Affective ideology and education policy: implications for critical policy research and practice

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that analyzing education policies through the lens of affect theory provides possibilities for understanding how particular concepts are associated with certain affective ideologies. To illustrate this, the paper analyzes the case of a recent publication by the Council of Europe titled Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture. The analysis shows how various concepts related to ‘democratic competences’ are invested with affective meanings, cultural connotations and political rhetoric. The paper argues that democratic competences are effectively conflated with emotional competences, opening up an analysis of democratic education as a form of individual and psychological therapy. The conclusion addresses the implications of this argument for education policy research and practice. In particular, it highlights the importance of paying attention not only to the ways that affect shapes the production of policy text, but also how a policy seeks to invoke certain affective dispositions at the point of enactment.

KEYWORDS:

• Affective ideology
• education policy
• affect theory
• critical policy research
• council of Europe
• reference framework of competences for democratic culture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As one of the anonymous reviewers correctly points out, all branches of affect theory attempt to analyze how affect is socially, culturally and politically mediated; however, how each branch theorizes the entanglement of affect and politics is different. It is beyond the scope of this paper to delve into these debates, which span across many academic disciplines, however, a good summary is provided by Schaefer (2019). Here it is sufficient to say that I prefer the second branch, as I further explain below, precisely because it pays attention to affect without drawing strict boundaries with emotion. As I explain later in a brief methodological note, the entanglement between affect and emotion is important to sustain theoretically in order to avoid reducing affect into a matter of linguistic analysis.

2. Theorists like Wendy Brown (2015) and Nicholas Rose (1999b) also allude to the affective role of ideology, particularly neoliberalism and neoliberal populism, in undermining democratic institutions and advancing fascist ideas. Also, several authors in education policy studies have also suggested, in addition to Brown and Rose, that the present moment of neoliberal populism can be construed as a ‘proto-fascist’ and authoritarian moment (e.g. see Giroux 2019). I am indebted to the editor for suggesting this link.

3. It is important to further clarify here that my focus in this paper is not to show how affective intensities shape the production of the policy text – this would require other sources of data (e.g. from the context of production) – but rather how affective intensities are manifest in the policy text to invoke particular dispositions. I am indebted to one of the anonymous reviewers for helping me to make this clarification.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michalinos Zembylas

Michalinos Zembylasis Professor of Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies at the Open University of Cyprus and Honorary Professor, Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa.He has written extensively on emotion and affect in relation to social justice pedagogies, intercultural and peace education, human rights education and citizenship education.