The Governmentalization of Learning and the Assemblage of a Learning Apparatus

A bstract In this essay, Maarten Simons and Jan Masschelein reconsider the concepts “educationalization” and “the grammar of schooling” in the light of the overwhelming importance of “learning” today. Doubting whether these concepts and related historical‐analytical perspectives are still useful, the authors suggest the concept “learning apparatus” as a point of departure for an analysis of the “grammar of learning .” They draw on Michel Foucault’s analysis of governmentality to describe how learning has become a matter of both government and self‐government. In describing the governmentalization of learning and the current assemblage of a ”learning apparatus,” Simons and Masschelein indicate how the concept of learning has become disconnected from education and teaching and has instead come to refer to a kind of capital , to something for which the learner is personally responsible, to something that can and should be managed , and to something that must be employable . Finally, the authors elaborate how these discourses combine to play a crucial role in contemporary advanced liberalism that seeks to promote entrepreneurship.