Research Interests
Research Supervision Interests
- Educational governance, policy, and politics, including:
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- Globalisation and inter- and supra-national policy influence (e.g., International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Bank, etc.);
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- Neoliberal education governance (e.g., homo economicus, financializations), and advanced-liberal education policy (populist authoritarianisms, proto-fascisms)
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- Disciplinary and control societies, including network and anticipatory governance, ‘governing by numbers’, accountability policy, and surveillance studies (e.g., rankings);
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- Computation and algorithmic studies (e.g., artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, emerging or ‘fourth industrial’ technologies);
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- Studies in subjectivity or ‘micropolitics’, including governmentalities, biopolitics, and raciologies (e.g., ‘care of the self’; folds and foldings; becomings);
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- Continental / philosophical studies in educational politics, particularly Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze (e.g., power; force; control; desire; de/re/ex/territorializations)
Bio
Dr. Webb’s fields of interest include contemporary Continental theories in relation to conceptions and practices of education governance. He uses several Continental theorists to examine formations of power and force in education, often manifest through ideas of policy and subjectivity. He is concerned with how education rationalizes and produces ‘governable subjects’ within liberal and neoliberal normative architectures. His research has been identified as a significant reason for the development of educational policy studies and governance over the past decade.
Dr. Webb received his BA in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley; MA in curriculum studies at the University of Colorado, Denver; and PhD in educational policy studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. Prior to coming to UBC, Dr. Webb taught at the University of Washington, Bothell.
Dr. Webb’s book Teacher Assemblage won the Critics’ Choice Book Award from the American Educational Studies Association in 2009 (AESA), and won the Outstanding Book Award from the Qualitative Research SIG of the American Educational Research Association in 2010 (AERA).
From 2016 to 2020, Dr. Webb served as an Associate Editor for the journal Critical Studies in Education (CSE), and continues to serve on the Editorial Advisory Panel of CSE. Today, Dr. Webb serves as the Associate Regional Editor – Americas for the Journal of Education Policy and as an Associate Editor for the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory.
At UBC, Dr. Webb offers graduate courses on educational governance (EDST 531), educational neoliberalism (EDST 596A), and (post) qualitative (and posthuman) methodologies. He regularly teaches the departmental PhD course on critical social theory (EDST 601A) and in the teacher education program to examine the political, social, and cultural histories of schooling (EDST 401).
Education
Awards
Research Projects
Grantor: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Role: Principal Investigator
Grantors: (1) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) & (2) Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (UBC)
Role: Principal Investigator, with Dr. Petra Mikulan (Postdoctoral Research)
Grantor: Australian Research Council (ARC). Role: Collaborator
Grantor: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Role: Principal Investigator
Selected Publications
Books
Education policy and racial biopolitics in the multicultural city. University of Chicago (2017).
Policy geophilosophy and education. (2015).
Teacher assemblage. (2009).
- *Outstanding Book Award, Qualitative Research SIG, American Educational Research Association, 2010
- *Critics’ Choice Book Award, American Educational Studies Association, 2009
Selected Recent Articles & Chapters
- Webb, P. T. & Mikulan, P. (2022). Decolonizing racial bioinformatics: Governing education in contagion and dehiscence.
- Webb, P. T. & Mikulan, P. (2021). Escape education. Educational Philosophy and Theory.
- Webb, P. T., Sellar, S., & Gulson, K. N. (2020). Anticipating education: Governing habits, memories and policy-futures. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(3), 284-297.
- Webb, P. T. (2017). Eulogy for democratic teacher education. Teacher Education & Practice, 30(2), 297-299.
- Webb, P. T. (2015). Fucking teachers. Deleuze Studies, 9(3), 437-451.
- Webb, P. T. (2013). Policy problematizations. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 27(3), 364-376.
Selected Invited Talks
- Webb, P. T. (2020, October 29). All education is artificial. Manifold Laboratory for Biosocial, Eco-Sensory and Digital Studies of Learning and Behaviour. Manchester Metropolitan University. Manchester, UK.
- Webb, P. T. (2018, May). Considerations for implementing neuroscience in educational practice: A policy perspective.
- Educational Neuroscience Research Cluster, Vice President Research + Innovation (VPRI), University of British Columbia.
- Webb, P. T. (2018, April). Quina és la política educativa? (What is education policy?)
- Invited presentation at the Facultat d’Educació, Traducció i Ciències Humanes (Faculty of Education, Translation, and Human Sciences), University of Vic, Spain (UVIC).
- Webb, P. T. (2018, April). La política educativa, les biologies i la política de la pròpia vida. (Education policy, biologies, and the politics of life itself).
- Invited presentation at the Centre d’Història de la Ciència (CEHIC), Facultat de Medicina (Center for the History of Science, Faculty of Medicine) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Barcelona, Spain.
- Webb, P. T. (2018, April). Leadership in 2030: A brief history of tomorrow. Neuroplasticity.
- Keynote talk at uLead: Visionary leadership for today’s learner. The Alberta Teachers’ Association. Banff, Alberta.
Students Supervised
Representative projects
- Enacting the NCLEX-RN® Exam in a Canadian Nursing Context: A Critical Policy Analysis.
- Rampersaud, Patricia, PhD, expected 2021
- Becoming-other: Educational implications of affective ‘co-existence’ between Asian immigrant youth and a Japanese researcher-videographer when digital video-making as minor cinematic literacy practice.
- Masayuki Iwase, PhD, expected 2021
- The problematic of life in education: Theorizing the implications of the recent advancements in life sciences for education policy.
- Dr. Petra Mikulan, SSHRC and UBC Killam Postdoctoral Research, 2018-2020.
- Chinese international students’ engagement with democratic discourses and practices in Canada and the United States.
- Gang Li, PhD, 2020.
- Subjectivity in the folds: Education, media practices and environmental activism amongst more-than-human pleats.
- Marcelina Piotrowski, PhD, 2019. https://www.marcelinapiotrowski.com
- Exacerbation, concealment, and co-option: Neoliberalism’s effect on educational, gendered inequalities and feminism.
- Natasha Green, MEd, 2019.
- Otherworlds: High school teachers’ experiences of power vis-a-vis accountability policies in South Carolina.
- Mary Cartee Adkins, MA, 2014.
- (De/re)-Constructing teachers and their work: A discourse analysis of British Columbia’s 21st-century policy agenda.
- Cory (Tobey) Steeves, MA, 2012.
- “Highly Commended” Award, Teachers’ Work/Teacher Unions SIG 127 of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) (2013).
Courses Taught
- EDST 401: Education, School, and Social Institutions (Teacher Education Program)
- EDST 531: The Politics of Education Governance
- EDST 596: Philosophy and Education Policy: Neoliberalism
- EDST 601A: Critical Social Theory in Education (PhD Program)
Community Work
Editorial Boards
- Editorial Advisory Board, Critical Studies in Education, 2016-.
- Editorial Advisory Board, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2021-
- Editorial Advisory Board, Journal of Education Policy, 2016-.
