Performance appraisals and the underlying disciplinary power it exercises in the UK education system
Epigraph
Disciplinary power is exercised through its invisibility; at the same time, it imposes on those it subjects a compulsory visibility. In discipline, it is the subjects who have to be seen. Their visibility assures the hold of the power that is exercised over them. It is the fact of being constantly seen that maintains the disciplined individual in his subjection (Foucault, 1979, p. 187).
Question
Is it possible for a docile and adversely scrutinised performance management, dictated by a governmentality regime, through a dominitatory appraisal system, to allow for growth in an educational system and organisation?
Performance management …show more content…
Foucault defines difference as external, dependent on representational truth regimes for its effects, and made manifest through various interpretative strategies broadly ethnographic and comparative. This leads to the notion that an appraisal of one’s abilities within a classroom can be the personification of surveillance and observation, as characterised by Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1979). Miller and Rose (1990: 5) identify this characteristic as making the ‘employee a knowable, calculable and administrable object’. The identification of the word object is the essence as to the negativity and discrepancy of the purpose of an appraisal. This ‘panoptic’ power that the appraisal holds over the appraisee is stifling and restrictive (Foucault, 1979). For an effective measurement to be assessed, a variety of subjective fields should be understood and calibrated to assist the process of power and limit the effect of the ‘panoptic’ model. A distinct method to achieve this could be the elimination of authoritative and telling means whereby activity is made visible. (Roberts 2002) Foucault 's description of Bentham’s ‘panopticon’ demonstrated a visibility inwards, but not outwards of identification. This notion of outwards looking can, therefore, be assumed as a process of …show more content…
Foucault’s emphasis on the ideologies of ethics within an educational environment differ exceptionally to the expectations within a UK school, particularly when Foucault defines them as, ‘the principal work of art one has to take care of, the main area to which one must apply aesthetic values, is oneself, one’s life, one’s existence’ (Foucault, 1987:362). Moreover, this also is against the notion of the power demonstrated by the appraisal process of the appraisee, through Foucault’s use and understanding of power in his genealogies, which, as argued, often serve as a means for critiquing educational institutions. (Woermann, 2012). Foucault believed that society is monitored and controlled by the domination of discipline and systems of this discipline. This discipline can be referred to the notion of accountability, as accountability in itself demonstrates a level of discipline to an overarching body. This social control would, therefore, influence the behaviour of all parties involved, for either a betterment of the desired outcome or to have no effect on the outcome. This ‘hidden control system’, should, in fact, be identified as a level of accountability within the educational environment. This can, and should, include outside bodies that identify as a power or disciplinary body. In the UK, particularly
Epigraph
Disciplinary power is exercised through its invisibility; at the same time, it imposes on those it subjects a compulsory visibility. In discipline, it is the subjects who have to be seen. Their visibility assures the hold of the power that is exercised over them. It is the fact of being constantly seen that maintains the disciplined individual in his subjection (Foucault, 1979, p. 187).
Question
Is it possible for a docile and adversely scrutinised performance management, dictated by a governmentality regime, through a dominitatory appraisal system, to allow for growth in an educational system and organisation?
Performance management …show more content…
Foucault defines difference as external, dependent on representational truth regimes for its effects, and made manifest through various interpretative strategies broadly ethnographic and comparative. This leads to the notion that an appraisal of one’s abilities within a classroom can be the personification of surveillance and observation, as characterised by Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1979). Miller and Rose (1990: 5) identify this characteristic as making the ‘employee a knowable, calculable and administrable object’. The identification of the word object is the essence as to the negativity and discrepancy of the purpose of an appraisal. This ‘panoptic’ power that the appraisal holds over the appraisee is stifling and restrictive (Foucault, 1979). For an effective measurement to be assessed, a variety of subjective fields should be understood and calibrated to assist the process of power and limit the effect of the ‘panoptic’ model. A distinct method to achieve this could be the elimination of authoritative and telling means whereby activity is made visible. (Roberts 2002) Foucault 's description of Bentham’s ‘panopticon’ demonstrated a visibility inwards, but not outwards of identification. This notion of outwards looking can, therefore, be assumed as a process of …show more content…
Foucault’s emphasis on the ideologies of ethics within an educational environment differ exceptionally to the expectations within a UK school, particularly when Foucault defines them as, ‘the principal work of art one has to take care of, the main area to which one must apply aesthetic values, is oneself, one’s life, one’s existence’ (Foucault, 1987:362). Moreover, this also is against the notion of the power demonstrated by the appraisal process of the appraisee, through Foucault’s use and understanding of power in his genealogies, which, as argued, often serve as a means for critiquing educational institutions. (Woermann, 2012). Foucault believed that society is monitored and controlled by the domination of discipline and systems of this discipline. This discipline can be referred to the notion of accountability, as accountability in itself demonstrates a level of discipline to an overarching body. This social control would, therefore, influence the behaviour of all parties involved, for either a betterment of the desired outcome or to have no effect on the outcome. This ‘hidden control system’, should, in fact, be identified as a level of accountability within the educational environment. This can, and should, include outside bodies that identify as a power or disciplinary body. In the UK, particularly