Gender/ed discourses and emotional sub-texts: theorising emotion in UK higher education

Abstract

This article engages with contemporary debates about the absence/presence of emotion in higher education. UK higher education has traditionally been constructed as an emotion-free zone, reflecting the dominance of Cartesian dualism with its rational/emotional, mind/body, male/female split. This construction has been challenged in recent years by the incursion of ‘new students’ into the academy, requirements to offer enhanced student support, and new neo-liberal employability/personal skills agendas. At the same time, theories on the significance of the emotions in education are gaining prominence, e.g. in relation to debates about ‘emotional intelligence’. This renewed emphasis on emotion, however, has also been constructed as a dangerous and regressive example of the growing ‘therapy culture’ in universities. Drawing on the rich tradition of sociological and psycho-social work on the affective, our concern is to further the theorisation of the place of emotion in higher education.

Keywords:

• emotion
• gender
• higher education
• psycho-social theory

Notes

1. The term ‘mass’, although in regular use to describe the present system of higher education in the UK, needs qualifying. Whilst we have moved to a mass system of higher education for the middle classes, HE still remains an elite system, with relatively little change in the proportion of those from working class communities.