Performative Technology Intensity and Teacher Subjectivities

Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research
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Performative Technology Intensity and Teacher

Subjectivities
Hans Englund, Magnus Frostenson & Kristina S. Beime
To cite this article: Hans Englund, Magnus Frostenson & Kristina S. Beime (2019) Performative
Technology Intensity and Teacher Subjectivities, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research,
63:5, 725-743, DOI: 10.1080/00313831.2018.1434825
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SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
2019, VOL. 63, NO. 5, 725–743
https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2018.1434825
Performative Technology Intensity and Teacher Subjectivities

Hans Englund, Magnus Frostenson and Kristina S. Beime
Örebro University School of Business, Örebro, Sweden
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Critical educational literature suggests that an increased reliance upon Received 8 February 2017
neoliberally inspired management technologies transforms the very Accepted 27 December 2017
foundations from which images of the ideal teacher are constructed.
KEYWORDS
The purpose of this paper is to add to this literature by (i) identifying Performative technology;
and analysing a number of theoretical qualities associated with intensity; subjectivizing;
performative technologies, and (ii) discussing how such qualities teacher
contribute to the emergence of performative teacher subjectivities.
Drawing upon the findings from a qualitative interview study into the
extensive use of performative technologies in a Swedish upper-
secondary school, we discuss four key roles of performative technologies
—referred to as territorializing, mediating, adjudicating, and subjectivizing
—and the intensity by which they play out such roles. A key conclusion
is that the intensity by which performative technologies territorialize,
mediate, and adjudicate educational practices affects self-reflection and
internalization among teachers and, hence, is important for
understanding the subjectivizing role of performative technologies.
Introduction
There is a large and growing literature on performativity in the educational sector (see, e.g., Ball,
2016; Clarke, 2013; Jeffrey & Troman, 2012; Katsuno, 2016; Löfgren, 2015; Moore & Clarke,
2016). A general argument in this literature is that the neoliberal reforms currently sweeping across
the educational sector are firmly rooted in a logic that reduces all forms of judgement to the criterion
of efficiency of input–output relations, namely, the logic of performativity (Lyotard, 1984). That is,
under the pretence of improving national economic status and the social wellbeing of their popu-
lations, governments across the globe are going through with various educational reforms and pol-
icies to render the educational sector more efficient. This ongoing trend is largely based on “a
market-based approach that encourages performance-based activity” and, importantly, works largely
through displaying and managing “the performances of individual subjects” (Jeffrey & Troman,
2012, p. i).
As suggested by Jeffrey and Troman (2012), and others (e.g., Clapham, 2013; Katsuno, 2016; Page,
2016, 2017a; Priestley, Robinson, & Biesta, 2012), such efforts to display the performances of indi-
vidual teachers—so that in the end they may be managed and controlled in particular ways—have
heightened interest in the management technologies by which highly contextual and situated teach-
ing activities may be rendered visible also for those who do not (regularly) take part in such activities
(including head teachers, administrators, and politicians). In the educational sector, such technol-
ogies take the form of, for example, lesson observations, student voices, school inspections,
CONTACT Hans Englund hans.englund@oru.se Örebro University School of Business, SE-701 82 Örebro, Sweden
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
726 H. ENGLUND ET AL.
performance-related pay, and rankings (cf. Katsuno, 2016; Page, 2015, 2016; Troman, 2008; Wilkins,
Busher, Kakos, Mohamed, & Smith, 2012).
A well-rehearsed argument in the critical educational literature is that an increased reliance upon
such neoliberally inspired technologies will not only dramatically transform the educational land-
scape as such but also the very foundations from which images of the ideal teacher may be con-
structed. In fact, and often with a rather sharp vocabulary, it is claimed that these technologies
constitute a form of ideological assault on the primary nature of education (Smyth, 2006; Tang,
2011) based on which they tend to take possession of (Meng, 2009) and terrorize the cognitive
soul of teachers (Ball, 2003). In short, it is suggested that they have an ability to colonize, suppress,
and devalue professional life (Liew, 2012; Perryman, 2006; Wilkins, 2015), to the extent that they
result in performative teachers (see, e.g., Jeffrey & Troman, 2011; Wilkins, 2011); teachers, that is,
who are not who they are but what they perform (Ball, 2003; Bryan & Revell, 2011; Lewis &
Hardy, 2015; Wang, Lai, & Lo, 2014), and who become highly instrumental (Troman, 2008),
enterprising (Sachs, 2001), individualistic (Helgøy & Homme, 2007), and success-oriented
(Wilkins, 2011).
While we are largely sympathetic to this critical research agenda, we also acknowledge that some
studies testify to a considerably more complex relationship between performative technologies and
the construction of performative teachers (see, e.g., Leonard & Roberts, 2014); a relationship that in
practice seems to suggest that performative technologies do not necessarily constitute monolithic
forces that transform everything in their way but, rather, may work in largely different ways and
have different impacts. Based on this, we believe we are in want of further studies that more explicitly
direct attention to how performative technologies may contribute to the construction of teachers as
performative subjects—here, referred to as teacher subjectivities. Such studies, we argue, require that
the black box of the performative technologies as such is opened up and that a larger interest is taken
in what it is about these technologies that makes them so powerful and transformative in the edu-
cational sector.
This paper is an attempt to provide such insights. Its purposes are: (i) to identify and analyse a
number of theoretical qualities associated with performative technologies, and (ii) to discuss how
such qualities in turn contribute to the emergence of performative teacher subjectivities. We do
so by means of introducing and further elaborating a theoretical framework developed by Miller
and Power (2013) to discuss how performative technologies work to territorialize, mediate, adjudi-
cate, and subjectivize that of which they speak. More specifically, we discuss how performative tech-
nologies (in this case illustrated by a particular technology referred to as the customer satisfaction
index) constitute educational activities in particular ways as a means of rendering them visible (cf.
territorializing). Furthermore, we show how such territorializing is an important prerequisite for
how performative technologies allow different educational activities to be linked to other arenas,
actors, and ideas (cf. mediation), which, in turn, constitutes an important prerequisite for their evalu-
ation and judgement (cf. adjudication). Going beyond the original framework by Miller and Power
(2013), we also identify a number of conditions under which each of these three qualities become
particularly intense (referred to here as the territorializing, mediating, and adjudicating intensities
of performative technologies), and illustrate how they may be particularly important for understand-
ing the construction of particular teacher subjectivities (cf. subjectivizing).
Performative Technologies as Territorializing, Mediating, Adjudicating, and

