Abstract
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.
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Notes
The term “technology” is used here in the sense that Nikolas Rose uses it:” “Human technologies are hybrid assemblages of knowledges, instruments, persons, systems of judgements, buildings and places, underpinned at the programmatic level by certain presuppositions and objectives about human beings” (Rose 1998, p. 26). It is thus practices that govern, i.e. shape or fashion, the conduct of human beings. Drawing on Foucault, Rose argues that psy technologies, i.e. the ideas and practices that evolve from psychology, are the most influential modes of ‘governmentality’ in western society.
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Matthiesen, N. Control and Responsibility: Taking a Closer Look at the Work of Ensuring Well-Being in Neoliberal Schools. Integr. psych. behav. 52, 438–448 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-018-9418-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-018-9418-x