Control and Responsibility: Taking a Closer Look at the Work of Ensuring Well-Being in Neoliberal Schools
Matthiesen N.
2018
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science
6
10.1007/s12124-018-9418-x
This paper argues that the neo-liberal work of schooling includes a focus on producing subjectivities with a high level of well-being. This is done by drawing on evidence based therapeutic techniques that are adjusted to a school setting. These are termed ‘therapeutic socio-educational technologies. It is argued that these practices adhere to the neo-liberal logic of increased competition, standardization and testing, focusing on the individual child. There are a number of problems connected to these well-being enhancing technologies. These include the risk of producing passive and submissive subjectivities, that are understood as needing therapy by default; pathologizing the discomfort and struggles that are an inherent part of learning; the fragmentation of the child, focusing directly on the child rather than on the content matter at hand; producing an overly mechanic and technified pedagogy, focusing on output, as well as laying claim to much control in a risk-filled relational endeavor. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Neo-liberal education; Therapeutic education; Therapeutic socio-educational technologies; Well-being
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