Introduction

When COVID-19 emerged globally, researchers had to renegotiate research methods, their relationship with time and the unprecedented blurring of work and home. This raised questions of how to conduct methodologically and ethically sound creative research whilst being sensitive to lived experiences. Addressing this led to a focus on crafting and the potential benefits of diaries for capturing thoughts and feelings. There is a wealth of literature affirming the creative use of diaries (Välimäki et al, 2007; Kara, 2015; Mannay, 2016; Meth, 2017; Herron et al, 2019). However, diaries are time and energy consuming. This chapter offers a new insight into the ‘in-practice’ use of diaries through the ‘Crafting during Coronavirus’ research project.

‘Crafting during Coronavirus’

When fears around COVID-19 started to take hold, Naomi saw that her Instagram feed was flooded with ‘lockdown making’ and ‘coronavirus creativity’. We did not want people's narratives of making during this crisis to be lost and we wanted to bear witness to their thoughts and experiences as well as their makes. People's experiences and thoughts are diverse, complex and subjective so creative methods, allowing participants to tell their story in their own words and in their own time, are both ethical and credible (Brinkman, 2012).

Following ethical approval from the University of Bristol, the ‘Crafting during Coronavirus’ (CDC) research project was shared on social media platforms from 4 April 2020 with a weblink to Naomi's website with project information (Clarke, 2020). Having an established online presence enabled participants to legitimize Naomi's identity and experience. Naomi, a PhD student and crafter with 23 years’ experience, utilized her creative connections to extend the reach of the research. Relying on digital connections is complex. It can be beneficial for enabling access to a broad geographical dispersion of participants more cost-effectively than most qualitative methods (Kara, 2015). It can also, however, bias the sample towards those with digital access and technical know-how (Duffy, 2002). In total, 576 people signed the participation consent survey. All participants were emailed with an individual ‘welcome’ message including the ‘diary template’, information about the diary sections, time frames and encouragement to make the diary their own. Of the 576 participants, 120 withdrew. Of the remaining 456, 317 actively participated by regularly sharing their diaries, crafting, making and experiences.

Introduction

In what ways do regulatory regimes enact, delimit and inhibit the progress of families on low incomes across England and Wales? Although they may not explicitly interact, diverse regimes are affectively experienced, including immigration status (including from European Union [EU] countries), employment assessments and activation, mental health, child protection, structural and overt racism, and the nonportability of professional qualifications across national systems. In this chapter, we explore how contemporary social practice art materialises these intersections and enables disruptions of regulatory regimes in ways not possible using traditional social science approaches. We focus on a research team that included artists Close and Remote, and explain how the team co-produced, with community members and academics, a socially engaged artwork – Life Chances – that aimed to generate new knowledges about the regulatory regimes that low-income families with children experience. Aiming towards what sociologist Yasmin Gunaratnam (2012) describes as a form of improvisational empathy, Life Chances worked with Thomas More's (1516) Utopia and Ruth Levitas's (2013) Utopia as Method as ‘a form of speculative sociology of the future’ (Levitas, 2013: 85). By staging and troubling contradictory notions of ‘life chances’ through art, we specifically ask how the regulatory services that families encounter in two urban settings – the Easton area of Bristol and Butetown, Riverside and Grangetown in Cardiff – shape, constrain and enable the life chances of individual families and communities, or what Pierre Bourdieu (1977) refers to as doxa, and how these services might be ‘otherwise’.

Life Chances was co-designed by academics from Bristol and Cardiff Universities, artists Close and Remote, and two community organisations: the Single Parent Action Network (SPAN) in Bristol and South Riverside Community Development Centre (SRCDC) in Cardiff. From the outset, there was an intention to work with social practice art. In addition to its emphasis on collaborative working closely reflecting the principles of co-production, we wanted to work with the everyday materials that families on low incomes encounter. Moreover, we were interested in working with a creative practice that would manifest the distributed, entangled and durational relationships across diverse regulatory regimes.

