The promise of uncertainty: Education, postmodernism and the politics of possibility

Abstract

This article is set in the context of current moves in British education policy towards a fixed concept of 'what works' and a questionable certainty about 'best practice'. The author explores the value of postmodern thinking in challenging these state-endorsed certainties and in opening up new possibilities for research, critique and practice. She identifies four key areas of educational authority to which postmodernism offers a significant challenge: the authority of power/knowledge; the authority of models of learning; the authority of identity; and the authority of language. The author identifies recent work in a postmodern frame which challenges these authorities, and outlines current educational contexts in which postmodern thinking has a valuable contribution to make. In conclusion, she suggests that postmodernism opens a new window on the politics of possibility, offering one of the most powerful contemporary radical approaches to inquiry and critique available to the sociology of education.