‘Addressing (and) inequality’. Subjectivation and desubjectivation in education, and how inequalities can be addressed

In this chapter, I provide a brief comment on the ideas in this book. I reflect firstly on the relationship between addressing the subject, that is, the naming of the individual
subject, and their corresponding social positioning, which results in the reproduction of social inequalities; and secondly on how social inequality can be addressed in education, assuming that we accept that inequality is at least partly created by the social constitution of the subject. Employing, in particular, the work of Judith Butler, I consider the processes of subjectivation and desubjectivation in education policy and practice,
drawing on a range of recent empirical and theoretical projects of my own, and other scholars. I argue that a Butlerian theorisation of these processes enables a better understanding of the way in which state discourses reproduce social hierarchies in education. I conclude that one way of resisting these discourses and addressing inequalities might
be found in a consideration of the third space of education.