Subjectivizing Devices
Performative technologies (such as performance indicators, standards, rankings, and audits) are
often seen as tools for measuring the achievements of schools, teacher groups, or individual teachers.
That is, they are seen as devices for measuring the extent to which schools achieve what they (alleg-
edly) aim for, or the extent to which significant or cherished goals are realized, regardless of whether
such goals refer to quality, equality, integration, integrity, justice, or something else. As argued in the
SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 727
literature, there are various reasons explaining why these tools have become so popular in edu-
cational (and other) settings. The premise is—at least in the mainstream literature—that they
may play many different roles in making contemporary schooling more efficient and effective; for
example, through allowing evaluation, facilitating control, creating incentives, propelling motivation,
and supporting learning (see, e.g., Behn, 2003; Forrester, 2011).
Miller and Power (2013) take a somewhat different stance. Seen from a more critical point of view,
they suggest four different roles (or functions) that provide insights into how performative technol-
ogies not only come to serve such traditional managerial purposes but also performative ones (where
performative refers to how the technologies come to constitute, or perform, the objects of which they
speak). Importantly, while Miller and Power discuss the four roles as largely separate, we see them as
interrelated (a point that will be further elaborated in our analyses of the empirical material, and also
in the concluding sections).
The first role is termed territorializing, which refers to how performative technologies make up
the very territories that they are said to represent. The premise is that performative technologies
do not simply measure or visualize pre-existing performances; they do not simply uncover some
sort of pre-existing qualities of teachers or schools. Rather, they are recursive in the sense that
they presuppose but also constitute the very territories they are said to represent. From such a per-
spective, the establishment of, for example, “teaching quality” in a questionnaire is as much about
bringing into being as it is about measuring or representing quality per se. The argument underlying
this role is that performative technologies work through reconfiguring the domains in which they are
active into numbers. And, as suggested by Miller and Power (2013) and others (e.g., Bauman & Lyon,
2013; Liew, 2012), while this presupposes that things (like “teaching quality”) that are essentially
complex, related, and different are reduced into one and the same format (that of numbers), such
reductions also allow them to be recontextualized in various ways. And importantly, once recontex-
tualized (for example by means of other numbers or existing narratives), the contours of a particular
territory may be performed in ways that were not necessarily pre-existing.
As suggested by the territorializing role, one important reason for transforming educational set-
tings into numbers is that this enables them to be related to each other. Put differently, it enables
them to be mediated, where mediation refers to the ability of numbers to create links between, for
example, actors, their aspirations, and different arenas (Miller & Power, 2013). Miller and Power dis-
cern two important aspects of how this is manifested. First, and again, through quantification per-
formative technologies create calculable spaces in which numbers (representing, for example, the
performances of different teachers) may be related to each other through calculation. And, it is
through such calculations (i.e., through addition/subtraction, the calculation of means and distri-
butions, etc.) that performances from different times and spaces may be linked to each other; that
is, they become linked to each other through the ways in which individual numbers are made
part of a larger whole (such as a sum, a deviance, a mean, etc.). Second, the mediating role of per-
formative technologies not only allows concrete objects, activities, and actors to be related to each
other, but also for these to be related to more abstract ideas and rationales. The premise is that
the very reduction of a particular domain into numbers not only makes it calculable, but in fact
also reframes the very domain in a way that makes it amenable to different discourses and narratives,
including those of the market and economic rationality (Miller & Power, 2013). That is, it allows for
everyday educational practices—even the most mundane and taken-for-granted ones—to be linked
to ideologically grounded programmes and ideas.
Adjudication constitutes the third role, which refers to how performative technologies responsi-
bilize and, based on this, form the basis for evaluation and accountability (Miller & Power, 2013). As
hinted above, one important mechanism underlying adjudication relates to how performative tech-
nologies not only allow educational activities to be related to wider policies and programmes but also
effectuate them. Put differently, they “make it possible to articulate and operationalize abstract neo-
liberal concepts, such as notions of competitiveness, markets, efficiency and entrepreneurship”
(Mennicken & Miller, 2012, p. 7)—a form of articulation and operationalization that, due to the
ideological underpinnings of such notions, also forms the basis for adjudication and, hence, for
transformation and reconstitution of the educational domain. Another important mechanism
through which performative technologies construct normativity is through the ways in which
they, in themselves, make transparent educational activities in a particular format; a format that
lends itself particularly well to classification, comparison, differentiation, and hierarchization and,
hence, to relativizing and judging educational performances (cf. Foucault, 1977).
A fourth and final role in the Miller and Power (2013) framework refers to how performative
technologies tend to bring into being particular subjectivities. Such a subjectivizing role, they
argue, relates to how individuals, when assessed based on their individual performances (and
where they are also encouraged to assess these by themselves), tend to develop a form of calculating
self; that is, a self that is seen as an agent who is responsible for her own decisions and actions, and,
importantly, where these are perceived as calculable and comparable in relation to those of others or
some form of pre-established standard or norm. Importantly, this self is not in need of constant sur-
veillance, but rather, is kept in check by the mere fact that one may be audited and it is thus necessary
to keep track of one’s performances so that these may be provided as evidence of proper behaviour
(Miller & Power, 2013). The premise is that performative technologies create a form of internal, self-
regulating, control; a control that works through constantly constructing and conditioning what the
individual knows about herself, for example through informing her about suitable priorities and
visualizing the consequences of her actions. This form of surveillance has the ability to create
auto-regulatory effects as individuals reflexively monitor and act upon their own actions in accord-
ance with the images provided by performative technologies (Foucault, 1977; Miller & Power, 2013;
Robson, 1992).
Research Methods
Design
The findings reported in this article form part of a larger research project focusing on the reconstruc-
tion of the teaching profession in light of an increased use of performance technologies within the
educational sector. As part of the larger research project, we initially interviewed 10 principals from
primary and upper-secondary schools in mid-Sweden, for two main reasons. First, given that
research on performative technologies and teachers has mainly been conducted in non-Swedish con-
texts (primarily in Anglo-Saxon countries) we wanted to gain a general understanding of to what
extent performative technologies are actually used in Swedish schools. We also wanted to know
more about the particular technologies in use and how they are used. Second, the interviews also
had a more instrumental function in the project, namely, to identify one or more schools as possible
case studies for further inquiry. The premise was that we wanted access to a few educational settings
in which we could further explore the technologies in action.
A case study approach was deemed particularly relevant for this purpose as it would allow a more
in-depth exploration of how and why questions surrounding the technologies. Based on this, we
talked to the 10 principals about their views on what it means to be a “good teacher” in contemporary
schooling, the technologies that they have for controlling teachers (i.e., so as to become good or bet-
ter teachers), and how they use such technologies. In those cases where their stories caught our inter-
est (given our literature-based pre-understanding of performativity in the educational sector) we also
asked whether we could interview some of the teachers concerning these topics. It was through one
of these interviews that we identified our focal school (referred to here as A-school) as a case of par-
ticular interest.
A-school is a relatively small upper-secondary school, employing some 20 teachers plus a handful
of administrative staff. It is part of a private school group encompassing some 15 schools nationwide,
the group, in turn, belonging to one of the largest private education organizers in Sweden. Both the
words of the (then) principal during the first interview and the publicly marketed profile of the
school vindicated A-school’s belief in the significance and relevance of performative technologies.
Particularly striking was the emphasis on pupil voice; for example, the school’s webpage states:
“We listen to our pupils—through course evaluations, among other things. All pupils are allowed
to give feedback on what the teachers do well during the lessons and what they can improve.”
Apart from such course evaluations, a customer satisfaction index (CSI) was also claimed to be
an important technology for assessing teachers’ work achievements.
Empirical Material
During the spring and early autumn of 2015, interviews were conducted with representatives from
A-school. As well as the principal (interviewed twice), we interviewed one assistant principal and
six teachers. The total number of interviews in A-school thus amounted to nine. The teachers and
the assistant principal were selected on the basis of recommendation, first by the principal, then by
the teachers who were first interviewed. These specific teachers were recommended because they
either had relatively lengthy experience or held some form of responsibility, for example as team
leader.
Even though the number of interviews was not high, we managed to include slightly less than
half of the teaching staff. The interviews were semi-structured, lasted between 60 and 90 minutes,
and were transcribed verbatim. Every interview was conducted jointly by two researchers. The
interviews followed the interview guide (see the Appendix) relatively closely; however, there was
no particular role distribution among the researchers, who were well acquainted with the interview
guide and took turns at asking questions. For practical reasons, one of the interviews was con-
