In the context of poststructuralist and postmodern philosophy, the concept of a decentered subject has always retained a powerful, deconstructive potential – tracing its conceptual history all the way back to Nietzsche and beyond. But are we not yet to realize its constructive potential, from an educational-philosophical point of view? In this paper, we attempt to reassess the potential of a decentered subject using a variety of resources – leaning for instance on notions from a Romantic philosophical tradition, as expressed by Schelling; on Jungian depth psychology; and on Rudolf Steiner’s writings on the central and peripheral self. In conclusion, we argue that a teacher may benefit from differentiating his/her understanding of decenteredness as well as from the ability to act out of a variety of psychic centers – of which the conscious ego is an important example, although not exclusively so. Also, we conclude that such attempts are likely to find success to the extent that they are grounded in the teacher’s ability to align him/herself to centers that are of a more spiritual nature; for instance as described by Jung’s writings on the nature of the Self archetype.

In 2007, students at a Swedish Upper Secondary School engaged in a series of protests and demonstrations against the implementation of a written assessment of student conduct. This article explores the motivations and manifestations of this resistance, mainly by analysing debate articles and web material from the student union that organized the protests, but also by drawing on news articles, policy documents and interview material in order to grasp how this resistance was received by advocates of the conduct assessment. Making use of Mouffe’s and Rancière’s theories on political dissent, as well as Foucauldian power perspectives, the article discusses the students’ resistance in relation to political subjectification, concluding that it serves as an important manifestation of individual as well as collective engagement in school democracy, and personal student integrity.

As Sweden approached its 2006 national election, issues on order and discipline in educational environments came to the forefront of educational interest, debate, and reform. This thesis aims at a critical discussion of the discourses in question, making use of educational, post-structural as well as political philosophy. In a series of articles, disciplinary policies are contextualized within current understandings of major trends in global educational politics; empirically investigated with a focus on resistance and political subjectivation; but also theoretically/ philosophically examined with the intention of bringing alternative conceptualizations of discipline to light.

As a result, it is concluded that the political platform supporting contemporary school discipline is highly ambiguous, especially in terms of the different subjectification ideals that it embodies. In consequence, substantial possibilities for resistance, political influence and creative subjectification emerge in the breaks and ruptures between neoliberal and neoconservative territory. As for the disciplinary policies themselves, this thesis highlights the possibility that they amount to little more than a powerful simulation; a mode of perceptual management rather than a hands-on engagement with the real demands of contemporary education.

An alternative route, the thesis suggests, would be to radically re-conceptualize the meaning and relevance of discipline – using, for instance, philosophers like Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Jacques Rancière – but also while taking notice of relevant discussions in the fields of complexity and chaos theory. Such a re-conceptualization would allow for an immanent form of discipline, one that affords a circular segmentation to emerge; contextualized and sensitized to the particular demands of each learning situation rather than pre-stratified, pre-territorialized according to the ideals of classical discipline.

Syftet med den här avhandlingen är, att inom ett pedagogiskt-filosofiskt ramverk föra en kritisk diskussion av 2000-talets skolpolitiska diskurser om disciplin och ”ordning & reda”. Med hjälp av filosofer som Deleuze & Guattari, Foucault, Baudrillard och Rancière diskuteras den moderna disciplinens utmaning: att svara an på sin egen samtids behov av ordning och reda.

I sömmarna mellan de politiska krafter som den nya disciplinen hämtar sin kraft ur – neoliberalism och neokonservatism – identifierar avhandlingen också möjligheter till motstånd. Genom att påvisa de skillnader och komplexiteter som finns under ytan av politisk konsensus, utgör dessa former av motstånd nya potentialer till politiskt inflytande – samt nya möjligheter till kreativa subjektblivanden.

Slutligen hävdar studien, att vägen till en gräsrotsförankrad skoldisciplin för 2000-talet knappast kan ligga i återuppväckandet av forna tiders maktutövning, utan i en radikal omtolkning av disciplinbegreppet – en som tillvaratar den moderna människans förutsättningar till självdisciplin och självorganisering. En förutsättning är att vi, som en kontrast till neoliberalismens självtillräckliga subjektivitetsideal, börjar utforska subjektivitetens kollektiva och territoriella karaktärer.

Contemporary research shows that the methods and mechanisms of classical discipline still offer their services as regulators and indicators of educational progress. But is our conceptualization of discipline really adequate enough for handling the educational problems of today? This article makes urgent the need for a reconceptualization, using the immanence philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari together with the educational philosophy of Jacques Rancière. As a result, the article advances the concept of discipline as a circular segmentarity in contrast to the more linear power grid that we normally attribute to Foucauldian traditions. Strictly territorialized, but open-ended in terms of stratification, this segmentarity enables us to experience molecular levels of difference in life as well as in learning, while at the same time offering a hands-on experience of the equality of intelligence.

It would be futile, John Dewey argued in 1902, to think that we have to choose between child-centered, progressive education and traditional, subject-matter-oriented approaches. Calling for adaptivity, he stressed that we need the act of balancing the one with the other. The tendency in current educational policy to lean in favor of traditional, disciplinary modes of control appears to lose sight of this need. The aim of this paper is to reconnect to the task of maintaining a balance between educational freedom and structure, using a variety of theoretical resources such as complexity science, and the philosophies of Deleuze and Guattari, Schiller, and Nietzsche. Based on these resources, the authors also discuss Steiner Waldorf education as an example of how educational practice may approach, and integrate the significance of chaos in the form of a “virtual pedagogy”.