In this part, we consider the issues of concept, policy, practice and measurement in specific contexts. These contexts are derived from the authors’ recent research experiences and are not designed to provide the ‘elements’ of wellbeing. Rather, they are lenses through which it is possible to consider the propositions made about wellbeing in Chapter 1: that wellbeing is subjectively experienced, contextual and embedded, and relational. They are also opportunities through which we explore the questions related to wellbeing as a concept in respect of the effects and practices of wellbeing. Each chapter is to be understood in the context of the visual heuristic introduced earlier (Figure 1.3).

Introduction

The policy and practice chapters raised issues that deserve further attention. We start with the policy that, more than any other, has driven wellbeing practice in UK schools, Every Child Matters (ECM) (DFES, 2004a). ECM uses an objective list model of wellbeing, with Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) and many of the conflict resolution programmes serving as its operationalised arm. ECM, ‘warts and all’, is the vehicle through which notions of wellbeing are currently addressed in school settings. It sets out a centralised and prescriptive framework within which childhood is viewed. There is, particularly in English schools, a lack of evidence, evaluation or critical debate regarding the actualisation of ECM through Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) activity. While engaging with children's social and emotional development is vital, and the contested nature of the concept of wellbeing in education does not mean that there is not a need for many of the activities taking place on the ground, there remain concerns with the implementation of ECM that derive from the philosophy behind it.

The philosophy of Every Child Matters

ECM takes a clear egalitarian philosophical position, every child matters as much as the next. This has translated, within SEL, into the universal application of a deficit model of wellbeing to all children, arguably one of the key failures of the scheme. ECM currently covers whole schools, monitoring and measuring the social and emotional development of all pupils. An alternative framework might start from acknowledging the positives many children already have in this field, and offering greater support to children with greater needs, arising from dialogue built upon being known (see Chapters 11 and 12). True dialogue can only arise within relationships that acknowledge the local context and culture of each child (and adult). Every child matters, but no two children matter in precisely the same way.

The status of ECM as state-sanctioned suggests that the state is interested in fixing the deficits it perceives many children to have. ECM implies that we need to be protected from our children, that our children need to be protected from themselves and that all of us need to be protected from poor parenting practices. As Clements and Clements (2000) noted: ‘the notion that children are now subject to innumerable risks in greater numbers, and with greater consequence than ever before can only have a corrosive effect on child-rearing’.

Introduction

This chapter critically reviews some key UK educational policies focused on the promotion of social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) in schools over the last decade. We also offer some wider context to this policy formation and the drivers behind it. Each of the four countries of the UK is considered separately as there are different policy frameworks in each region. Table 3.1 shows estimated relative youth (under 18) populations across the UK as context for this discussion.

The rise and rise of wellbeing in education policy

Within education policy, wellbeing, and its offshoot SEWB, is a relatively new discourse, reflective of much of the New Labour agenda post-1997. What policymakers understand by wellbeing is far from clear (Ereaut and Whiting, 2008), as we outlined in Chapter 2.

Dartington Social Research Unit (Axford et al, 2009) identified five ‘lenses’ (needs, poverty, quality of life, social exclusion and children's rights) through which policymakers observed and acted on children's wellbeing and suggested that policymakers’ understanding of these lenses is inconsistent. The route policy has taken, however, does show consistency. Both in the UK and internationally it has favoured operationalised or Objective List Theory (OLT) definitions. UK examples of lists of wellbeing indicators integral to policy include Every Child Matters’ five outcomes, and the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence's four capacities.

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have all influenced UK policy on SEWB in schools. Several comparative international reports (UNICEF, 2007; Bradshaw and Richardson, 2009; OECD, 2009) suggested that UK children fare worse than their counterparts in many other countries surveyed.

The UNICEF report ranked the UK 21st out of 21 rich countries surveyed. The UNICEF report was based on a concept of wellbeing grounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and this resulted in some difficult findings for the UK. Just over 40% of the UK's 11, 13 and 15 year olds found their peers kind and helpful, the worst score of all the developed countries. The UK had the highest proportion of young people who smoke, abuse drink and drugs, engage in risky sex, and become pregnant at too early an age. Also, 30% of the 15 to 19 year olds were not in education or training or were not looking beyond low-skilled work.

