ABSTRACT
In earlier works I have argued that the question of the existence of the student as subject of his or her own life has to do with the educational concern for subjectification; a concern which I have distinguished from two other legitimate educational concerns, those of qualification and socialisation. Whereas the latter two concerns are rather well understood, interpretations of the idea of subjectification have differed widely, linking subjectification, for example, to questions of identity, personal development or personality development. In this chapter I revisit the idea of subjectification, trying to clarify its fundamental existential orientation and providing a detailed discussion of a number of misreadings and misunderstandings. I use an example from Homer Lane, an American educator who worked in Britain in the 1920s, to show what is involved in education-as-subjectification, and how notions of freedom and responsibility play a role in this.
