are intended as a network of ideas that thematically crisscross each
other to elucidate a set of relations between poststructuralism, politics
and education. In so doing they reflect my intellectual preoccupations of
the past few years.

In educational theory a great deal has been written recently on
social, economic and political movements predominately in Western or
developed societies that have been referred to essentially in negative
and reactive terms characterized by the prefix "post" -- postindustrial-
ism, postmodernism, post-Fordism. While much current theorizing in
education has drawn upon poststructuralist approaches -- deconstruc-
tionism, genealogy, various forms of discourse analysis -- there are few
general attempts to spell out the implications of poststructuralism for
educational theory by attention to the original writings that comprise
the canon. This book provides something of an introduction to post-
structuralism by examining a range of interrelated themes central to
the field of education focusing upon the critique of reason and the
problematic of the subject.

This book does not attempt to provide a systematic introduction to
poststructuralism as a theory for the simple reason that what has been
called poststructuralism in the academy is in reality a diverse and
complex tradition of thought incapable of reduction to a stable and
coherent body of theory. In fact, one might argue that once the
movement has been reduced and unified, packaged into academic texts
for ease of dissemination and distribution in the intellectual market-
place, its time will be over. Once institutionalized and commodified,
knowledge loses its power to generate new thought; it becomes
fossilized and relegated to the status of the history of ideas. The label
"poststructuralism" is itself a problematic one because the differences
among those thinkers loosely described as poststructuralist are as
important as the similarities. Accordingly, I have chosen to view
poststructuralism as much a moment of French cultural history as a
characterization of a distinctive critical approach in education.

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