ABSTRACT

Through analysis of the relationship between neoliberalism, learner subjectivity, and flexible education, this paper examines the freedom said to be enabled by flexible education. It asks: What is the nature of such freedom, who does it make free, and in what ways? While flexible education is often framed to be liberatory in nature, especially when understood through the freedom to learn and study as one chooses or is able, the institutional assumptions around how one accommodates this education, the economic or logistic reasons one may be compelled to learn in such ways, and the consequent effects on subjectivity of learning in this way are rarely considered together. By laying bare the relationship between neoliberal forms of freedom (as the freedom to choose and the freedom to take responsibility for oneself), and the affordances of flexible education, this paper illuminates the productive nature of flexible education as a tool of governmentality that serves to regulate subjectivity and in fact delimit certain freedoms. Finally, this paper argues that in order for flexible education to better serve learners, normative forms of freedom must be questioned and historicized to support this work.

摘要

通过分析新自由主义，学习者主体性和灵活教育之间的关系，本文研究了据说由灵活教育实现的自由。它问：这种自由的本质是什么，它使谁自由，以及以什么方式？尽管灵活的教育通常被设计为具有解放性，特别是当通过选择或能够自由学习和学习的自由来理解时，围绕人如何适应这种教育的制度性假设，经济或后勤原因可能被迫学习这样，对这种学习方式的主体性的影响很少一起考虑。通过揭露新自由主义形式的自由（如选择的自由和对自己负责的自由）之间的关系，以及灵活教育的条件，本文阐明了灵活教育作为政府性工具的生产性质，该工具用于调节主体性并实际上划定了某些自由。最后，本文认为，为了使灵活的教育更好地为学习者服务，必须对自由的规范形式提出质疑并加以历史化以支持这项工作。