Emotionally‐vulnerable subjects and new inequalities: the educational implications of an ‘epistemology of the emotions’

Abstract

Motivated by very different goals, various interest groups argue that the British government should address problems with citizens’ emotional well‐being. Concerns about emotional vulnerability and poor emotional well‐being amongst growing numbers of children, young people and adults produce ideas and approaches from different branches of psychology and psychoanalysis. These compete for legitimacy throughout the education system. In part, such developments can be seen as the latest manifestation of a long‐running tendency to psychologise intractable educational and social problems. The roots of the psychologisation of emotional vulnerability also lie in a deeper philosophical and political disenchantment with an externally‐seeking, autonomous human subject and forms of curriculum knowledge that support it. One effect of these related trends is an epistemology of the emotion that privileges an emotionally vulnerable identity as integral to contemporary human subjectivity. One outcome is to offer emotionally‐focused pedagogy and knowledge, particularly for those deemed to be educationally and socially disadvantaged. The paper argues that, despite being highly unfashionable in sociological, political and philosophical theory, a humanist view of subjectivity challenges the new inequalities and diminished forms of pedagogy and knowledge this epistemology offers.

Keywords:

• emotional well‐being
• psychologisation
• humanism
• psycho‐social
• therapeutic culture

Acknowledgements

A number of colleagues have taken the time to discuss the ideas in this paper and to comment on earlier drafts. I am especially grateful to Ann‐Marie Bathmaker (University of West England), Jocey Quinn (University of Plymouth), Christine Skelton, Nick Peim, David Hartley and Sue Morris (University of Birmingham), Michael Young (Institute of Education), James Panton (University of Oxford) and John Leigh (Kettering Science Academy). I am also grateful to the two referees of a previous version of this article for their very useful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. Confusingly perhaps, ‘positive’ psychology uses ‘positive’ in its everyday meaning as denoting an optimistic (as opposed to negative) view of mental health, rather than a positivistic methodology per se. However, in its strong reliance on neuroscience and RCTs as evidence for its claims, positive psychology is also highly positivistic!