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The aim of this book has been twofold: first to provide an introduction to Foucault for educators and students of education and to draw out the educational implications of some of his writings: and, second, to provide a critique, derived from Foucault, of the notion of personal autonomy in so far as this is conceived in liberal writings as an important aim, if not the aim, of education. It has not attempted to engage with critical theory and writings on education in that area on education — that must wait. Nor has it attempted to prescribe from his writings what should be done in education. On Foucault's own grounds that would have been improper. The book, properly in my view, rests at the level of a critique, and in this case a critique of the notion of personal autonomy, especially because this notion of personal autonomy has been re-interpreted in neo-liberal views and recent "reforms' of education in western capitalist democracies. Instead of personal autonomy however we have what I call the notion of the autonomous chooser. This is not the notion of an independent and free chooser but someone whose choices have been structured through the manipulation of needs and interests by what I call busno-power. I have launched several Foucauldean based critiques upon this neo-liberal version of autonomy (Marshall, 1995a&b).

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-8662-7_9

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