Critical theory and the spectacle of the CAAT program review: A Foucauldian discourse analysis

Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs), frequently referred to as the community college system, regularly undergo reviews of the diploma, degree and certificate programs that are offered. This dissertation studies the site of program review as a location for considering language as it is used in higher education, specifically the shift of discourses which originally framed the development of CAATs in Ontario from "access" and "community" to education as product and as driven by economic concerns. The program review offers the researcher a locale for study where many different voices intersect in the consideration of higher education. These voices include faculty, administration, industry and students.;The problem identified is the constraint of certain discourses upon our understanding of education in the community college and the absence of other discourses that allow for a fuller conversation about the public role of higher education.;Specifically, my understanding of the central problem is twofold: first, education has become viewed as a product of the community college system; second, the neo-liberal ideologies which cause us to consider education as a product also cause us to see people as products of the system. In sum, particular kinds of discourses prevent us from understanding education as serving any purpose other than the fulfillment of economic purposes for the state.;Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, this dissertation considers the policies shaping program reviews and the language used by reviewers themselves in a single case study of a program review at an Ontario college. The dominant discourses, informed by Foucault's consideration of the juridico-political, economic and scientific manifestations of historic ideologies are identified. Counter-discourses are also identified as are discourses "in absentia"---those discourses as manifestations of ideology which become marginalized, disenfranchised, silenced or, more significantly, invisible ("unvoiceable"). Finally, this dissertation identifies the role of "problematization" and emanicipatory research potentials to serve more inclusive program reviews.;The language which is used in program reviews---and which I expand to an understanding of discourse---provides evidence of what we understand education to be in the site-specific location of a program within an Ontario college.