ABSTRACT
This chapter draws selectively upon Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to enhance and extend our use of Foucault's later work to develop our understanding of the significance of guidance work with adults in education. It suggests that approaches adopted from ANT provide a useful trajectory through which to provide more effectively a theoretical and methodological basis for the empirical study of confessional practices and their conceptual development. The humanistic discourses of guidance can be seen therefore as playing a very important role in the contemporary structuring of educational opportunities for adults. The discussion of confession is very much tied into Foucault's study of sexuality. It is also linked to the wider discussion of the different forms of power developing with the emergence of modern state and institutional forms of governing.
