Foucault’s Panopticism and Its Application Within Modern Education Systems

Panopticism, a social theory based on Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and developed by Michel Foucault describes a disciplinary mechanism used in various aspects of society. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish discusses the development of discipline in Western society, looks in particularly at Bentham’s Panopticon and how it is a working example of how the theory is employed effectively. Foucault explains, in Discipline and Punish that ‘this book is intended as a correlative history of the modern soul and of a new power to judge’ (Foucault, 1977) and opens with accounts of public execution and torture revealing how law and order is created because of the shift from these to prison rules and discipline. Foucault describes the quarantining and ‘strict spatial partitioning’ (Foucault, 1977, p195) employed during the plague which, to a certain extent , ‘provided the model for and general form of the great Confinement’ (Foucault, 1977, p198), a period during the late 1600s, during which many ‘houses of correction’ were built. These ‘houses’ were built for characters such as ‘beggars, vagabonds, madmen and the disorderly’ (Foucault, 1977, p199) to all be thrown together, away from the population. This suppressing of the problem was unsuccessful, as the insane affected the sane and the lazy affected the active, and so asylums were created, where the insane were treated as children, along with a shift in forms of discipline; from the physical to the mental. This leads through to his discussion of the Panopticon building.

The Panopticon is a building which has a tower in the middle, from which it is possible to observe every cell, but within which you cannot be seen by the inhabitants of the cell, nor can they see or communicate with inhabitants...

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