Schooling responses to youth crime: building emotional capital

Abstract

This paper reports on a study into schooling responses to youth crime in southwestern Sydney, Australia. The project was a partnership between the New South Wales Department of Education and Training and the University of Western Sydney's School of Education. Specifically, the paper analyses interviews with school leaders who were interested in understanding how to support young people constructed 'at risk' of engaging in criminal activity. A content analysis, drawing on the concept of 'emotional capital', revealed discourses of safety, hope, engagement, and justice and fairness in the narratives of participants. The various ways in which 'emotion' is operationalized in education is explored so that the nature of emotional capital and its class and gendered inflections are made clear. Emotional capital, as a theoretical framework, also provides new insights into the strategies used by school leaders and helps situate the experiences and interests of the participating principals and key staff in the schools in this study.

Alternative education sites and marginalised young people: ‘I wish there were more schools like this one’

“…(McFadden and Munns 2002). A recent investigation into schooling responses to youth crime (Reid 2009) highlights the importance of the role played by teachers in investing emotional capital in their students. Earlier research confirms this perspective, situating emotional capital at the very heart of education.…”

Identities, Aspirations and Belonging of Cosmopolitan Youth in Australia

“…On the other hand, one in three males and one in four females 'rarely' or 'never' felt ownership of their local area, as Table 6 shows. (Reid, 2009). Most of the youth surveyed seemed to connect with their school.…”

Theorizing emotional capital

“…For her, women's role in the family supplies them with more emotional capital than men. Following this logic, emotional capital has been developed and applied primarily to studies of education and family (Colley 2006;Gillies 2006;Nixon 2011;O'Brien 2008;Reay 2000Reay , 2004Reid 2009;Zemblyas 2007), though research in the sociology of occupations has begun to use the concept (Cahill 1999;Schweingruber and Berns 2005), particularly in healthcare (Erickson and Stacey 2013;Husso and Hirvonen 2012;Stacey 2011;Virkki 2007). Below I outline three conceptual limitations in this prior work on emotional capital: (1) the concept has been inconsistently linked to gender, (2) its use often conflates capital with practice, and (3) it has been inconsistently theorized as static or dynamic over time.…”