ducted by telephone. During the interviews, teachers were allowed to talk relatively freely on
the different technologies used. Questions asked related mainly to the use of the technologies
and the teachers’ general understandings of themselves as teachers. In particular, they were
allowed to explain how the technologies affected their work and how they (and school manage-
ment) made use of them, the consequences, etc.
Along with the interviews we were allowed access to a number of documents. These included, for
example, CSI documents, course evaluation forms, and assessment templates used by the principal
during classroom visits. On the basis of these, we gained relatively close insights into the different
performance technologies in use, which made it possible for us to both ask more specific and
informed questions about particular instruments (such as the CSI) and to retrospectively make
sense of what was referred to during the interviews.
Analytical Procedures
Having completed the interviews, a more systematic analysis of the empirical material was con-
ducted. This followed a two-stage process. In the first stage we read and reread mostly the interview
transcripts on the basis of Miller and Power’s (2013) framework. This implied a coding structure
where territorializing, mediation, adjudication, and subjectivation were used as over-arching cat-
egories for sorting of the empirical material. We analyzed each interview separately, and sorted
the interview data into these four categories, if applicable. This made it possible to identify issues
such as how the technologies created a particular form of image of what it meant to be a “good tea-
cher” in A-school (cf. territorializing), and how such images, in turn, allowed individual teachers and
their performances to be compared (cf. mediation) and evaluated (cf. adjudication). For example, a
quotation like the following illustrates how performative technologies territorialized teacher per-
formances (see also below):
We have these course evaluations, the Customer Satisfaction Index, the Employee Satisfaction Index, and then
we have the classroom observations and assessment for learning, and of course you can do your own course
evaluations. … But it’s hard to measure this profession because it’s very complex, you do a lot of different
things.
Put differently, we could see in the material how a complex professional activity was reduced to
numbers and how such numbers, in turn, came to define the activity of teaching in a very particular
way. During this work, we also went through the documents most frequently referred to during
interviews, both as a means of understanding how individual teachers made sense of the technologies
and to deepen our understanding of the technologies as such. In the latter sense, our more systematic
reading of, for example, the CSI allowed us to fill in gaps from the interviews related to items that
seemed to define a “good teacher”, the form of compilations that the quantitative questionnaires
resulted in, the comparisons made, etc.
Overall, these procedures allowed us to identify and systematize how the more general roles
suggested by Miller and Power (2013) came into play within A-school (and also through which tech-
nologies they came into play). This approach can be seen as deductive in the sense that we departed
from a general framework and tried to find how it worked in a particular setting.
In the second stage of the analysis, we made a more explorative and open-ended analysis of the
material. The reason for this was that during the first stage of our analysis—i.e., when we attempted
to more or less apply the general framework to the particular context of A-school—a new theme
emerged in the empirical material that related to the intensity by which performative technologies
seemed to play out the different roles. Initially, this theme emerged in relation to the territorializing
role. In fact, when talking to teachers about how their performances were mirrored and evaluated, it
became evident that performative technologies not only affect teachers in relation to the type of rep-
resentations provided but also affect how such representations are used (such as how, when, where,
and by whom they are mobilized in different contexts). Importantly, though, as our purpose was
directed towards the technologies per se and their qualities (rather than how they are actually
used), we searched for those particular qualities of the technologies that would allow such mobiliz-
ations in different contexts. After having identified such qualities for the territorializing role, we went
back to the material related to the other roles (i.e., to mediation and adjudication) and made similar
searches for the qualities that—apart from the ones already identified by Miller and Power (2013)—
seemed to intensify the subjectivizing effects of performative technologies.
Importantly, though, as our empirical material only covered the actual configuration of performa-
tive technologies and their use in A-school, we could not search for or identify the non-occurrence of
such intensifying qualities (let alone compare our identified qualities with their absences). On the
contrary, our analysis was characterized by what Bazeley (2013) refers to as contiguities in context,
whereby relationships are identified based on how things are related in particular contexts (rather
than how they may correlate in different contexts). Consequently, rather than just identifying
how the performative technologies worked to territorialize, mediate, and adjudicate the educational
setting in A-school, we systematically searched for utterances and expressions in which teachers
(both manifestly and latently) linked the technologies and their qualities to how they constructed
themselves as teachers. To exemplify, consider the following quotation from one of the teachers:
These [course] evaluations, they affect me because I want to perform well. Yes, I want my pupils to do good, but
I also want to be considered a good teacher and I want to keep up with the wage trend at the school, and then of
course I feel the pressure and stress. It’s hard to get an evaluation that doesn’t look good.
Again, based on this and similar expressions, we could not only identify how teacher subjectiva-
tion could be related to the other roles (i.e., territorializing, mediating, and adjudicating), but also to
some of the qualities that make such roles particularly intense (such as, for example, a relative form
of adjudication expressed in and through the performance-related salary system). For an overview of
the emerging findings related to the notion of performative technology intensity.
Since the interviews contained personal opinions about the functionality and desirability of per-
formative technologies, specific ethical concerns included anonymity of each respondent and the
school under study. Another concern relating to the documents that we were allowed to see was
that no individual scores or rankings should be exposed. We were, thus, given the documents with-
out information about the results of each teacher.
Performativity in A-school
The results emerging from our analysis of the empirical material are divided into two main parts. In
the first part we outline a key feature of the educational setting in A-school, namely, the notion of
pupils as customers—a notion that highlights the importance of (always) taking into account, and
also adapting to, the interests and needs of the pupils. It means that those performative technologies
that give pupils a voice on various issues and concerns are put centre stage. For reasons of simplicity
and space, we focus on one of these performative technologies below, namely, the CSI. In the second
part, we illustrate and discuss how the CSI may be understood as a technology that territorializes,
mediates, adjudicates, and subjectivizes educational practices, on the one hand, and the intensity
with which it does so, on the other hand.
The Performative Culture of A-school: Viewing the Pupil as a Customer who is Always
Right
A-school is part of a Swedish school system that has been substantially reformed over recent decades
(for thorough accounts of these reforms, see Lundahl, Erixon Arreman, Lundström, & Rönnberg,
2010; Stenlås, 2009). Of particular interest here is how such reforms have contributed to a form
of marketization of the school system (e.g., Holm & Lundström, 2011; Lundahl, Erixon Arreman,
Holm, & Lundström, 2013). In fact, following the free school choice reform and the establishment
of a number of new schools and education organizers, a market for school choice has emerged (e.g.,
Erixon Arreman & Holm, 2011; Lundström & Parding, 2011; Lundahl et al., 2013). The voucher sys-
tem has been important in this sense, implying that schools—regardless of whether they are public or
independent—are paid in relation to the number of pupils that they are able to attract (see, e.g.,
Erixon Arreman & Holm, 2011; Lundahl et al., 2013; Wermke, 2013).
When talking to teachers it was clear that such a school market logic pervaded the A-school and
that it had made it very attentive to the issue of attracting and retaining pupils. The reason, as
suggested by one of the teachers, was that since the school was rather small every lost pupil consti-
tuted a rather large part of their overall budget. Based on this, teachers were, for example, expected to
take part in marketing activities and open house arrangements. Also, because pupils were seen as
cash carriers they were to be treated as customers who were always right. That is, in order to
make sure that the pupil did not leave for another school, it was considered important to always
be positive and accommodating in relation to the pupils. As one of the teachers explains: “When
you see your pupils as customers it becomes very, very important to keep them pleased at all cost.”
To further promote such a customer-oriented view of pupils, there were various performative
technologies that helped to articulate and materialize it. One particular technology that was repeat-
edly referred to in the interviews was the CSI. This technology came in the form of an electronic
questionnaire that was sent to all pupils within the school group. The principal explains:
Late January or early February every year they [a consulting firm] send out this group-wide questionnaire. It’s
the same questionnaire for all schools within [the name of the group], so it’s about 70,000 pupils we’re talking
about. It’s a Customer Satisfaction Index where we’re interested in everything from our basic values—i.e.,
how they are adhered to—to the study climate, how teaching is organized, and how pleased they are with
the school.
As suggested by the principal, the CSI included a large number of questions covering various
issues. However, it seemed to be the statements related to teachers and teaching that received
most attention. Such statements covered issues like “The teacher has made me interested in the sub-
ject”, “I perceive the teaching as meaningful”, “The teacher has sufficient subject knowledge”, and
“The teacher has been able to individualize classes and exercises”. In the next section we will
show how this type of market-oriented performative technology helped to construct the notion of
a “good teacher” in A-school and, hence, served as an important foundation from which a particular
teacher subjectivity could be constructed.
The Territorializing Role of Performative Technologies

