Student Discipline and Neoliberal Governance: A Critical Criminology of Education

Abstract

Prompted by the need to expand the criminological enterprise, I put forward a criminology of education that offers a deeper understanding of education’s purpose in contemporary society. In tracing the reconfiguration of social security and understandings of citizenship in Western capitalist societies, education is situated as a centrally important institution of social governance. Moving from ‘the social’ as the predominant category of governance to smaller, individualized units of governance such as the ‘community’ has produced a post-social state which involves significant implications for political institutions, including crime control and education. This is illustrated by the ‘criminalization of schools’ thesis, which posits that schools increasingly take on responsibilities for governing crime to the point that they are now governed through crime. Market preparation constitutes another governing principle of education, encapsulated in what can be termed the ‘marketization of schools’, which points to education’s role in producing lean, active citizens. I draw on the work of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu for explicating the features of governance and discipline, and their articulation. I then turn to explore the empirical referent found in recent efforts to rethink and reorganize student discipline policies in Ontario schools. The ‘discovery’ of bullying in Ontario is suggested to be a discursive reality that made possible the implementation of a program of regulation. From this, we see that education is conceptualized and represented as a ‘security apparatus’, and education policies as increasingly concerned with managing public safety and social order.