Vygotskij goes neoliberal

Vygoskij goes Neoliberal – The ideal student and teacher in the examination practice of teacher education. This study uses discourse analysis to scrutinize how student teachers construct themselves as ideal teachers and how they construct children and youths as ideal pupils. Seventy-two course assignments have formed the empirical basisof the investigation. As theoretical framework Michel Foucaults’ notions of discourse, power and subject positions are used, together with Stephen Balls’ notion of performativity. The results show how subject positions of ‘the competent pupil’ and ‘the performative reflective teacher’ are created and shaped by a neoliberal order of discourse and how the ideal pupil and teacher are constructed by subtle governing technologies and discourses.