A basic assumption underlying Miller and Power’s (2013) framework is that abstract phenomena
(such as the notion of a “good teacher”) have to be brought into being; they have to be performed
as something, somewhere, by someone or something—and, importantly, they can be so in many
different ways (cf. Foucault, 2002). The CSI, as a performative technology, constitutes one of the
means of measuring and defining a “good teacher”. It helps to pin down what it means to be a
“good teacher” in A-school. It does so through translating the complexities of an educational setting
into something else by means of reducing, abstracting, and constructing what goes on here and now
as something stable and manageable. From such a view, the performative technology does not pic-
ture the educational setting, let alone describes it in any detail. Rather, it re-presents it from the per-
spective of a performative regime; a perspective that visualizes some aspects and silences others,
thereby helping to bring particular phenomena into being—i.e., to territorialize them (cf. Bauman
& Lyon, 2013).
When interviewing teachers in A-school it became obvious that they perceived that the performa-
tive technologies worked in this way, that is, that they reduced educational activities to a format that
did not capture all the complexities of what they were doing:
We have these course evaluations, the Customer Satisfaction Index, the Employee Satisfaction Index, and then
we have the classroom observations and assessment for learning, and of course you can do your own course
evaluations. … But it’s hard to measure this profession because it’s very complex, you do a lot of different
things [as a teacher] and I don’t know really how you could measure that, to get this overall picture I mean.
Regardless of this (perceived) inability of performative technologies to capture the continuity and
complexity of educational practices, though, it was also obvious that the ways in which performative
technologies helped to define “good teaching” was important for self-reflection among teachers:
And that’s what’s so hard [about the course evaluations], that you never know what they will show [i.e., what
the pupils will write in the course evaluation]. It could be just about anything. … But as long as the result is
good it doesn’t really matter what is being evaluated.
Importantly, though, based on our analyses we also suggest that such self-reflection and intern-
alization among teachers is dependent on the intensity of the territorialization that takes place. By
territorializing intensity, then, we mean the extent to which performative technology representations
have an ability to (re)constitute the very practices that they are said to represent. Here, we want to
stress one particular dimension of such territorializing intensity, namely, materialization. The pre-
mise is that when teacher performances are materialized (e.g., via computer software or on a piece of
paper), such materializations allow for mobility, and mobility allows for re-presentations to be fed
back to the individual in many different time-spaces. And importantly, when individuals are recur-
rently exposed to such material representations of who they are and what they do, we argue they are
more likely to reflect upon themselves. To illustrate, consider the following utterance from the prin-
cipal on how the CSI allows teacher performances to be brought into the office where they may be fed
back to the individual teacher:
These evaluations are all about the individual. It’s a way of checking how teaching is structured, the work cli-
mate in the classroom, relationships [between the teacher and the pupils], issues of trust, what the teacher may
develop etcetera. So I use these [evaluations] for control when I meet with the individual teacher. We talk about
how the results relate to the individual development plan, what to pay attention to, what to work with.
Arguably, this particular quality reinforces the ability of performative technologies to ingratiate
themselves also in contexts characterized by more traditional teacher values. The premise is that
it renders teachers visible in other time-spaces (such as the principal’s office or the board room)
and, hence, further exposes them to the scrutiny of others. And, when everyone can suddenly see
the “facts” (on a piece of paper or on a computer screen), this will typically increase the pressure
on the individual teacher to reflect upon, and be able to account for, their actions—as illustrated
by the following quote from one of the lead teachers when referring to how individual teachers would
react when the results were discussed in a particular team of teachers (i.e., when actual teaching
activities had been lifted out of their original context, by means of a CSI results report, and reintro-
duced in another context whereby teachers could come together to relive and reflect upon the past):
I wouldn’t say that people got angry, but they often try to make excuses for the results. That’s most common I
would say, that someone says that “well, it’s because in my class I have this and this pupil”, or that “the evalu-
ation was done on a day when I had … ”.
When referring to how the technologies tend to both trigger and focus self-reflection among tea-
chers, knowing that, at the end of the day, they will be confronted with the results in the principal’s
office, this teacher stated:
At the end of the day it’s about results. … Have we done anything better [this term]? Have we managed to
reach the goals that we set for ourselves? So really, everything comes back to us wanting to perform better
as teachers so that the results will be good when talking to [the principal]. And it really doesn’t matter whether
it is [the principal] who has set the goals or not, because you want to perform [i.e., have good numbers], it’s as
simple as that.
To summarize thus far, then, we suggest the territorializing quality of performative technologies
constitutes an important trigger for self-reflection and internalization, and, hence, is important for
understanding teacher subjectivizing. However, the extent to which performative technologies will
lead to self-reflection and internalization is arguably dependent on their territorializing intensity.
Materialization constitutes one important intensity dimension that works through leaving durable
and transportable traces of teacher performance; traces that reflect the situated doings of teachers
long after and far away from where they were actually performed—like omnipresent mirrors that
keep asking individuals to reflect upon themselves as constantly improving teachers.
The Mediating Role of Performative Technologies

