Educational evaluation as control technology in neoliberal capitalism

Abstract

This text deals with the educational evaluation as control technology in neoliberal capitalism. Basically it consists of three parts, the first of which is dedicated to a rescue of some elements from the genealogy of the disciplines, such as performed by Foucault in his lectures on The punitive society (2013), and subsequently in Discipline and punish (1991). Among these elements, we prioritize the exam, the role played by the exercise and by judicial instances, as well as the type of individualization characteristic of disciplinary societies. Furthermore, we try, whenever possible, to show how it links to educational topics. On its turn, the second section starts with a brief historical retrospect of entrepreneurship, generally, in society, and particularly in education; then, it outlines the development of a new spirit of capitalism, and draws a map some of its main features; finally, it relates the whole process to the advent of societies of control, according to Deleuze’s diagnosis (1992). In the third section, we return to the topic of evaluation and examination, now within the context of the control society, to explore their connections with the new technologies of government, and we use some of the theoretical devices introduced by the sociologist Luc Boltanski (2013) to activate the resistance to the educational procedures of subjectivation.