Helena Ostrowicka | Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz (original) (raw)

Papers by Helena Ostrowicka

In diesem Beitrag befassen wir uns, ausgehend von einer kritischen und Post-Foucaultschen Studie,... more In diesem Beitrag befassen wir uns, ausgehend von einer kritischen und Post-Foucaultschen Studie, mit den diskursiven Aspekten der gegenwartigen Reform des polnischen Bildungswesens und deren offentlicher Diskussion durch Akademiker/innen. Wir gehen davon aus, dass Verbindungen zwischen Diskursen, Ereignissen und sozialen Veranderungen sich im Verlauf ihrer medialen Problematisierung herauskristallisieren . In diesem offentlichen Diskurs und in den Problematisierungsweisen haben wir nach Wissenssorten, Konzepten und Klassifikationsregeln gesucht, die den diskursiven Veranderungsrahmen aus der Perspektive der akademischen Gemeinschaft ausmachen. Unseren Ergebnissen zufolge geht dieser Rahmen uber eine blose Polarisierung von Positionen – Kritik vs. Affirmation neoliberaler Reformen – hinaus. Stattdessen haben wir drei Typen diversifizierter und nicht-dichotomer Diskurse rekonstruiert: den Diskurs uber den Status quo , den Diskurs uber Unwagbarkeiten von Veranderung und den Diskurs ub...

The Qualitative Report, 2020

The article presents the results of research on the discursive models of academic relationships t... more The article presents the results of research on the discursive models of academic relationships that come to the fore in the academic discourse on the reform of higher education in Poland. The aim of the research was to capture the ways of formulating knowledge about the reform of science and higher education and its subjects (i.e., academic teachers and students). The research material comprised 17 Polish academic monographs published in the years 2011-2014 (immediately after the introduction of the higher education reform in Poland). The direction of the analyses was emergent and inductive and was in line with the assumptions of post-Foucauldian discourse analysis. The theoretical basis was determined by the set of categories that constitute the phenomenon of the “formation of knowledge.” The main research problem was expressed by the question about what "truths" about the reform of science and higher education, its main subjects (academic teachers and students), and the...

The Dispositif of the University Reform

Przegląd Badań Edukacyjnych

The article presents the results of an analysis of Polish scientific conferences devoted to probl... more The article presents the results of an analysis of Polish scientific conferences devoted to problems of higher education. The analysis focuses on two related issues: the intensity of the scientific and conference debate and its detailed subject matter. From a theoretical point of view, scientific conferences have been included as an element of the dispositif of the university, a discursive system that combines strong regulatory processes with interpretive multiplicity and openness (Maeße & Hamann, 2016; Angermuller, 2010). The results of the study showed: 1) a limited share of scientific conferences in the debate on the reform of higher education, 2) their thematic consolidation, and 3) formations of pedagogization, economization, metaphorization and ethicalization of knowledge about the university as part of conference discourse.

Filosofija. Sociologija

The article consists of two major parts: theoretical-methodological and empirical. It begins with... more The article consists of two major parts: theoretical-methodological and empirical. It begins with introducing the theoretical background of Foucault’s confessing society concept. The concept explores the functional relationship between academic discourse and confession the aim of which is to acquire data, information and knowledge about the characteristics and states of the subjects. The second part of the paper presents the results of the analysis of ‘the practices of confession’ in the current academic discourse in Poland. The empirical material comprises texts published in the monthly periodical Forum Akademickie. The studies provided answers to four fundamental questions: Who confesses? What is the object of confession? What is the form of the confession? Who/what encourages the confession? In conclusion, the authors reflect on what kind of ‘truth’ about the university is produced by academic confessions. The study shows that academic discourse co-creates the ‘culture of confess...

Higher Education Research & Development

This article presents the results of an analysis of hierarchization strategies in public debate o... more This article presents the results of an analysis of hierarchization strategies in public debate over unemployment among university graduates. The aim of the investigation was to grasp the way that discourse controls interact with one another to produce and reinforce a particular ‘truth’ about the university. The objects of our analysis were the ways of identifying the following places by the media actors: (a) the privileged positions from which the truth of a given social order is told and within which the common good may be expressed, and (b) the positions which are opposed to the latter and from which only a particular interest and ‘populist’ demands can be articulated. These two categories in the debate were successively filled by the following groups: entrepreneurs (bearing witness to the truth about the low level of instruction at universities) and the representatives of the social sciences and humanities defending themselves against these accusations. The diversity of argumentative strategies was revealed at the three levels of the order of discourse: hierarchization of responsibility, hierarchization of access to the truth, and hierarchization of interests.