While territorializing puts the finger on how performative technologies re-present educational prac-
tices according to a particular format—a format which arguably becomes more intense if the rep-
resentations are materialized—the mediating ability points to how performative technologies
allow the very same practices to be linked to, for example, other practices, narratives, and ideas
(Latour, 1999; Miller & Power, 2013). Such a mediating role is important because, once a particular
setting or practice has been territorialized and is “lifted out” of its original context, it is possible to
create new links between educational activities and other activities, actors, ideas, etc. In fact, once
teaching activities have been translated into an idea, a piece of paper, or a number, there are a num-
ber of things that you can do with these re-presentations that you cannot (easily) do with the activi-
ties to which they refer (see Latour, 1986). The premise is that territorializing not only involves
reduction and simplification—i.e., the loss of context—but also presents possibilities for
recontextualization.
In the current case, it was obvious that the re-presentations (or the making up of territories)
allowed such recontextualizations as teaching activities conducted in different time-spaces were
brought together in the principal’s office (i.e., in a different time-space), where they could be linked
to various plans, norms, and programmes. To illustrate, consider the following excerpt in which one
teacher (of course without accounting for all the reductions and mediations required) points to how
the course evaluations allow different aspects of teaching to stand side by side in a diagram (that can
be fit onto a single piece of paper):
The most accurate, or the sharpest instruments that we have are the course evaluations that our pupils fill in. I
mean, it’s not that they answer three questions; “what was good?”, “what was bad?”, and “other comments”. It’s
like 25 questions, and then we get diagrams and statistics based on their answers so that we can see how happy
they were.
Generally speaking, then, mediation (in this sense) refers to how something concrete, multiple,
and continuous (such as teaching activities) may suddenly be made available in a completely differ-
ent context in which it may be further linked to other times, spaces, and ideas (e.g., in the form of
diagrams and statistics). And importantly, it seems as if such further linking (where, for example, the
performance of an individual teacher is linked to a plan or last year’s performance) may work as an
important trigger for self-reflection among teachers. To illustrate, consider the following example
where one teacher talks about how such mediated representations are used as a means for self-
reflection:
[I] use the course evaluations … for my own sake, for my own progress. Those are more to let me know what
I’ve done well and what I need to think about when I give this course the next time.
Importantly, though, just as was the case with territorializing, we argue that the extent to which
performative technologies will provoke individual teachers’ self-reflection will be dependent on the
intensity of such mediations. In fact, one dimension of mediation that seemed to provoke a particular
form of intensity in the current case was that the performative technology not only allowed individ-
ual performances to be linked in time and space but also linked the individual teacher to other actors
in a hierarchical way. The performative technology thus helped to forge linkages between different
actors in such a way that someone else (e.g., the principal) could require self-reflection from the indi-
vidual teacher based on the re-presentations of self. To illustrate such a hierarchical form of
mediation, consider the following excerpt where the principal points to how diagrams (referring
to different contexts) may be compared to each other to produce even further representations
and how such representations form the basis for a discussion with the teachers:
Some of these questionnaires are possible to compare, and that can give you a very interesting picture. So you
can see that the pupils think like this in a particular area while the teachers have this view on that same area [i.e.,
based on a questionnaire among teachers]. Do we have any differences or are we in consensus? I mean that is a
great tool for a discussion in a staff meeting.
As suggested by the principal’s comment, the technology tends to place the principal in an
authoritative position from which self-reflection could be required. This is also confirmed by one
of the teachers:
It’s primarily the principal who uses these [evaluations]. And at the end of every semester we have this meeting
where we discuss what we [as individual teachers] have achieved. Before that meeting I am asked to look at the
evaluations and she also looks at them, and then we meet to discuss what to do [to further improve]. … We
also have this yearly evaluation where we’re asked to reflect upon some larger questions like “What are you
happy with concerning your mentorship?” and “What are you happy with concerning your teaching?” I
tend to write a whole novel when I reflect upon these issues because I think it gives her a more nuanced picture
of what we do.
We argue that this type of positioning of individual teachers in a hierarchical relationship—based

