ABSTRACT
Michel Foucault's account of modern disciplinary power emphasizes how particular social relations are produced through the micropractices and micropolitics of everyday life. Standardized testing and standardization of curriculum allege neutrality with regard to culture, race, ethnicity, and language. The student is subject to examination that compares, differentiates, ranks, measures against a norm, and homogenizes and standardizes. The standardized examination is applied to students while the person or people who made the test are absent from the classroom; modern power is invisible. Critical educational scholars imagined the possibility for student resistance against oppressive forces assuming the possibility for autonomous student agency and the possibility for the development of critical forms of consciousness. Foucault's way of conceptualizing power, while valuable, has serious limitations. Foucault's work, as well as Ann Arnette Ferguson's, Nancy Fraser's, and Zygmunt Bauman's, offers teachers and others theoretical tools, language, and concepts that can be selectively appropriated to interpret school situations, policies, and practices.