Filosofija. Sociologija

Nauka i Szkolnictwo Wyższe

W artykule przedstawiono wyniki analizy strategii hierarchizacji wypowiedzi publicznych, które po... more W artykule przedstawiono wyniki analizy strategii hierarchizacji wypowiedzi publicznych, które pojawiły się w debacie medialnej na temat bezrobocia wśród absolwentów szkół wyższych. Celem badań było uchwycenie sposobu, w jaki procedury kontroli dyskursu, które zostały wprowadzone do debaty publicznej na temat szkolnictwa wyższego w Polsce, wchodzą ze sobą w interakcje, tworząc i wzmacniając szczególną „prawdę” o uniwersytecie. Przedmiotem analizy były sposoby identyfikacji przez aktorów medialnych następujących miejsc: a) uprzywilejowane pozycje, z których mówi się prawdę o danym porządku społecznym i w których można wyrazić dobro wspólne oraz b) pozycje, które są przeciwne do tych pierwszych, z których można wyartykułować jedynie szczególne zainteresowanie i żądania „populistyczne”. Te dwie kategorie w debacie były kolejno wypełniane przez następujące grupy: przedsiębiorców (zaświadczających o niskim poziomie edukacji na uniwersytetach) oraz przedstawicieli nauk społecznych i human...

Filozoficzne Problemy Edukacji, 2020

In the article, using general theses based on specific empirical research, I present the multifa... more In the article, using general theses based on specific empirical research, I present the multifaceted phenomenon of the pedagogization of life and social problems. I deal with the questions posed by discursive educational studies and, looking from its perspective, I describe selected discursive mechanisms of society, which I refer to as the society of pedagogy.

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 2020

The article presents results of research into the media debate on education in the context of hig... more The article presents results of research into the media debate on education in the context of higher education reform in Poland. The body of press materials comprised 884 texts. The theoretical basis included critical and post-Foucauldian discourse analysis. The study revealed five themes: (1) mechanisms of economic thematization; (2) expanding the narrative of the threat to education; (3) retention of ‘factories of the unemployed’ discourse; (4) recruiting the voice of entrepreneurs; (5) ontological work of the ‘copular’ metaphor that education is economics. Potentially contradictory logics of pedagogization and economization of discourse were publicly identified and consolidated toward integration of discursive strategies and semiotic reworking of the crisis in higher education.

Filozofia edukacji, 2019

What is considered in the article are the post-Foucauldian studies of the gouvernementalité and ... more What is considered in the article are the post-Foucauldian studies of the gouvernementalité and their methodologies as viewed in two aspects: the research perspective and analytical strategies. Consequently, the article consists of two main parts. In the first part, the gouvernementalité is discussed as a characteristic research perspective, which assumes a close relation between power transformation and knowledge development. Thus, the general aim of the studies in that perspective is pursuing the relations between the formations of knowledge, power, and subject. In the second part of the article, two analytical strategies, used in the empirical research of the gouvernemen-talité are indicated: the ethnographical one and the dispositive one. The researchers' preferences for the categories of the analysis of the gouvernementalité practices are adopted as the basis for the distinction between the two. At the end of the article, the author puts forward her own proposal for a theoretical / analytical research model in the dispositif strategy.

Educational Philosophy and Theory , 2020

The article presents the results of an analysis of the academic dispute about the scholarly ethos... more The article presents the results of an analysis of the academic dispute about the scholarly ethos, conducted at the time of intense higher education reforms in Poland. Previous analyses of the academic debate on the change of the traditional university towards its entrepreneurial organization emphasize the polarization, that is, the criticism or affirmation of neoliberal reforms. The presented research proves that this discourse loses its dichotomous power when it focuses on ethical issues. The analysis shows the ‘polyvalence’ and ‘strategic integration’ of discourse in the Foucauldian sense of the terms. Firstly, the issue of the traditional scholarly ethos is clearly present both among the opponents and supporters of the current changes in higher education. Secondly, both critical and affirmative discourses refer to the traditional ethos, i.e. they do not attempt to develop any new ethopoiesis, which may be surprising especially in the case of the latter. Instead, they use a ‘peculiar reversal’, pointing to factors located outside the university and yet affecting academic standards. Thirdly, individual attributes of the traditional ethos are taken over by neoliberal discourse, which modifies them and adjusts them to its own purposes. The term ‘ethicalization’ of higher education reform describes ethical problematizations of the contemporary university transformation.

