Lacan and Education Policy

A superb primer on educational policy, an enlightening discussion of neo-liberalism, and a crystal-clear introduction to Lacanian psychoanalysis. * Pedagogy, Culture and Society *
Matthew Clarke’s book brings a new and devastating critical perspective to bear on education policy. His use of Lacan to address fundamental questions about what education has become in the context of neoliberalism enables us to begin to think creatively and with integrity about ‘the other side of education’. This is a telling and timely book that skilfully deploys psychoanalytic insights to unpack the fantasies that haunt and inhibit education policy – it is exciting, challenging and important! * Stephen Ball, Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology of Education, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK *
It is one of the horrifying ironies of our time that the dominance of university discourse would entail with it the death of education. This is but one of the incredible paradoxes that Matthew Clarke uncovers in his revolutionary Lacan and Education Policy: The Other Side of Education. By bringing psychoanalytic theory to bear on education policy, Clarke reveals that what appears as attention to education is actually nothing but the thorough imposition of the logic of capitalism on all our systems of learning. Calls for more education disguise the desire for more sites of accumulation. Packed with such insights, Lacan and Education Policy completely changes the deal for thinking about how we have been educating. * Todd McGowan, Professor of Film and Television Studies, University of Vermont, USA *
Matthew Clarke's book provides an insightful and enjoyable foray into an analysis of neoliberal education policies now dominating education systems across the globe. His explication of Lacan's four discourses, Master, University, Hysteric and Analyst, is clear, insightful and accessible. He provides examples not only from schooling, but also public pedagogies to illustrate his argument. The book contributes to the growing interest in affect theory by providing an account of key concepts such as desire, trauma, and fantasy through the lens of Lacanian theory. These are slippery concepts, difficult to grasp, without a strong grounding in psychoanalytic theories. The beauty of Matthew Clarke's book is that he makes these concepts accessible and deploys them to provide insights into the politics of education. * Parlo Singh, Professor, School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Australia *
If you want to think critically about education, get a good grasp of Lacan’s conceptual language and its uses for social and political critique, as well as understand what all the fuss is about with neoliberalism, then this is the book for you. More than that, Matthew Clarke’s book provides a devastating critique of contemporary educational policies that result in disciplinary regimes designed in the interests of the powerful rather than for democratic empowerment through forms of school organisation and practice that put people first. * John Schostak, Emeritus Professor of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK *