The therapisation of social justice as an emotional regime: implications for critical education

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to sketch out what one can see as the emerging “therapeutic turn” in a wide range of areas of contemporary social life including education, especially in relation to understandings of vulnerability and social justice, and then poses the question of what emotional regime has accompanied the emergence of this “therapization” movement, making emotional life in schools the “object-target” for specific technologies of power. Design/methodology/approach The psychologization of social problems has been very much in evidence in the development of educational policies and practices – an approach which not only pathologizes social problems as individual psychological deficiencies or traits, but also obscures the recognition of serious structural inequalities and ideological commitments that perpetuate social injustices through educational policy and practice. In the present paper, the author adopts a different perspective, that of the history, sociology and politics of emotions and affects to show how and why the therapization of social justice is part of the conditions for the birth of particular forms of biopower in schools. Findings There is an urgent need to expose how psychologized approaches that present social justice as an individualizing responsibility are essentially depoliticizing vulnerability by silencing the shared complicities. It is argued, then, that it is crucial to pay attention to the political and structural dimensions of vulnerability. Originality/value Attending to the emotional regime of therapization of social justice has important implications to counter forms of biopower that work through processes of normalization.

Development and validation of the Principal Emotion Inventory: A mixed-methods approach

“…First, they found that some contextual factors shape principal emotions. For example, sociocultural power relations (Blackmore, 2010), social justice (Zembylas, 2016), hegemonic occupational culture (Crawford, 2007) and hierarchical supervision style from supervisors to school principals (Schermuly et al, 2011). Second, a few studies identified organizational antecedents such as organizational climate (Brennan and Mac and crisis management (Ackerman and Maslin-Ostrowski, 2004).…”

“…Before conducting Study 1, the research team firstly defined content domains from previous literature relating to principal emotions (Arar and Oplatka, 2018;Berkovich and Eyal, 2015;Brennan and Mac Ruairc, 2011;Crawford, 2007Crawford, , 2018Leithwood and Beatty, 2009;Oplatka, 2017;Zembylas, 2016Zembylas, , 2018 and then generated new items for each domain. The following two aspects were especially examined.…”

Painful invisibilities: Roll management or ‘off‐rolling’ and professional identity

“…Planned training in behavioural management will include the raising of awareness of the underlying causes of highly disruptive behaviour (which may include the physical assault of teachers or other students), such as psychological trauma and attachment issues (DfE, : 13), evoking arguments that governmental pressure to improve academic performance has been accompanied by an ill‐founded therapeutisation of education (MacNaughton, ; Zembylas, ).…”

Professional standards for teachers and school leaders

“…Part of affective management in schools to produce well-being, interest and desire takes places through therapeutic techniques such as learning how to control "bad" feelings and practice to express "good" feelings. Generally speaking, therapeutic techniques in educational policy and practice emphasize two elements: they provide explanations about barriers and educational needs that are grounded in psycho-emotional and neuroscience discourses; and, their goal is to foster emotional well-being as a solution for overcoming problems with aspiration, achievement and employability (Ecclestone and Brunila, 2015;see also De Vos, 2015;Zembylas, 2016). Standardizing processes in schools are an interesting phenomenon in discussions about affective management and therapeutic techniques, because although they aim at regulating practices and ways of being in schools, they do not always function therapeutically.…”