Media Mass Communication, 2014

The main purpose of the paper is to outline a research perspective and findings obtained from pre... more The main purpose of the paper is to outline a research perspective and findings obtained from preliminary analysis of some selected manifestations of pedagogization in media discourse. The analysis -based on the Foucauldian method of problematization -is concerned with some selected texts (newspapers, magazines and the reality show "Strict parents") which problematize occurrences related to youth with the term "stressless upbringing'. First of all, the article is meant to encourage posing further questions about the manifestations, types and consequences of the process of pedagogization in media discourse.

Culture – Society – Education, 2017

The article consists of two major parts. Part one is devoted to the reconstruction of the relatio... more The article consists of two major parts. Part one is devoted to
the reconstruction of the relationships between the domain of
discourse and the domain of education in the semantic field
of the term “educational discourse”. Based on the analysis
of two types of sources (empirical research and the lexicon
of contemporary pedagogics), a constellation of functional,
thematic, genre and ontological links is shown. In the second
part of the article, a reflection on the last of the approach is
developed. Referring to Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de
France in 1979-1980 period, the potential of the category of
alethurgy and confession as research instruments of pedagogy
and discursive practice is shown.

Przegląd socjologii Jakościowej, 2019

Tekst jest efektem ukierunkowanego odczytania książki zredagowanej przez Marka Czyżewskiego, Mich... more Tekst jest efektem ukierunkowanego odczytania książki zredagowanej przez Marka Czyżewskiego, Michała Otrockiego, Tomasza Piekota i Jerzego Stachowiaka pt. Analiza dyskursu publicznego. Przegląd metod i perspektyw badawczych na tle rozważań o potrzebie rozwijania problematyzującej kultury badawczej. W kontekście innych prac z zakresu metodologii badań nad dyskursem, autorka eseju koncentruje się na dydaktycznej użyteczności publikacji, mapując wybrane elementy wiedzy metodologicznej. Szczególnie dużo miejsca poświęca problematyce i modelom analitycznym w badaniach nad dyskursem publicznym oraz identyfikacji celów i przedmiotów zainteresowań charakterystycznych dla zaprezentowanych w książce perspektyw badawczych.

Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 2019

In this article, we discuss various issues regarding the contemporary reform of science and highe... more In this article, we discuss various issues regarding the contemporary reform of science and higher education in Poland, which are constructed and sustained by academics in media discourse. In the performed analyses we refer to the critical and post-Foucauldian studies on the discursive aspects of change in higher education. We propose that the connections between discursive factors, events and social changes be crystallized in the processes of their media problematization. In the space of public discourse and in the forms of the problematization of the reform of higher education, we sought the knowledge, concepts and classification rules that set the discursive framework of the change experienced by the academic community. The research has shown that this framework goes beyond the polarization of positions, that is, beyond the criticism or affirmation of neoliberal reforms. On the basis of the performed analyses we reconstructed three types of internally diversified and non-dichotomic discourses: the status quo discourse, the discourse of the imponderables of change, and the discourse of reform evaluation. Taking Poland as a case study, the article includes a discourse analysis formed at the national level in respect of the key objectives laid down at the European level.

The article consists of two major parts: theoretical-methodological and empirical. It begins with... more The article consists of two major parts: theoretical-methodological and empirical. It begins with introducing the theoretical background of Foucault's confessing society concept. The concept explores the functional relationship between academic discourse and confession the aim of which is to acquire data, information and knowledge about the characteristics and states of the subjects. The second part of the paper presents the results of the analysis of 'the practices of confession' in the current academic discourse in Poland. The empirical material comprises texts published in the monthly periodical Forum Akademickie. The studies provided answers to four fundamental questions: Who confesses? What is the object of confession? What is the form of the con-fession? Who/what encourages the confession? In conclusion, the authors reflect on what kind of 'truth' about the university is produced by academic confessions. The study shows that academic discourse co-creates the 'culture of confession' in public statements about the Academics' biographies, choices and career plans, by revealing the 'secrets' of scientific work. The mechanisms of the production of 'the truth' about university work in two areas: in the relation of scientists to society and in relations between the Academics.

