Hooked on a feeling: education, guidance and rehabilitation of youth at risk

Abstract

Education in Finland is facing new challenges in the form of two related trends: ‘therapisation’ and ‘projectisation’. The concept of therapisation describes the ways in which ideas, discourses and practices from counselling, therapy, psychiatry, educational and clinical psychology become internalised and normalised in education. Projectisation represents a disciplinary and productive form of power related to project-based activities that have permeated education in Finland. The alliance between projectisation and therapisation specifies the parameters of what can be said and done in project-based education. This article analyses the shift in Finnish education towards individually targeted, project-based and therapeutic activities, such as those for mental health and emotional well-being, as well as activities for emotional and psychological support and raising self-esteem. These short-term educational activities targeting youth at risk of social exclusion represent a form of regulative and productive power that intertwines with young adults’ education, guidance and rehabilitation. The article is informed by a Foucauldian discourse-analytic methodology and on an empirical study. Through analysis of interviews and ethnographic research with young people and project workers involved in education, guidance and rehabilitation activities, I draw critical attention to the alliance between therapisation and projectisation in education and some of its educational and social implications.

Keywords:

• project-based activities
• projectisation
• subjectification
• therapisation
• youth at risk