Institutionalization

Historically where institutionalization has taken place especially in regards to children’s education the implications later became the very opposite of what was originally intended.   For example, according to the government policy during the times of residential schools for Aboriginal children, “The government felt children were easier to mould than adults and the concept of a boarding school was the best way to prepare them for life in mainstream  society”   (www.cbc.ca/news/background/aboriginals/residentialschools).    What has changed now from the times of residential schools in educational policies? The following is the World Bank’s view on early childhood education “Early childhood is a particularly fruitful area for investment, because the greatest changes to children’s attitudes and outlook can be wrought while children are very young” (Helen Penn, 2008; 383).  Looking at the two perspectives the resonance between them is worrisome.   I realize that the comparison might be extreme, because the residential school children, and their families had no choice in the matter – while families today can choose to enrol their children in early childhood programs or not.  The point that I am trying to make is that those initiating the residential school system strongly believed that it was in the best interest for the Aboriginal children; just as much as we have the same belief in regards to early childhood education.

            According to Foucault “Power is a relationship of struggle (Belsey, 2002) to dominate the meanings we give to our lives.  More specifically, power is a relationship of struggle over how we use truths and build discourses about normality to produce and regulate ourselves, our relationships, and our institutions, especially our production of normality (Alvesson, 2002).  This struggle plays out persistently in organised bodies of knowledge as attempts to define, categorise, classify and organise people” (Sarup, 1988).  Foucault’s theory on power I find to echo our way of life today.  Much as I recognize the necessity for structure within societies, which translates into the need for authority that requires some element of power to govern; Foucault’s theory on power should reinforce the need for caution by those of us that find ourselves in positions of authority.   Because like in the words of a late British historian and moralist, Baron Acton “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” 

References

Foucault, M. (1980).  Journeys to activism: Becoming postsructurally reflective about truth. 
 Penn, Helen (2008).  Working on the impossible: Early childhood policies in Namibia.  SAGE Publications. Los, London, New Delhi & Singapore.