by the individual was to provide a moral framework, or “moral orthopedics”. Before regulated schooling, children were educated mostly by a professional in the field in which they were to enter, subjecting them to the whims and ideals individually. The mass effect of bringing the children together to be educated in mass groups socialized them more with children and less with possibly perverse adults. In sum, bringing the children into institutionalized settings did a number of things for them. On page 81, Deacon lists many reasons but the two I’d like to focus on are as follows: “the application of new forms of micro-discipline; the management of sexuality”.

            Foucault compares “The application of new forms of micro-discipline” in education to the standards of punishment used in prisons in order to instill moral fiber within the inmates. The focus of discipline shifted from public humiliation and physical violence to a more psychological approach, where one is forced to think about what they have done, similar to the types of punishment one would find in a religious context.

            “The management of sexuality” may seem a startling reason to initiate mass public schooling, but according to Foucault, the separation of children and adults was entirely necessary.  Proper sexual conduct must be taught to children and under the supervision of unregulated forces, no one could guarantee that this was happening or that the children themselves were not being taken advantage of by their mentors. The fear of course did not only lie with their mentors but anybody of different age or different class, thus not only were children separated from adults, save their teacher but also from older age groups and different social classes.

            The institutions created for educational purposes went far beyond simply educating children in the ways of the world but went so far as to establish class differences and protect them from unwittingly falling prey to immoral sexual advances made by the adults and mentors in their lives, most importantly though, the schools were developed to educate the youth with a moral framework that would serve them once they had completed their education. Other issues aside from proper sexual conduct and discipline raised were cleanliness and punctuality. According to Foucault, these early institutions were about far more than simply learning in an education capacity but they were about being a well-rounded person.