ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses and discusses complaints as a technique for governing in terms of how we think about, reform and practice education and how it positions citizens in the contemporary educational regime. It explores the effects of complaint systems in relation to feminist political projects for change. The chapter focuses on how gender or other dimensions of difference are present in who is supposedly protected by complaint options and who is given redress. At an individual level, the complaint option can be viewed as providing individuals with these assets. Rights constitute a legal safeguard for both individuals and groups as they protect them from the private and public exercising of power, and counteract arbitrary and unequal administrative practices in a professional culture, such as pedagogic staff in a decentralised and marketised education system. The individualised character of complaints procedures, practices and reporting makes it hard to analyse structural power relations.