This part draws together emergent strands of thinking on children's social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB). Chapter 12 explores the context of approaches to supporting children's wellbeing, and this reflects the propositions offered in Chapter 1 of SEWB being subjectively experienced, contextual and embedded, and relational. In Chapter 13, we revisit the policy and practice strands of the book and offer our vision (and predictions) for SEWB in schools under the Coalition government. The concluding chapter pulls together these ideas and propositions and revisits the questions raised in Chapter 1 concerning the nature of wellbeing as a concept.

Introduction

In Chapter 3, we explored issues of policy and wellbeing and, in Chapter 4, we examined the practice in schools to promote wellbeing, with a particular emphasis on the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) programme. Policy (and its resulting practice) is dependent on measurement. The purpose of policy is to enable change, and change can only impact on those aspects of social life that can be measured. Measurement is necessary as part of processes of the examination (Foucault, 1991a) of the public body underpinning the ability of the state to regulate the lives of its citizens and to control their destinies.

Such measurement is focused on the ‘social body’, through the action of the ‘body politic’ (Scheper-Hughes and Lock, 1987). Policy also impacts on the phenomenological body of the person. Through the discursive practices of examination and the modern concept of intervention, the measurement of wellbeing is increasingly used to identify problems in the population (especially children) as part of an accepted policy strategy of early intervention: spot problems early and they can be eradicated. The shift towards emphasis on the phenomenological body, as opposed to action focused on the social body, reflected a shift in the neo-liberal agenda pursued by New Labour during their term of office. In 1997, on taking power, Tony Blair emphasised activity focused on the failings of the phenomenological body:

Introduction

In this chapter, we consider a range of approaches to address children's difficulties in their peer relations in schools. In particular, we voice criticism of teaching conflict resolution (CR) skills to schoolchildren. We do so not because we do not share CR practitioners’ hopes of harmonious and enriching school environments, but in order to examine whether evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach, and to explore and deconstruct the methods of CR in schools to see what unintended consequences and hidden agendas may be in play in regard to wellbeing. ‘Conflict resolution’ is a broad term and, like ‘wellbeing’, a contested concept (Isenhart and Spangle, 2000). According to Cohen (1995, p 15) ‘conflict is a discord of needs, drives, wishes, and/or demands’. Mack and Snyder stated that conflict ‘is for the most part a rubber concept, being stretched and moulded for the purposes at hand’ (Mack and Snyder, 1957, p 212). This quote applies also to ‘wellbeing’.

Less contested is the recognition that conflict can be intrapersonal (within the individual), interpersonal (between two parties) or intergroup (between groups) (Cohen, 1995), and that it has both a conceptual (internal/psychological) and a behavioural (external/activity) property (Sellman, 2003). In schools, CR is built on a social learning model (Groebel and Hinde, 1989; Bandura, 1997) according to which techniques for resolving conflicts can be learnt, and modelling influences behaviour, as does the environment. The idea that CR skills are readily learnable fits comfortably with Goleman's (1995) model of emotional intelligence, which is the foundation for the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) programme and much of the social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) practice delivered in UK schools. CR skills are taught in schools, generally by external training organisations, to support pupils in peacefully resolving conflicts in school and to develop an understanding of its causes and impact.

Most school-based CR practice sees conflict as a natural part of everyday school experience (Tyler, 1998). However, school CR rarely includes consideration of societal structures, class relationships or cultural forces (Sellman, 2003). Like much of the social and emotional learning agenda (see Chapters 4 and 5), school CR sees the locus of control as individuals in relationship with others. In this chapter, we consider three types of school CR and relate them to the school wellbeing agenda: peer mediation (including buddying); anti-bullying initiatives; and restorative approaches (RA).

