A Critical Ethnographic Study Of School Discipline Discourses

This ethnographic study explores the taken-for-granted school discipline in a critical perspective and examines how power mechanism is operated in school discipline and contributes to the construction of students'subjectivities. Drawing on Michel Foucault's conceptualizations of panopticon, power/knowledge, discipline, docile body and subjectivity, the author analyzes the data that focus on school discipline discourses including the architecture of school, school documents and students'writing, etc.Three research questions are put forward as follows:1) What discipline discourses can be found in the school? 2) In what way have school discipline discourses shaped students' thoughts and contributed to the construction of their subjectivity? 3) How does power mechanism operate in school discipline and contribute to the construction of students'subjectivity?Through the description of school routines, the author tries to show the pervasiveness of disciplinary power that reaches into the very grain of individuals. School documents and students' writings are analyzed from different perspectives for a better understanding of school discipline and disciplinary power mechanism. The research presented in this study finds that students do have their minds and bodies conditioned, using Foucault's terminology, made docile by the incessant repetition of rules and procedures.With the concepts of Michel Foucault, this thesis offers a possible perspective for studies on school education. Foucault's analysis can help educators learn more about some unintended effects of standardized curricula, standardized testing, prescriptive teaching, and manipulative classroom management.