Mired in the shadows: quiet students in secondary schools

Abstract

Quiet students are a feature of the organisation of secondary schools. Using qualitative methods and Deleuzean conceptualisations of modern subjectivity, this paper explores the ways that quiet students negotiate the terrain of their school. These negotiations often seem to produce a self that is trapped rather than a subject who seizes opportunities to be inventive, creative and experimental of their self. Understanding the faciality of quiet students provides opportunities to advance debate on how schools could encourage freer selves.

Keywords:

• student subjectivities
• postmodern
• Deleuze
• quiet students
• faciality
• becoming

Notes

1. Deleuze often wrote with Felix Guattari, a French psychotherapist who critiqued the established modes of thought found in contemporary psychotherapies. This collaboration is sometimes referred to as Deleuzoguattarian to acknowledge the role of Guattari in much of Deleuze's work. In this paper we will refer to this work as Deleuzean.

2. In Western Australia, students must study a minimum of four TEE subjects in order to satisfy the requirements to be considered for university entrance.