Higher Education Research & Development, 2018

This article presents the results of an analysis of hierarchization strategies in public debate o... more This article presents the results of an analysis of hierarchization
strategies in public debate over unemployment among university
graduates. The aim of the investigation was to grasp the way that
discourse controls interact with one another to produce and
reinforce a particular ‘truth’ about the university. The objects of
our analysis were the ways of identifying the following places by
the media actors: (a) the privileged positions from which the truth
of a given social order is told and within which the common good
may be expressed, and (b) the positions which are opposed to the
latter and from which only a particular interest and ‘populist’
demands can be articulated. These two categories in the debate
were successively filled by the following groups: entrepreneurs
(bearing witness to the truth about the low level of instruction at
universities) and the representatives of the social sciences and
humanities defending themselves against these accusations. The
diversity of argumentative strategies was revealed at the three
levels of the order of discourse: hierarchization of responsibility,
hierarchization of access to the truth, and hierarchization of
interests.

Agnieszka Cybal-Michalska (pedagogika młodzieży i kultury, socjologia edukacji) Jarema Drozdowicz... more Agnieszka Cybal-Michalska (pedagogika młodzieży i kultury, socjologia edukacji) Jarema Drozdowicz (antropologia edukacji, antropologia kultury) Agnieszka Gromkowska-Melosik (edukacja wielokulturowa) Magdalena Grzywacz (nauki o kulturze) Daria Hejwosz-Gromkowska (pedagogika ogólna, pedagogika zdrowia) Witold Jakubowski (pedagogika kultury i mediów, andragogika) Barbara Jankowiak (pedagogika zdrowia, psychologia społeczna) Ewa Karmolińska-Jagodzik (pedagogika ogólna, pedagogika młodzieży) Karolina Kuryś-Szyncel (pedagogika opiekuńczo-wychowawcza) Jerzy Luty (estetyka, filozofia sztuki) Agata Matysiak-Błaszczyk (pedagogika społeczna) Zbyszko Melosik (socjologia edukacji, pedagogika porównawcza) Pavel Mühlpachr (pedagogika specjalna, pedagogika społeczna) Janice Myck-Wayne (pedagogika specjalna) Joanna Ostrouch-Kamińska (socjologia edukacji i rodziny, pedagogika społeczna) Magdalena Piorunek (pedagogika pracy, pedagogika społeczna) Winfried Schubarth (teoria wychowania i socjalizacji) Katarzyna Segiet (pedagogika społeczna, pedagogika dziecka) Waldemar Segiet (pedagogika opiekuńczo-wychowawcza) Andreas Seidel (teoria wychowania i socjalizacji) Dorota Smetanová (pedagogika resocjalizacyjna) Kristin K. Stang (pedeutologia) Lidia Suchanek (edukacja artystyczna) Alena Valisova (pedagogika specjalna) Cristina Maria Coimbra Vieira (psychologia edukacji, edukacja dorosłych) Katarzyna Waszyńska (psychologia społeczna, pedagogika zdrowia) Eva Zamojska (pedagogika ogólna, edukacja międzykulturowa) REDAKTORZY JĘZYKOWI Katarzyna Kabacińska-Łuczak (Polish) Marianna Waters (English) REDAKTOR STATYSTYCZNY Mirosław Krzyśko © Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, Poznań 2017 Publikacja sfinansowana przez Wydział Studiów Edukacyjnych Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu

The Qualitative Report, 2020

The Dispositif of the University Reform

Przegląd Badań Edukacyjnych

Filosofija. Sociologija

Higher Education Research & Development

Filosofija. Sociologija

Nauka i Szkolnictwo Wyższe

Filozoficzne Problemy Edukacji, 2020

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 2020

Filozofia edukacji, 2019

Educational Philosophy and Theory , 2020

Media Mass Communication, 2014

Culture – Society – Education, 2017

Przegląd socjologii Jakościowej, 2019

Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 2019

The article consists of two major parts: theoretical-methodological and empirical. It begins with... more The article consists of two major parts: theoretical-methodological and empirical. It begins with introducing the theoretical background of Foucault's confessing society concept. The concept explores the functional relationship between academic discourse and confession the aim of which is to acquire data, information and knowledge about the characteristics and states of the subjects. The second part of the paper presents the results of the analysis of 'the practices of confession' in the current academic discourse in Poland. The empirical material comprises texts published in the monthly periodical Forum Akademickie. The studies provided answers to four fundamental questions: Who confesses? What is the object of confession? What is the form of the con-fession? Who/what encourages the confession? In conclusion, the authors reflect on what kind of 'truth' about the university is produced by academic confessions. The study shows that academic discourse co-creates the 'culture of confession' in public statements about the Academics' biographies, choices and career plans, by revealing the 'secrets' of scientific work. The mechanisms of the production of 'the truth' about university work in two areas: in the relation of scientists to society and in relations between the Academics.

