Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T17:41:48.935Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Changing the Subject of Education? A Critical Evaluation of ‘Vulnerability Creep’ and its Implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2017

Kathryn Ecclestone
Kathryn Ecclestone*
Affiliation:
School of Education, University of Sheffield E-mail: k.ecclestone@sheffield.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Vulnerability has become a ubiquitous description in policy and everyday educational settings as well as a foundation for a progressive politics, inside and outside education. Increasingly embedded in apocalyptic discourses about mental health, a psycho-emotional interpretation of vulnerability has elevated its status as a powerful and highly normative cultural metaphor. The article uses a critical realist approach to explore wider developments in ‘therapeutic culture’ that frame the rise of what I call ‘vulnerability creep’ in the education system. Drawing together examples of vulnerability creep in English universities, I argue that the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy is a stark illumination of dangers that arise when educational goals and practices are rooted in images of psycho-emotionally vulnerable human subjects. The phenomena explored in the article raise important social science questions that require further empirical and theoretical study.

Keywords

Critical realismmental healthsubjectivity
Type
Themed Section on Vulnerability and Social Justice
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 443 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPG) (2014) Mental Health and Sustainable Development, London: Mental Health Innovation Network and APPG.Google Scholar
Bartram, B. (2014) ‘Emotion as a student resource in higher education’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 63, 1, 67–84.Google Scholar
Beck, U. (1992) The Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, London: Sage Books.Google Scholar
British Academy Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) (2015) 69th Ceremony, Royal Opera House, London, 14 February.Google Scholar
Brown, B. (2011) ‘The power of vulnerability’, https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en.Google Scholar
Brown, K. (2015) Vulnerability and Young People: Care and Control in Social Policy, Bristol: The Policy Press (accessed 11.07.16).Google Scholar
Caesar, E. (2016) ‘Mark Rylance on swapping Shakespeare for Spielberg’, interview in GQ magazine, 9 May.Google Scholar
Chandler, D. (2014) Resilience: The Governance of Complexity – Critical Issues in Global Politics, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cohen, N. (2016) ‘The idea of university as a free space rather than a safe space is vanishing’, The Spectator, http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/idea-university-free-space-rather-safe-space-vanishing/ (accessed 11.07.16).Google Scholar
Coppock, V. and McGovern, M. (2014) ‘”Dangerous minds”? Deconstructing counter-terrorism discourse, radicalisation and the “psychological vulnerability” of Muslim children and young people in Britain’, Children and Society, 28, 242–56.Google Scholar
Cramp, A., Lamond, C., Coleyshaw, L. and Beck, S. (2012) ‘Empowering or disabling? Emotional reactions to assessment amongst part-time adult students’, Teaching in Higher Education, 17, 5, 509–21.Google Scholar
Davies, W. (2015) The Happiness Industry: How Government and Big Business Sold Us Happiness and Well-being, London: Verso.Google Scholar
Department for Children, Families and Schools (DCFS) (2008) Learning Together to be Safe: A Toolkit to Contribute to the Prevention of Violent Extremism, London: DCSF.Google Scholar
Devon, N. (2016) ‘I'll tell you what isn't helpful at all: telling children with mental health problems that they're namby-pamby’, https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/ill-tell-you-what-isnt-helpful-all-telling-children-mental-health (accessed 17.08.16).Google Scholar
Durodie, B. (2016) ‘Securitising education to prevent terrorism or losing direction?’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 64, 1, 21–35.Google Scholar
Ecclestone, K. (ed.) (2013) Emotional Wellbeing in Policy and Practice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ecclestone, K. (2017) ‘Behaviour change policy agendas for “vulnerable” subjectivities: the dangers of therapeutic governance and its new entrepreneurs’, Journal of Education Policy, 32, 1, 62.Google Scholar
Ecclestone, K. and Brunila, K. (2015) ‘Governing emotionally-vulnerable subjects and “therapisation” of social justice’, Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 23, 4, 485–506.Google Scholar
Ecclestone, K. and Goodley, D. (2015) ‘Political and educational springboard or straitjacket?: theorising post/humanist subjects in an age of vulnerability’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37, 2, 175–88.Google Scholar
Ecclestone, K. and Hayes, D. (2009) The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ecclestone, K. and Lewis, L. (2014) ‘Interventions for emotional well-being in educational policy and practice: challenging discourses of “risk” and “vulnerability”’, Journal of Education Policy, 24, 1, 192–214.Google Scholar
Ecclestone, K., Liddiard, K., McLaughlin, K. and Taylor, M. (2015) ‘Education in an age of vulnerability’, Debate for the University of Sheffield Education Doctorate Residential Programme, University of Sheffield, 13 May.Google Scholar
Frawley, A. (2014) The Semiotics of Happiness: The Rhetorical Beginnings of a Social Problem, London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Furedi, F. (2004) Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Furedi, F. (2008) ‘Fear and security: a vulnerability-led policy response’, Social Policy and Administration, 42, 6, 645–61.Google Scholar