on which they may not only be held accountable for the representation of self but may also be asked
to reflect upon such representations so as to improve—constitutes an intensifying quality of perfor-
mative technologies; that is, a quality that intensifies self-reflection, internalization, and the con-
struction of the self as a performative individual. The premise is that through the principal’s
authority to demand reflection, the CSI puts the teacher in a position of a confessing self while
the principal becomes the receiver of the confession, doing so in order to judge, forgive, punish,
or reconcile (cf. Foucault, 1998).
To summarize, then, we argue that the mediating role of the performative technology is another
important component of understanding teacher subjectivation. Just as was the case with territoria-
lizing, though, performative technologies may arguably mediate teacher practices in many different
ways and at different levels of intensity. A particular intensity dimension identified in this case refers
to the degree to which performative technologies allow or enable someone else to hold individual
teachers accountable for their actions and thereby to provoke self-reflection and internalization.
The Adjudicating Role of Performative Technologies

The territorializing and mediating roles of performative technologies (and their intensities) are key
to understanding their third role, namely, adjudicating. If we start out with how territorializing inter-
weaves with the adjudicating role of performative technologies, our analyses suggest that the terri-
tories turn into central systems of accountability; that is, they are deeply involved in defining the
“what” of good teaching or the “what” of the individual teacher’s responsibility. Again, and largely
in line with Miller and Power (2013) who suggest that performative technologies allow evaluation
and the allocation of responsibility, we find that, although such technologies may be developed as
technologies of representation (i.e., to describe or visualize performance), they have a tendency to
become performative in the sense that they help to bring into being that which they are said to rep-
resent. They do so through reducing, narrowing down, and defining what it means to be a “good
teacher”.
To illustrate this particular aspect, consider the following statement on how the technologies
become adjudicative as they colonize educational “truths”:
This is the law [i.e., the result from the evaluations]. It becomes the truth. What you think, and what your col-
leagues think of you, is not interesting because this is the truth! Nothing else counts but what your pupils think
of you. It is de-professionalizing really.
While this points to how performative technologies become adjudicative through defining the ter-
ritories within which to act (i.e., the “what” of teaching), a second and related aspect refers to how the
technologies also come to define the “how” and “why” of teaching. Key to understanding this par-
ticular aspect of performative technologies is the ways in which mediation allows teaching practices
to be linked to norms and ideals (cf. the mediating role above). In fact, through allowing the perform-
ances of individual teachers to be linked to, and evaluated against, plans, targets, and standards, the
performative technology provides criteria based on which successes and failures may be established
and areas for further efforts, improvements, and reforms identified (Miller & Power, 2013).
Generally speaking, then, performative technologies will not only trigger self-reflection because of
how they territorialize and mediate teaching practices but also because they provide adjudicating cri-
teria for such practices—criteria that decide what is good and what is bad, what is to count as impor-
tant and what is to be trivialized. To illustrate this adjudicating ability of performative technologies,
consider the following reflection from one of the teachers regarding the significance of formal evalu-
ations in A-school:
I see my work as a teacher as an open book. Just because you’re alone with the pupils that doesn’t mean you
should be able to close the classroom door and do as you like. And then just go home and get your pay raise
anyway. I don’t think that’s okay, I don’t. I think our work should be visible [i.e., through the CSI, course evalu-
ations, etc.] and if it’s the case that what I do isn’t good enough then I want the chance to improve.
Just as was the case with territorializing and mediating, though, such self-reflection and intern-
alization among teachers is arguably dependent on the intensity of such adjudication. In the current
case we identify relative forms of adjudication as an important dimension of such intensity, which
refers to how individual performances are judged in relation to the performances of others.
Again, the mediating role is important here, as it is through the mediating quality of performative
technologies that different performances may be related to each other in the first place. Interestingly,
though, and as suggested by our analyses, such mediations are also equally interesting from an adju-
dicating perspective as it is in and through such mediations that performances may be adjudicated as
a relative and emergent phenomenon.
When it comes to performances as a relative phenomenon, this refers to how performative tech-
nologies (such as the CSI) offer relative ways of adjudicating the performances of individual teachers
through relating them to the performances of others. And, importantly, such relative ways of adju-
dicating individual performances tend to create a competitive spirit among teachers, as no one wants
to be (or be perceived to be) worse than anybody else. As one of the teachers stated:.
Of course you’re affected by the others. You don’t want to be worse than anybody else. That’s just the way it is.
Related to this, relative forms of adjudication also seem to turn performing into a highly emerging
and liquid phenomenon. The premise is that not only does the individual teacher need to be com-
petitive, but when the performances of others improve they also have to improve so as to maintain
their position or status within the larger group. As one teacher succinctly put it:
You can’t just stop and stand still. That just doesn’t work in today’s world.
To summarize, then, we suggest that how performative technologies adjudicate teaching practices
is another important component of understanding teacher subjectivation. Importantly, though, we
also suggest that such adjudications are intensified by a relativization of individual performances.
The premise is that relative forms of adjudication hierarchize individual performances and, hence,
turn performing into a never-ending competition; or, as suggested by the above quotations, “good
teaching” becomes a highly emergent phenomenon as it is constituted in and through the perform-
ances of others.
The Subjectivizing Role of Performative Technologies

The fourth and final role of performative technologies suggests that they both presuppose and bring
into being a certain kind of self (Miller & Power, 2013); one that becomes highly oriented towards
those criteria for success that the performative technologies offer. Or, put differently, a self that both
utilizes one’s projected ability to make decisions and choices so as to deliver what the technologies
reward and one that conceives of oneself as a workable object. An object that is malleable and form-
able according to the performative ideals; one that becomes a true performer (cf. Ball, 2003; Jeffrey &
Troman, 2011; Woods & Jeffrey, 2002).
I think you could talk about a performance culture here.
Everyone is expected to perform all the time.
In order to fit in here [at A-school] you need to enjoy a high tempo. You should be a performer and be relatively
independent.
And, indeed, it was evident that the rather intense mobilization of the CSI in A-school had con-
tributed to a form of performative mind-set among teachers. When talking to the teachers about the
technologies, they repeatedly returned to how they were mirrored by the performative represen-
tations. As suggested by one of the teachers:
If I have happy pupils who are satisfied with my teaching they will perform, they will reach a pass. As long as I
can keep them in my classroom I know that I can help them reach their marks. … Of course feedback [from
the pupils] is important in this sense. If I can improve my teaching it will enable me to reach a better result with
my pupils, which, in turn, will lead to a better result in the follow-up meeting with [the principal].
Many of them also emphasized how the performative technologies, in a positive way, allowed
them to improve as individual teachers:
This pressure turns us into performers. It makes us think about pedagogical issues even at home. You’re con-
stantly thinking about how to reach your pupils even better.
I think it’s good that we have these evaluations. They ensure that everyone looks for progress since you know
that there will be an evaluation in the end.
As suggested by these quotes, performative technologies may arguably contribute to performative

teachers in schools. And, importantly, we argue that it is through the particular ways in which they
territorialize, mediate, and adjudicate educational practices—and the intensity with which they do so
—that they have such performative effects.
Table 1. Subjectivizing effects of performative technologies.

