The Educational Theory Summer Institute 2009
State Intervention and the Regulation of Parenting
For its First Educational Theory Summer Institute, the journal commissioned a team of outstanding scholars, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, to produce fresh and substantive statements on the pressing issues of state intervention and the regulation of parenting. Their papers appear as a special issue of Educational Theory Volume 60, no. 3. The 2009 participants were:
• David Bridges, University of East Anglia and University of Cambridge
• James C. Conroy, University of Glasgow
• Robert A. Davis, University of Glasgow
• Paul Smeyers, Ghent University and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (director)
• Richard Smith, University of Durham, UK
• Nancy Vansieleghem, Ghent University
Education, as we all know, is not limited to the formal activities of schooling. But there is a closer interest in some other countries in reflecting on the educational dimensions of upbringing in general. Recently, however, this orientation has taken the form of growing government regulation and intervention into activities not previously seen as the domain of public policy: the explanations for this growth range from well-intended liberal paternalism, to the disciplining logic of performativity; but generally speaking these policies are framed in relation to the desire to promote educational success. What are the roots, and the consequences, of this kind of state intervention? This symposium opened up an important perspective on how societies think about education as a public responsibility. It also featured an opportunity for a wider interdisciplinary and comparative conversation with six outstanding scholars from the UK and Belgium. |
