Toward an Understanding of Discourses Surrounding Education Studies

This proposed paper explores how the changing nature of the subject of education studies is constituted by an amalgam of policies, pedagogies, political ideologies and wider global pressures on systems of education, which demand competitiveness and versatility on the subject. Firstly, we theorise the elements that compose this amalgam as driven by discourse (1987) and how each of these might be talked about as knowledge-institutions, which become embedded in the subject of education studies. Secondly, in order to understand these influences on education studies and following Foucault (1987) we isolate some of the discourses which have characterised some important changes and which continue to change the subject of education studies. Moreover, in our analysis this paper will develop the conceptual tools to further elaborate on some of the new episteme (2001) entanglements which surround the subject of education studies more recently.