Higher Education Research & Development, 2018

This article presents the results of an analysis of hierarchization strategies in public debate o... more This article presents the results of an analysis of hierarchization
strategies in public debate over unemployment among university
graduates. The aim of the investigation was to grasp the way that
discourse controls interact with one another to produce and
reinforce a particular ‘truth’ about the university. The objects of
our analysis were the ways of identifying the following places by
the media actors: (a) the privileged positions from which the truth
of a given social order is told and within which the common good
may be expressed, and (b) the positions which are opposed to the
latter and from which only a particular interest and ‘populist’
demands can be articulated. These two categories in the debate
were successively filled by the following groups: entrepreneurs
(bearing witness to the truth about the low level of instruction at
universities) and the representatives of the social sciences and
humanities defending themselves against these accusations. The
diversity of argumentative strategies was revealed at the three
levels of the order of discourse: hierarchization of responsibility,
hierarchization of access to the truth, and hierarchization of
interests.

Routledge, 2020

The Dispositif of the University Reform presents a discourse analysis about transformations in hi... more The Dispositif of the University Reform presents a discourse analysis about transformations in higher education in Poland. Combining Foucauldian categories of discourse, dispositif and governmentality with contemporary changes in the area of science and higher education, it proposes an analysis of power in close connection with the development of knowledge.

The book researches the tradition built on the works of Michel Foucault, one of the most prominent and inspiring researchers for the contemporary humanities. It introduces the Polish context to the international debate on higher education transformations and the reception of Foucauldian categories in social research. In addition, it presents the original concept of the dispositif of the reform as a heuristic model of describing and explaining the practice of regulating academic life and education policy.

Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2019

Opisywany w książce dyskursywny obraz reformy szkolnictwa wyższego jest efektem badań prowadzonyc... more Opisywany w książce dyskursywny obraz reformy szkolnictwa wyższego jest efektem badań prowadzonych w ramach interdyscyplinarnego projektu badawczego pt. „Urządzanie uniwersytetu – dyskursywny obraz współczesnej reformy szkolnictwa wyższego w Polsce”, finansowanego z grantu Narodowego Centrum Nauki w latach 2015-2019. Monografia prezentuje analizy skupione na rekonstrukcji: 1) głównych uczestników debaty publicznej i aktorów obecnych w dyskursie o reformie szkolnictwa wyższego w Polsce, zarówno w jego prasowej, jak i naukowej, i popularnonaukowej odmianie; 2) powierzchni wyłaniania się różnych przedmiotów dyskursu o reformie i regularności w obrębie wypowiedzi, które przecinają w poprzek instytucjonalne konteksty wypowiedzi: dyskursy nauki, rządu i mediów.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

This book presents the original concept of the ‘dispositif of age’, combining post-Foucauldian an... more This book presents the original concept of the ‘dispositif of age’, combining post-Foucauldian analytics of the dispositif, discourse and governmentality with the historical semantics of Reinhart Koselleck to explore the functions of the notion of youth in the regulation of social life. Making use of examples from sources including scientific and media statements, youth policy programmes, and strategies at international (European) and local (Polish) levels, the author shows how this concept of youth supports processes of social regulation and contributes to the implementation of political goals as specific responses to issues such as radicalization and violence, unemployment, and economic crisis. This book will be of interest not only to scholars of discourse and youth studies, but also to all post-Foucauldian researchers with an interest in going beyond simple 'applicationism'

Analiza dyskursu w badaniach szkolnictwa wyższego, 2018

Komunikowanie publiczne powinno nas obchodzić. To w tym obszarze społeczeństwo może debatować i d... more Komunikowanie publiczne powinno nas obchodzić. To w tym obszarze społeczeństwo może debatować i dochodzić do porozumienia. Może formować swoje poglądy, poszukiwać właściwych słów i gestów, wyrażać zbiorową wolę i wywierać nacisk na władzę. Może odnaleźć swój obraz własny, wytworzyć powszechnie dostępne środowisko kultury oraz wielkie, wspólne symbole. Te dążenia stają się tym donioślejsze, im trudniej je spełnić. Interdyscyplinarna seria wydawnicza Biblioteka Dyskursu Publicznego chce pytać o uwarunkowania, właściwości, społeczne oddziaływanie oraz jakość publicznego dyskursu, formułować diagnozę stanu rzeczy oraz proponować praktyczne wskazówki, spierać się o wizję przyszłości, a także pielęgnować zainteresowania teoretyczne i metodologiczne. Publicznie i pro publico bono.