Introduction

In this chapter, we introduce key debates in philosophy, and beyond, in respect of wellbeing (in general, as this is how it has emerged in the literature) and attempt to unpack and deconstruct the concept of wellbeing in order to problematise and challenge the normalisation that has occurred. To this end, this chapter is theoretically focused, and at times conceptually challenging. We address the policy and practical application of these ideas in later chapters. There is also not a specific focus on schools or education in this chapter as the definitions of wellbeing as a concept are explored in the contexts in which theorists have described wellbeing (usually philosophical, medical and economic). Therefore, this chapter lays the foundations to engage in a critical examination of the roots of wellbeing, which will be developed and applied in later chapters.

A deconstructive approach has been used in order to foreground children's social and emotional wellbeing experiences as it allows a more ethical stance to be taken: ‘from a feminist poststructural perspective, resistant practices such as deconstructive talks make possible another form of power production – not only more emancipatory, but also more ethical and responsible’ (Dahlberg and Moss, 2005, p 111).

We do not seek any truth of wellbeing, nor do we intend to break down existing models in order to engage in a (re)making; but instead attempt to trace the history and development of the concept to address the questions in the Introduction about wellbeing as a concept. The ambition is to raise new questions; and describe the conditions for epistemological ‘smooth space’, as opposed to ‘striated space’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004), for new ways of thinking to emerge, where:

The ‘smooth space’ allows for greater ‘de-territorialisation’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 2009) of the concept, and for its components to be brought into focus in order that we may (re)consider them.

Introduction

The decade 2000 to 2010 saw a vast increase in UK school-based programmes that focused on various interpretations of social and emotional wellbeing. These approaches either emphasised building the positive skills and capabilities of young people (resilience, confidence, social skills, self-esteem) or attempted to reduce mental illness, bullying, depression and anxiety (Smart and Vassallo, 2008). A range of labels were applied to these approaches, from ‘emotional intelligence’ (EI) (Goleman, 1995), ‘emotional literacy’ and ‘emotional health and wellbeing’ (EHWB) to ‘social and emotional wellbeing’ (SEWB) (DCSF, 2005), and ‘social and emotional dispositions and skills’ (SEDS) (Watson and Emery, 2010). Shared objectives were employability, lifelong learning, relationship building, improved behaviour and academic achievement.

The creators of these school wellbeing programmes ranged from independent private organisations through to local authorities, individual schools, not-for-profit social agencies, charities and universities. A 2007 report produced by Futurelab and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (Facer and Pykett, 2007) highlighted 19 programmes running across the UK, noting that many others existed. The combined impact of all of these, however, is negligible compared to the main subject of this chapter: ‘Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning’ (SEAL) (DFES, 2005c, 2007b, 2007c).

What are Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning?

SEAL first emerged as ‘Social, Emotional and Behavioural Skills’ (SEBS), part of the National Behaviour and Attendance Pilot in 2003 (Hallam et al, 2006). By 2007, it was delivered in more than 80% of primary schools and, by 2010, in 90% of primary and 70% of secondary schools across England, a high rate of coverage for a non-compulsory programme (Mills, 2009). Guidance documents, learning materials and background papers were placed on the now defunct National Strategies website (DfE, nd).

Taking Every Child Matters as its policy template, Promoting Emotional Health and Wellbeing through the National Healthy School Standard (DH and DfES, 2004) set out the framework for SEAL. This report explicitly linked improvements in child wellbeing with the development of their social, emotional and behavioural skills. It defined EHWB as ‘a holistic, subjective state which is present when a range of feelings, among them energy, confidence, openness, enjoyment, happiness, calm, and caring, are combined and balanced’ (Stewart-Brown, quoted in Weare and Gray, 2003, p 19).

In this Part we introduce the context for our critical debate of childhood SEWB. This begins with a theoretical and conceptual analysis of wellbeing and how this relates to children and childhood. we then consider contemporary wellbeing policy in the four countries of the UK. How these policies have emerged as educational practices and specific wellbeing programmes are then considered. Finally, we conclude this section explaining the measurement of wellbeing and the problematic issues inherent in measuring what we deem to be a fuzzy and complex concept.