Education Research Quarterly

Awakening or adaptation? Reflections on the normalising role of truth in education from the perspective of the thought of michel foucault and simone de beauvoir

2025, 70, No. 3

Antonia Sochaczewska

0000-0002-2329-2777

University of Warsaw, Faculty of Education

University of Warsaw, Faculty of Education

DOI

10.31338/2657-6007.kp.2025-3.7

Publication date

18.12.2025

Publishing model

hybrid

License type

CC BY 4.0 Int.

Field

Social sciences

Discipline

educational sciences

Language of publication

Polish

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PDF 270 KB

Article

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Number of downloads:73

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Abstract

This article reconsiders the traditional understanding of 'awakening,' which in Western thought (from Plato’s allegory of the cave, through Kantian enlightenment, to the tradition of the Bildungsroman) is perceived as a linear path towards objective truth and liberation. Drawing upon the ideas of Michel Foucault and Simone de Beauvoir, the article argues that categories of both stable identity and absolute truth are not accessible to humans. Instead, 'awakening' is revealed not as an ultimate discovery of objective reality but as the transformation of one form of understanding into another, always conditioned and entangled in networks of power and dominant discourses, which has ethical consequences. The analysis presented in the article aims to demonstrate how attempts to 'enlighten' and 'form' can paradoxically lead to normalisation and new forms of subjugation, suppressing individual subjectivity and freedom. The text concludes with a question about the direction for a pedagogy that seeks to move beyond imposing conformity and to support individual human identity.

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