Reinforcing the ‘diminished’ subject? The implications of the ‘vulnerability zeitgeist’ for well-being in educational settings

Ecclestone, Kathryn; Rawdin, Clare

doi:10.1080/0305764x.2015.1120707

Cited by 29 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…First, in the light of critiques about an over-psychologised 'epistemology of emotion' in contemporary HE (Ecclestone and Rawdin 2016) we contend that the psychoanalytic lens contributes a richer understanding of the learning process. Psychoanalytic approaches highlight how learning involves more than cognitive accommodation and assimilation (Piaget 1971); learning involves students' and teachers' deepest hopes and fears, loves and hates, all of which make up 'the subjective curriculum' (Mayes 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although emotional arousal does not automatically lead to learning, without it, people are not able to learn (Dirkx 2001) and effective teachers and forms of curricula knowledge address both the affective and the cognitive (Youell 2006;Clegg and Rowland 2010;Ecclestone and Rawdin 2016). However, the Cartesian dualism between the rational/intellectual and emotional/experiential (Beard, Clegg, and Smith 2007;Leathwood and Hey 2009) within contemporary discourse about learning and teaching in HE can leave many students and tutors with few spaces to express their feelings in relation to their learning experiences (Day and Leitch 2001;Cramp et al 2012;Storrs 2012).…”

Section: Learning and Emotions In Hementioning

confidence: 93%

“…Second, student well-being initiatives have been linked with the encroachment of a surveillance-driven, standardised and monitored education system that serves only to generate effective workers and consumers in fast changing economic and technological environments to the detriment of critique and dialogue (Hartley 2003;Clegg and Rowland 2010). Third, critics argue that the 'epistemology of emotion' (Ecclestone 2004;Ecclestone and Hayes 2007;Ecclestone and Rawdin 2016) is a consequence of competition for legitimacy by poorly theorised psychological perspectives the result of which is to re-cast the identity of all learners as emotionally vulnerable and diminished agents (Furedi 2003;Ecclestone and Rawdin 2016).…”

Section: Learning and Emotions In Hementioning

confidence: 97%

“…We note that the focus on emotional well-being has come at a time when expectations of HE are heightened with demands for the sector to promote employability, widening participation, educational 'productivity' and 'student satisfaction and throughput' (Schuck, Gordon, and Buchanan 2008;Arthur 2009;Gribble, Blackmore, and Rahimi 2015). However, critics of the 'emotional turn' argue that over-psychologised accounts of education have led to an 'epistemology of the emotions' (Ecclestone and Rawdin 2016) that serves to deny the human agency in HE and runs the risk of promoting psychologically 'diminished' subjects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

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The emotional turn in higher education: a psychoanalytic contribution

Gilmore

Anderson

2016

Teaching in Higher Education

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This article contributes to contemporary debates about the significance of emotions within Higher Education. Using a psychoanalytic lens we analyse the ways in which experiences of anxiety and tension are essential for learning. The anxiety associated with learning can stimulate meaningful and reflexive outcomes but 'learning inaction' [Vince, R. 2014. 'What Do HRD Scholars and Practitioners Need to Know About Power, Emotion, and HRD?' Human Resource Development Quarterly 25: 409-420] is also possible. In adopting a psychoanalytical lens we assert the agency of both learners and teachers in scholarly relationships and we draw attention to the emotions of educators as well as students. This has important implications for teacher education and academic formation activities. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Learning and Emotions In Hementioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Learning and Emotions In Hementioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The emotional turn in higher education: a psychoanalytic contribution

Gilmore

Anderson

2016

Teaching in Higher Education

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“…Those seen as vulnerable include people living with certain categories of disease and disability for which they require additional support, and those living in circumstances of social, economic and environmental deprivation. Moreover, the term ‘vulnerable’ has been extended in its applications since the early 2000s to encompass a far wider set of social and experiential conditions, with a concomitant shift in attribution from characteristics to individuals at risk, and often with an emphasis on psychoemotional intervention 5 6. Labelling a range of bodily states, social and demographic categories, geographical settings and so forth as vulnerable has at least two important potential consequences.…”

Section: Vulnerabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions

Coyle

Atkinson

2018

Med Humanities

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The paper contributes to contemporary understandings of vulnerability by expanding their scope with an understanding of vulnerability as generated through institutionalised practices. The argument draws on experiential accounts of navigating the practices of diagnosis by people living with multiple conditions of ill-health and disability. Vulnerability as a concept is used widely across different domains and conveys a multitude of meanings. Contemporary biomedicine, and its associated health systems and services, understands vulnerability mostly as inherent to particular physical and mental bodily conditions that put people at risk of ill-health or emotionally fragility. This may combine with a more epidemiological understanding of vulnerability as the experience of certain population groups subject to entrenched structural inequalities. Philosophers and feminists have argued that vulnerability is a universal experience of being human while political commentators have explored its potential as a resource for resistance and action. Diagnosis within medicine and psychiatry has been the subject of extensive social analysis, critique and activism. The paper draws on first-hand experiential accounts collected through face-to-face interviews with people living with multiple conditions about their experiences of diagnosis, mostly at the primary care level. We identify five aspects to diagnostic practice that are harmful and exacerbate the experience of vulnerability: temporal sequencing; diagnostic authority; medical specialisation; strategic symptom selection; medical isolation. However, these diagnostic practices are not best understood only in terms of the power asymmetries inherent to the medical consultation, but are embedded into the very institution of diagnosis. The paper thus proposes a combined approach to vulnerability that recognises it as a universal condition of humanity but one that becomes animated or amplified for some bodies, through their own inherent incapacities or the external structures of inequality, and through the practices of medicine as situated in particular times and places.

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A critical consideration of ‘mental health and wellbeing’ in education: Thinking about school aims in terms of wellbeing

Norwich

Moore

Stentiford

et al. 2022

British Educational Res J

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This paper examines ideas about mental health, wellbeing and school education to illustrate important issues in the relationship between mental health and education. The Covid crisis has amplified the pre‐existing mental health problems of children and young people in England and recognition of the opportunities in schools to address these. The paper gives an overview of child and adolescent mental health services and how they position the role of schools. It examines prominent concepts of mental health and their relationship to wellbeing, setting this in a discussion of ‘mentally healthy’ schools, mental health in special educational needs and whole‐school approaches. This analysis shows how the relationship between mental health and wellbeing has not been adequately worked out, using this as the basis for arguing for the dual‐factor mental health model which separates mental illness/disorder from wellbeing as two related dimensions. The paper then translates the dual‐factor model into a two‐dimensional framework that represents the distinctive but related aims of school education (wellbeing promotion) and mental health services (preventing, coping, helping mental health difficulties). This framework involves a complex conception of wellbeing, with schools playing an important role in promoting wellbeing (beyond emotional wellbeing), tiered models and establishing school‐wide social emotional learning. It is about a whole‐school curriculum approach that involves considering what is to be learned and how it is taught. It contributes to a more nuanced concept of wellbeing that has a place for meaningful learning and challenge.

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Reinforcing the ‘diminished’ subject? The implications of the ‘vulnerability zeitgeist’ for well-being in educational settings

Cited by 29 publications

References 47 publications

The emotional turn in higher education: a psychoanalytic contribution

The emotional turn in higher education: a psychoanalytic contribution

Vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions

A critical consideration of ‘mental health and wellbeing’ in education: Thinking about school aims in terms of wellbeing

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