Students Under Pressure

Introduction In the wake of structural changes promoted by the Bologna process, such as the general implementation of a two-tiered study system, a variety of regulative techniques have been adapted at the institutional level to regulate the practice of studying, such as generic descriptors, personal development planning, progress files etc. These techniques impose systems of documentation and assessment on the concrete practice of students, with the goal of efficiently managing this practice. However, contemporary study reforms are legitimized by a discourse that focusses on the individual student. Taking the employability concept as an example, this discourse claims to empower students by equipping them with key skills. Furthermore, employability normalizes the notion that coping with labor market demands is an individual responsibility. Instead of being subject to macropolitical planning by the state, problems in the relation between education and employment are now being individualized. The practice of students is exposed to both regulative techniques and normative interventions. Following a distinction proposed by Feeley and Simon (1992), regulative techniques identify, classify and manage groups or categories, while normative demands are corrective and normalize patterns of individual behavior. From this perspective, students are part of two types of power relations: as objects of knowledge, students are categorized, measured, and ranked; as subjects, they face increasing demands for instrumental and competitive behavior. Yet discourse and practice are not conceptualized as being identical, but as dynamic power relations. Practical responses to normative and regulative claims may encompass for example assimilation, acquiescence, mastering, resistance. In the first section, I present some findings from a discourse analysis of European study reforms with focus on key skills and employability as normalizing concepts, and assessment, descriptors and documentation as regulative techniques. The second section refers to the micro level on the empirical basis of problem-centered interviews (Witzel 2000) that I have conducted with German students. I see these interviews as the students’ accounts of their everyday practice and analyze them in relation to organization, motivation and control.