Constructing the Entrepreneurial-Self: How Catalan Textbooks Present the Neoliberal Worker to Their Students

Since the year 2000 and the massive arrival of immigrants to the Spanish region of Catalonia, the Catalan language has vastly augmented its number of students. In the meantime, the Catalan government continues to apply educational and language policies from the EU related to the new public management and knowledge economy. Neoliberal technologies and policy initiatives include creating a responsible, self-managing, self-enterprising worker. By drawing on Foucault's concept of governmentality, this paper analyses work related units in six series of textbooks for teaching Catalan to adults taking into account the governmental rationality of neoliberalism. The study concludes that Catalan language textbooks may function as instruments of subject formation promoting the self-management of a future Catalan worker and helping to create enterprising individuals.