Techniques of Power: Performance Pay Systems and the Network of School Power Relations.

摘要

As decades pass, new rounds of educational discussion surrounding teacher pay emerge calling for alternative compensation based on performance indicators. While much of the research on this latest iteration of performance pay, inspired by the presidential initiatives No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, focuses on teacher attitudes and public perceptions, structures and types of compensation systems, and actual impacts on student achievement, little research explores the inner functioning of how performance pay systems operate. Specifically what is needed is an analysis of how power is defined and woven into the conversation around performance pay. Using qualitative research techniques, this research study presents a discourse analysis of the Minnesota Alternative Teacher Performance Pay System, examining how the techniques of power described by French philosopher, Michel Foucault, are structured to enhance the overall power networks within school districts and maximize the efficiencies of a system in achieving its goals.;Key words: power, discourse analysis, Foucault, distributed leadership, neoliberalism, teacher performance pay.