Subjectivizing effects of Performative technology Subjectivizing effects of
Role Main character of role role intensity intensity aspect
Territorializing Performative The territorializing role of A particular intensity aspect When re-presentations are
technologies performative of performative materialized they are
territorialize technologies technologies is when rendered mobile which,
educational practices constitutes an their re-presentations are in turn, makes individual
through re- important trigger for materialized. The premise performances visible and
presenting them in a self-reflection as it is that such open to scrutiny in other
particular format— provides discursive re- materializations render time-spaces.
typically that of presentations of the re-presentations
numbers. performances that may mobile so that they may
be used for mirroring reflect teacher activities in
and evaluation different time-spaces.
purposes.
Mediating Performative The mediating role of A particular intensity aspect When mediations
technologies mediate performative of performative contribute to the
educational practices technologies technologies is when establishment and/or
through linking them constitutes an their re-presentations reinforcement of
to other times, important trigger of mediate individual hierarchical relationships
spaces, and ideas. self-reflection as it teachers into hierarchical this enables the
allows the relationships with other individual teacher to be
performances of an actors. held accountable and to
individual teacher to be be asked to reflect upon
related to performances the re-presentation of
from other time-spaces. self.
Adjudicating Performative The adjudicating role of A particular intensity aspect When individual
technologies performative of performative performances are
adjudicate technologies technologies is when related to a larger (and
educational practices constitutes an their re-presentations emerging) whole this
through reducing, important trigger for adjudicate performances creates competition
narrowing down, and self-reflection as it through relativizing them. which, in turn, requires
defining what reminds the individual constant improvements
education is (not) teacher of differences so as to remain or
about, on the one between what is and improve one’s relative
hand, and through what should be. position or status.
linking them to
norms and ideals, on
the other hand.
Discussion
This paper departs from the idea in the critical educational literature that performative technologies
help to translate abstract neoliberal ideas (such as markets, efficiency, competition, and freedom of
choice) into situated educational practices and subjectivities (such as particular teaching activities
and what it means to be a teacher in a particular setting). And, importantly, in performing such a
role, the literature suggests they are not only contributing to an ongoing transformation of the edu-
cational landscape per se but the very foundations from which contemporary teacher subjectivities
may be constructed.
We draw upon and augment this literature in two main ways. First, we introduce a framework
developed by Miller and Power (2013) to discern how performative technologies allow neoliberal
ideas to be articulated and operationalized in educational settings through the ways in which such
settings are territorialized, mediated, and adjudicated (see the first two columns in Table 1). Impor-
tantly, though, while Miller and Power discuss these as largely separate roles (for a similar obser-
vation, see Heald & Hodges, 2015), we show how these are highly interrelated in practice. For
example, we show how particular ways of territorializing an educational setting constitute an impor-
tant prerequisite for how that very setting may be mediated. In A-school this was illustrated by the
ways in which transforming the ongoing and situated educational activities into numbers allowed
these very activities to be reconstituted through various forms of mediation. For example, it was
through such mediations that the performances of individual teachers, classes, or the school could
be aggregated, calculated with, and visualized in diagrams, which, in turn, allowed the performances
to be compared and further scrutinized. Related to this, our findings also show how the particular
ways in which educational activities are territorialized and mediated constitute important prerequi-
sites for how they may be adjudicated. In A-school this was illustrated both in terms of how particu-
lar ways of territorializing educational activities became normative as they came to define “the truth”,
and by the ways in which mediations allowed particular performances to be linked to normative
ideals.
Arguably, in empirically identifying these different roles, and also discussing their interrelation-
ships, we contribute to an opening up of the black box of performative technologies. Importantly,
though, while this endeavour may be seen as important in and of itself, it also contributes to a better
understanding of what it is that makes them so powerful and transformative in the educational sec-
tor. The premise is that through understanding the particular ways in which educational activities are
territorialized, mediated, and adjudicated, we may better understand the subjectivizing role of per-
formative technologies (cf. Ball, 2003; Liew, 2012; Perryman, 2006) (see the third column in Table 1).
A second way in which we augment the extant literature is through identifying and elaborating
on a particular aspect of the territorializing, mediating, and adjudicating roles of performative
technologies, namely, their respective intensities. As suggested above, we refer to these as the ter-
ritorializing, mediating, and adjudicating intensities of performative technologies (see the fourth
column in Table 1).
Starting out with the territorializing intensity, this refers to how performative technologies may
territorialize a setting in ways that intensify the extent to which teachers come to reflect upon them-
selves. In A-school we identify materialization as one such aspect. Again, the premise is that when
performances are materialized they leave durable and mobile traces, which, in turn, may feed back to
the individual teacher in various time-spaces. As a result, we suggest that materialization contributes
to turning the performative technology into a form of omnipresent mirror that keeps asking the indi-
viduals to reflect upon themselves (see the fifth column of Table 1).
The notion of territorializing intensity thereby adds to the educational literature that speaks more
generally about the importance of visibility/surveillance (see, e.g., Hardy, 2015; Page, 2015, 2017a).
The premise is that, while considerable attention has been given to the increased frequency with
which teachers’ work is rendered visible (e.g., Lewis & Hardy, 2015; Perryman, 2006; Wilkins
et al., 2012), and the various technologies by which this is done (e.g., Page, 2015, 2017a, 2017b), con-
siderably less attention has been devoted to the qualities that render such technologies particularly
intense. Territorializing intensity refers to how visibility may largely refer to different things and
have different effects depending on whether it is, for example, ongoing or periodic, situated or
inscribed, visible or invisible. In this paper we point to one important dimension of such intensity
which relates to the materialized format by which visualization sometimes takes place.
Mediating intensity in turn constitutes a particular aspect of the mediating ability of performative
technologies. Again, while mediation refers to the ability of performative technologies to create links
between various objects (such as actors, events, and aspirations), such links may arguably come in
many different forms and have largely different characters. Based on our findings in A-school, we
identify one particularly intensifying aspect of such linkages; namely, when performative technol-
ogies relate individuals to each other in such a way that one part may be held accountable for the
representation of self and also be asked to reflect upon such a representation so as to improve.
We refer to this as a hierarchical form of mediation, and argue that it constitutes an intensifying
quality of performative technologies as it intensifies self-reflection and the construction of self as
a performative individual (see the fifth column of Table 1).
Indeed, extant literature has already devoted considerable attention to how performative technol-
ogies may create and recreate various forms of linkage. For example, and often in contrast to the
notion of traditional teaching professionalism (grounded in notions of autonomy and self-regu-

