Complicating ‘student behaviour’: exploring the discursive constitution of ‘learner subjectivities’

Abstract

When educators consider ‘student behaviour’, they usually think about ‘problem behaviour’ such as disruption or defiance. This limited and limiting view of ‘student behaviour’ not only fails to acknowledge children as educational actors in a wider sense, but also narrowly positions educators as either in control or out of control of their classroom. Mainstream educational psychology’s responses to ‘challenging behaviour’ point educators to numerous ways to prevent its occurrence, through, for example, changing their disciplining approaches and techniques. However, much of the advice directed at improving student behaviour fails to interrogate the core notion of ‘student behaviour’ itself, as well as the conceptual baggage that it carries. The focus is squarely on eliminating ‘problem behaviour’ and often resorts to a pathologisation of students. Meanwhile, when considering ‘student behaviour’ through a Foucauldian post-structuralist optic, behaviour emerges as something highly complex – as spatialised, embodied action within/against governing discourses. In this opening up, it becomes both possible and critical to defamiliarise oneself with the categorisation of ‘challenging behaviour’ and to interrogate the discourses and subject positionings at play. In this paper, we pursue this task by asking: what happens with the notion of ‘behaviour’ if we change focus from ‘fixing problems’ to looking at the discursive constitution of ‘learner subjectivities’? What does it become possible to see, think, feel and do? In this exploration, we theorise ‘behaviour’ as learning and illustrate the constitution of ‘learner subjectivities’. Drawing on two case scenarios, we explore how children accomplish themselves as learners and how this accomplishment links the production of subjectivity and embodied action, and illustrate how ‘student/child behaviour’ appears significantly different to what mainstream educational psychology would have us see.

Keywords:

• behaviour management
• learning
• post-structural theory
• critical psychology

Notes

1. For a review and Foucauldian critique of these theories see Millei (2010).

2. This displacement is of course limited by the data we have access to, which already compels a particular focus. The observation could have, for instance, focussed on what the other children were doing at the time or how the room was laid out, or other kinds of foci.

3. Looking at the scenario from the point of emotions, another layer appears. Calum might have felt that he was unfairly treated. He felt probably embarrassed, because the yellow chair obviously had some significance in the classroom and he did not desire (the humiliation) of being made to sit there while many of his classmates observed him being forcefully moved there. His arm was probably hurting. The teacher and assistant had gone to lengths to discipline him so they might have felt frustrated. The way they dealt with the situation was probably not their first choice and they probably felt guilty about imposing such autocratic and physical methods to move him to the position on the yellow chair. At the same time Zsuzsa, the observer, tried to remain indifferent throughout the whole exchange but later regretted somewhat this position. If she had responded to Calum’s earlier questions, he might not have gotten singled out by the teacher and subsequently disciplined. She felt guilty and disappointed with her own behaviour and thought that in a way it is her fault that Calum was punished.