Giddens, A (1976) New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative Sociologies, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1998) The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, London: Polity Books.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. (2015) ‘Why concepts creep to the left’, Psychological Inquiry, 27, 40–45.Google Scholar
Harwood, V. and Allan, J. (2014) Psychopathology at School: Theorizing Education and Mental Disorder, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Haslam, N. (2016) ‘Concept creep: psychology's expanding concepts of harm and pathology’, Psychological Inquiry, 27, 1, 1–17.Google Scholar
Heartfield, J. (2002) The ‘Death of the Subject’ Explained, Sheffield: Sheffield Hallam University.Google Scholar
Office, Home (2011) Prevent Strategy, London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office.Google Scholar
Horsley, S. and Hollingworth, E. (2014) Children and Young People's Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health, Sheffield: Public Health Team (Children Young People and Families), Sheffield City Council.Google Scholar
Hume, M. (2015) Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech? London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Jopling, M. and Vincent, S. (2015) Vulnerable Children: Needs and Provision in the Primary Phase, York: Cambridge Primary Review Trust.Google Scholar
Leathwood, C. and Hey, V. (2009) ‘Gender/ed discourses and emotional subtexts: theorising emotion in UK higher education’, Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 14, 4, 429–40.Google Scholar
Lock, H. (2016) ‘Student protests: are young people too sensitive these days?’, The Guardian, 10 March, http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/mar/10/student-protests-are-young-people-too-sensitive-these-days (accessed 17.08.16).Google Scholar
Lukianoff, G. and Haidt, J. (2015) ‘The coddling of the American mind’, The Atlantic, September, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/ (accessed 17.08.16).Google Scholar
Macaskill, A. (2012) ‘The mental health of university students in the United Kingdom’, British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 41, 4, 426–41.Google Scholar
Malik, K. (2001) Man, Beast or Zombie? London: Weidenfield.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, K. (2011) Surviving Identity: Vulnerability and the Psychology of Recognition, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McLeod, J. (2012) ‘Vulnerability and the neoliberal youth citizen: a view from Australia’, Comparative Education, 48, 1, 11–26.Google Scholar
Nolan, J. L. (1998) The Therapeutic State: Justifying Government at Century's End, New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
O'Donnell, A. (2016) ‘Securitisation, counter-terrorism and the silencing of dissent: the educational implications of Prevent ’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 64, 1, 53–76.Google Scholar
Office for Standards in Education (OfSTED) (2012) Good Practice in Creating an Inclusive School, London: Department for Education.Google Scholar
Paur, J. (2012) ‘Precarity talk: a virtual roundtable with Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, Borjana Cvejic, Isabell Lorey, Jasbir Paur, Ana Vujanovic’, The Drama Review, 56, 4, 163–77.Google Scholar
Percy, A. (2016) ‘The cultural Influences on young adult psychological development and the impact on university and college counselling’, Keynote presentation to the British Association for Counsellors and Psychotherapists University and College Division annual conferences, London South Bank University, 13 May, and University of Sheffield, 24 June.Google Scholar
Rawdin, C. (2016) ‘Social and emotional learning interventions and the reshaping of teachers’ subjectivity’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Reay, D. (2005) ‘Beyond consciousness: the psychic landscape of social class’, Sociology, 39, 5, 911–28.Google Scholar
Richards, A. (2011) ‘The problem with “radicalisation”: the remit of “Prevent” and the need to refocus on terrorism in the UK’, International Affairs, 87, 1, 143–52.Google Scholar
Rose, N. (1999) Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self, London: Free Association Books.Google Scholar
Selvarajah, S. (2015) ‘Suicide dropped from sociology lessons – are some subjects too sensitive for school?’, The Guardian, 15 June, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/15/suicide-dropped-sociology-exam-a-level (accessed 17.08.16).Google Scholar
Smith, J. (2016) ‘Student mental health: a new model for universities’, The Guardian, 2 March 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/mar/02/student-mental-health-a-new-model-for-universities (accessed 06.11.16).Google Scholar
Sunday Express (2016) ‘Sons and daughters need help just as much as their mothers, says Prince William’, Sunday Express, 19 June 2016, http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/681103/The-Duke-of-Cambridge-Prince-William-Fathers-Day-children-mental-health (accessed 06.11.16).Google Scholar
Williams, J. and Hudson, C. (eds.) (2016) Why Academic Freedom Matters: A Response to Current Challenges, London: Civitas.Google Scholar
Woodhall, V (2016) ‘Electro-soul artist is using music to lift the lid on mental health’, You Magazine, 3 July.Google Scholar
World Health Association (WHO) (2012), Depression Fact Sheet, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs369/en/ (accessed 06.11.16).Google Scholar
Wright, K. (2011) The Rise of Therapeutic Society: Psychological Knowledge and the Contradictions of Cultural Change, New York: Academia Publishing.Google Scholar