ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the particular relationships between knowledge, judgment and authority in the processes of school inspection. One of the significant features of inspection as a mode of governing is its embodied character that inspectors are 'on site' for their work, a physical and social presence in the schools being inspected. The idea of embodied regulation provides a way of thinking about this particularly distinctive form of authoritative action. Like governance, ideas of regulation have become a focus for new work in the social sciences reflecting on changes in economic, political and social organization. For many researchers, the growth in regulation, particularly the increasing number of regulatory agencies, has been one of the most striking features of the 'new governance' or what is conventionally described as the shift from 'government to governance'. All inspection systems involve forms of distance, including the social and professional distance between those who work in schools and those who visit from the outside.
