However, for an interesting example, consider a “typical” communication department or classroom as you think about the questions Foucault would ask: Who is speaking? What institutional role, legal status, social privilege, or educational degree determines who may claim the right to speak as an authority? The authority of the speaker, the powers that grant the speaker authority, and mode of expression are all part of larger discursive formations that make it possible to speak on certain subjects. Thus, are certain voices privileged in the classroom? Does the educational degree of a tenure-line faculty member (e.g., an Associate Professor) give her or him different speaking rights and powers than a non-tenure track professor? For Foucault, discourse is power and the power to control discourse is the ultimate power in any society. In terms of mental illness, Foucault argues that it is important to consider how a society speaks of this condition, because the discursive formations that create mental illness also grant speakers power over others. Yet increasingly, scholars are making the same claim about our typical educational system, using the writings of Foucault and others (e.g., Freire, 1993; Giroux & McLaren, 1989) to question how language use creates unequal—and unfair—power structures even with the departments of those who study such things.
References:
Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. (Trans. M. Bergman Ramos). New York : Continuum.
Giroux, H., & McLaren, P. (Eds.). (1989). Critical pedagogy, the state, and cultural struggle. Albany: State University of New York Press.
