ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a theoretical justification for challenging some unproblematic principles for adult and university education. It argues that social conditioning is brought about by different kinds of power relationships and dominant societal values. The chapter demonstrates how certain kinds of knowledge are simply disregarded because of who acquires them. It shows how individuals internalise a belief that only some knowledge counts and only some people have authority to know. Individuals build up an understanding of how they are expected to relate to others and how they are expected to behave through their exposure to certain discourses. Michel Foucault saw education institutions as particularly sophisticated networks of disciplinary power. They possess carefully constructed discourses which ensure their authority to hierarchise knowledge and define how it is taught. Power, for Foucault was seen as a relationship rather than the more tangible notion of power as an act or outcome.
