Becoming a subject in learning: Student freedom, agency, and subjectivity

There is a tendency in recent curriculum reforms to put the major emphasis on the status and role of students. The OECD’s Education 2030 project, for example, presents the concept of ‘student agency’ as a key vision for future learning frameworks. The OECD’s discourse of student agency appears to serve as a catalyst for spreading the slogan that students should be the subjects of learning and specifically for expanding the scope of student freedom as never before. This study aims to rethink the meanings of student freedom and subjectivity within this discourse of student agency. To this end, I analyse the characteristics of student freedom that emerge in recent curriculum reforms and then present some criticisms of this conceptualization. In response, I suggest an alternative conceptualization of student freedom that puts the emphasis on students becoming subjects in learning. In doing so, I draw upon the philosophical ideas of Levinas and Cavell. Both are philosophers who provide a theoretical horizon that can overcome egocentrism and re-examine human freedom and subjectivity in relationships with others. In the light of this conceptualization, I provide an account of the ideas of student freedom and subjectivity that should guide curriculum reform.