The subject of exemption: through discourses of normalization and individualization in Denmark

This article examines the constructions of the deviant subject in Danish Foucauldian educational research. Following the work of Foucault, we argue that the deviant subject, on the one hand, could be considered as a subject of exemption. In this case, exemption is deduced from Foucault’s understanding of the relation between normality and deviancy. On the other hand, an examination of Danish Foucauldian disability research shows that this conception of ‘the deviant subject’ has changed over time. Hence, the present expectations of ‘the disabled’ are – more or less – influenced by contemporary discourses of general education. Thus, this article argues that Foucauldian disability studies could benefit from taking into account Foucauldian research in the field of general education. Until recently, the two research fields have been mutually isolated

Differentiation of Students in the Early Danish Welfare State:Professional Entanglements Between Educational Psychologists and Psychiatrists

Historically, numerous contextual factors have influenced the practice of differentiating students. Scholars and practitioners consider it a context-sensitive practice subject to negotiations and entanglements among various agents, groups, interests, ideas, and values. Drawing on Foucault, this article pursues the practices, negotiations, and entanglements surrounding differentiation processes and IQ testing’s use in the early Danish welfare state. We argue that the differentiating practice of IQ testing in the Danish educational system resulted from various factors, including the increasing professionalisation of the educational system. This practice entailed an increased division of labour among professional groups; debates reflecting differing ideas about eugenics, heredity, and social equality; the schooling of psychologists and psychiatrists in Denmark; and the development of psychology and psychiatry as academic disciplines. In that sense, we will demonstrate that changes in society’s understanding of intelligence incorporating a greater use of environmental explanations can be said to reflect the emerging welfare society’s security mechanisms, and a willingness to cope with and address social inequality in an evolving and supposedly universalistic Danish welfare state