lation), it has been suggested that neoliberal reforms have helped to open up the “secret garden”
of the teaching profession (e.g., Wilkins & Wood, 2009). That is, through exposing it to, for example,
market forces (e.g., Ball, 2003; Wilkins, 2011), new forms of accountabilities (e.g., Mausethagen,
2013; Solbrekke & Englund, 2011), and external regulation (e.g., Bergh, 2015; Wilkins, 2011), teach-
ing is no longer an internal matter reserved solely for teachers. Rather, teachers are now “accountable
to a large number of sources and standards that include parents, contractors, local authorities and
national guidelines” (Helgøy & Homme, 2007, p. 234). And, importantly, this new form of external
accountability typically presupposes the existence of performative technologies, since it is in and
through these that the performances of pupils, teachers, and schools become available to (and linked
to) such things as parental choice, audits, and quality assurances.
Adding to these insights, though, the notion of mediating intensity puts the finger on the very
active role of performative technologies in constituting such objects through the particular ways
in which they hold them together. In this paper, we point to one such feature; namely, how perfor-
mative technologies not only represent the performances of individual teachers but, in doing so, also
make it legitimate for other actors to hold them accountable for their performances. For example,
and as suggested above, the CSI does not visualize the performances of individual teachers in
some “neutral” way. On the contrary, it helps to constitute them as confessing selves while others
become priests, therapists, and executioners. That is, it constitutes them as selves who can be
asked (by others) to reflect upon their past, present, and future performances; selves that can be
asked to improve; selves that can be asked to constitute and recognize themselves in performative
ways (cf. Ball, 2016).
Finally, we use the notion of adjudicating intensity to denote those aspects that make the adjudi-
cating ability of performative technologies particularly intense. Again, and generally speaking, adju-
dication refers to how performative technologies form the basis for an evaluation of (teacher)
performance. And, based on the findings in A-school, we identify relativization of performances
as a particularly intensifying aspect of such adjudications (see the fourth and fifth columns in
Table 1). The premise is that, when individual performances are related to the performances of
others, this not only has a tendency to prompt competition (as no one wants to be left behind)
but also turns performing into an ever-emerging and liquid phenomenon (cf. Bauman, 2000). For
example, it turns what it means to perform as a “good teacher” into something that cannot be pinned
down and decided once and for all. Rather, as the performances of others change, so does the relative
yardstick for those who want to stay in the game (i.e., for those who want to maintain their position
or status within the larger group).
Indeed, the notion of relative forms of adjudication is not new as such. On the contrary, extant
literature on performativity in schools has provided extensive insights into how performative tech-
nologies may work towards normalization by means of relative performance evaluations. For
example, it has been suggested (and also shown) how performative technologies come to work as
a form of social sorting mechanism whereby teachers, schools, and educational systems may be
seen as (not) forming part of a particular category (Page, 2017a, 2017b). And while such categoriz-
ations allow distinctions to be made between, for example, those that reach a particular (pre-estab-
lished) level and those that do not (cf. Keddie, Mills, & Pendergast, 2011; O’Leary, 2013; Perryman,
2006, 2009), they also have a tendency to create competition as the different categories are ordered in
a hierarchical way (e.g., Clapham, 2013; Page, 2017a, 2017b; Wilkins et al., 2012).
Adding to these insights, though, our notion of adjudicating intensity puts the finger on two
aspects that have received rather scant attention in this literature; aspects that are arguably important
for our understanding of the subjectivizing effects of such relative forms of adjudication. First, a par-
ticular aspect of the relativization of performances is that they allow the quality standards (or norms)
to emerge within the performative technology per se. That is, through allowing individual perform-
ances to be related to each other (through the territorializing and mediating abilities), there is neither
a need for external standards or norms to be established, nor for these to be tightened, in order to
reach performative effects. Rather, through relating individual performances to each other, perform-
ing (and continuously improving one’s performances) suddenly becomes in the interest of each and
everyone who wants to be part of the right category—or at least does not want to be caught in the
wrong one (cf. Bauman, 2000; Page, 2017a).
A second important aspect relates to our finding that such relativizations tend to turn performing
into an ever-emerging phenomenon. From a subjectivizing perspective, this particular aspect is argu-
ably pivotal as it contributes to a transformation of teacher subjectivities from something essential
(i.e., from something you may be) to something performative (i.e., to something that you continually
do). Put differently, and to use the words of Bauman (2000, p. 29), it helps transform teacher iden-
tities into something that “can exist only as an unfulfilled project”. Or to use the words of one of our
respondents, it places the individual teacher in a position whereby “you can’t just stop and stand
still”. The premise is that what it means to be a “good teacher” continuously changes as new perform-
ances (from different time-spaces) are continuously measured, compared, and evaluated.
Conclusions
Critical educational research on performativity in schools suggests that an increased reliance upon
neoliberally-inspired technologies is currently changing the very foundations from which contem-
porary teacher subjectivities are constructed. Such technologies, it is argued, have an ability to colo-
nize, suppress, and de-value professional life (Liew, 2012; Perryman, 2006; Wilkins, 2015), resulting
in what is often referred to as the performative teacher (see, e.g., Jeffrey & Troman, 2011; Wilkins,
2011). Despite a plethora of such claims, though, our knowledge of what it actually is about these
technologies that makes them so powerful and transformative in the educational sector is still rather
limited. One important reason for this is that hitherto not enough attention has been paid to the
technologies per se and their theoretical qualities.
In this paper, we take a first step towards opening up the black box of performative technologies
so that those qualities that are important for understanding teacher subjectivation can be further
explored. To this end, we adopted a framework developed by Miller and Power (2013), which in
the current case proved highly useful for an empirical analysis of a number of key qualities that
allow performative technologies to become important subjectivizing devices. Moreover, through
introducing the concept of performative technology intensity, we also identify a number of conditions
under which such qualities become particularly intense and, hence, may be expected to contribute to
the shaping of teacher subjectivities in the image of the visualizing technologies per se. One such con-
dition relates to the territorializing role. Here, we conclude that when performative representations
are materialized they are rendered mobile, which, in turn, allows them to reflect teacher perform-
ances in different time-spaces. And importantly, in doing so, they become omnipresent mirrors
that trigger self-reflection among teachers. A second condition relates to the mediating role. Here,
we conclude that performative technologies do not represent teacher performances in a “neutral”
way. Rather, they contribute to placing individual teachers into various forms of relationships
with other actors. And, importantly, when doing so in a hierarchical way, they contribute to con-
structing and sustaining a practice in which individual teachers can be required to reflect upon them-
selves as performers. A third and final condition relates to the adjudicating role. Here, we conclude
that when performative technologies adjudicate individual performances in a relative way they con-
tribute to create competition, which, in turn, requires that teachers constantly improve if they want
to retain or improve their relative position or status.
Based on these findings, we strongly suggest that future research should, more than is the case
today, avoid monolithic assumptions about performance technologies in educational contexts.
The premise is that depending on the (varying) roles of the technologies—and the intensities with
which they play out such roles—they will arguably construct teacher subjectivities in largely different
ways. Notwithstanding these findings, though, we suggest that further research is needed related to
the notions launched in this study. One reason for this is that we have only focused on one specific
technology and, hence, other technologies remain to be examined with regard to their particular
intensities. Another reason is that, based on a single case study approach, we have only identified
one particular intensity dimension related to each role. Hence, it may be difficult to judge, for
example, the relative importance of these dimensions, not least as these cannot be compared to
their absences or to other potential intensity dimensions that may be prevalent in other contexts.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the useful comments of the three anonymous reviewers.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by Vetenskapsrådet [grant number 2013-784] and Örebro Universitet.
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Appendix. Interview questions for teachers

School management’s evaluation of teachers
. In relation to the school management, can you say something about how your performance as a teacher is
evaluated?
. Are there any special tools used, i.e., course evaluations, or others?
. Who initiates these evaluations, is it the principal education organizer, the principal of the school, colleagues, or you
yourself?
. What is it that the school management focuses on in evaluations, e.g., some specific activities or
accomplishments?
. How do you get feedback from the school management concerning your “results” or achievements?
. How are your “results” communicated to you during salary negotiations and/or performance appraisals?
. What are the salary criteria at this school and how are they measured?
Pupils’ assessments of teachers’ work
. In which way do pupils evaluate your efforts as a teacher?

. What is the role of course evaluations?
. What type of questions are asked in the course evaluations?
. What other tools or forums are available where pupils can evaluate or get an overview of how a teacher or course
has been assessed (e.g., interviews)?
. How is the feedback/evaluation that pupils provide used by the school management?
. What is the role of pupils’ feedback/evaluation in salary negotiations?
Expectations/requirements of third-party
. Are there actors other than the school management and the pupils who “evaluate” your performance as a teacher
(parents, principal education organizer, state school inspection or any other)?
. If there is, how do such evaluations work and what do they mean to your teacher role?
. What are the advantages and disadvantages of evaluations or performance measurements made by other
actors?
Professional identity
. What do you have to be good at in order to work as a teacher today?

. In what way will the evaluations and performance measurements that we have discussed affect how you are as a
teacher?
. What do these evaluation imply in your work and what kind of teacher will you become granted that they are used?
. Is this consistent with who you are as a teacher and how you would like the teaching profession to be?
. What are the advantages and disadvantages of evaluations and performance measurements?
. What do they capture and what do they fail to capture with regard to what you think is important?

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Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research

ISSN: 0031-3831 (Print) 1470-1170 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csje20

Performative Technology Intensity and Teacher

Hans Englund, Magnus Frostenson & Kristina S. Beime

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2018.1434825

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Performative Technology Intensity and Teacher Subjectivities

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Performative Technologies as Territorializing, Mediating, Adjudicating, and

The Territorializing Role of Performative Technologies

The Mediating Role of Performative Technologies

We argue that this type of positioning of individual teachers in a hierarchical relationship—based

The Adjudicating Role of Performative Technologies

The Subjectivizing Role of Performative Technologies

Everyone is expected to perform all the time.

As suggested by these quotes, performative technologies may arguably contribute to performative

Table 1. Subjectivizing effects of performative technologies.

notion of traditional teaching professionalism (grounded in notions of autonomy and self-regu-

Appendix. Interview questions for teachers

Pupils’ assessments of teachers’ work

. In which way do pupils evaluate your efforts as a teacher?

. What do you have to be good at in order to work as a teacher today?

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