Performative technologies and teacher subjectivities: A conceptual framework

Abstract

Critical educational literature suggests that an increased reliance upon performative technologies is currently transforming the very foundations from which teacher subjectivities are constructed. Arguably though, the number of studies pointing to this risk or tendency is considerably larger than the ones theorising why this should be the case. Further, in those cases where the relationship between performative technologies and teacher subjectivities is theorised, the psychological mechanisms that the technologies appeal to are seldom brought to the fore. Based on this, the purpose of this article is to theorise the psychological mechanisms that performative technologies appeal to and work through, by means of identifying, systematising and elaborating extant understandings of such mechanisms in the critical educational literature. The results are presented in the form of a conceptual framework (referred to as the CMIS‐framework) which suggests that one and the same performative technology may play many different roles, where each such role appeals to and works through a particular psychological mechanism. Importantly, depending on the type of psychological mechanism that is appealed to, the CMIS‐framework suggests that this will lead to teachers (un)consciously conducting particular forms of subjectivising work upon themselves, here referred to as compliance, mirroring, identification and self‐realisation (CMIS).

Contesting conformity: how and why academics may oppose the conforming influences of intra-organizational performance evaluations

“…Drawing upon Gendron (2008), PMSs can be said to operate at two levels so as to generate this type of reactive conformity (Espeland and Sauder, 2007), namely disciplinary and self-disciplinary levels. When PMSs operate at a disciplinary level , academic institutions and individual academics feel coerced to comply with the criteria materialized by the PMSs (Englund and Gerdin, 2019; Henkel, 2005; Larner and Le Heron, 2005). Because if they do not, they risk losing particular rewards, or facing different types of sanctions/punishments [see also Gendron's (2015) discussion about the alleged consequences of the paying-off mentality in academia].…”

“…As argued by Gendron (2015, p. 172), for example, PMSs “can be conceived as categorizing and disciplinary mechanisms, which engender the fear of being ‘abnormal’ and not productive enough.” That is, through making particular qualities of academics (in)visible and (ab)normal, and through ordering them on a single scale in terms of who is better/worse (see, e.g. Espeland and Stevens, 1998, 2008), PMSs create strong pressures to adapt to the ways in which academics are (or want to be) displayed (see also Ball, 2003; Englund and Gerdin, 2019; Lynch, 2006).…”

“…Again, we know fairly much about how the design and use of PMSs can generate reactive conformance (see, e.g. Englund and Gerdin, 2019, and the literature review in the next section), but considerably less about what makes some extant research/er ideals less vulnerable to the infiltration and colonization of the academic performer ideal. Related to this, our findings also add to the ongoing research-practice gap debate (see, e.g.…”

Giving the invisible hand a helping hand: How ‘Grants Offices’ work to nourish neoliberal researchers

“…Sutton, 2017). And further, as such a colonisation of hearts and minds takes place, they are seen as having marked (negative) effects on the identities of academics (Archer, 2008;Englund & Gerdin, 2019). In fact, and again, they help to fashion a subjectivity that carries a number of neoliberal qualities, ranging from (perceived) autonomy (Lynch, 2015;Morrissey, 2015) and individualism (Davies & Bansel, 2010) to entrepreneurialism (Larner & Le Heron, 2005) and instrumentalism (Morrissey, 2015).…”

“…Over the past decades, neoliberalism has become a highly dominating and taken-forgranted way of governing the university sector around the world (Ball, 2015;Grealy & Laurie, 2017;Warren, 2017;Englund & Gerdin, 2019;Page, 2020; see also Foucault, 2008). In the critical educational literature, this rationality of government has been scrutinised in detail over the years, suggesting at least three key insights.…”