A critical consideration of the alignment between the discourse of self-regulated learning and neoliberalism

Abstract

Self-regulated learning (SLR) is a socially embedded process in which individuals use strategies to influence thoughts, behaviours and environments in ways that enable them to achieve their academic goals. As a form of engagement that is almost exclusively associated with academic success, empowerment and agency, researchers are committed to improving conceptualisations of, measurements for and pedagogical interventions related to SLR. However, there is little attention to critical issues that underpin this discourse. Against this trend, I explore an alignment between SLR and neoliberalism, which is a contentious ideology that is implicated in reproducing inequality, promoting radical individualism and eroding democratic responsibility. From this alignment, taking up the aim to teach students to regulate their learning is implicated in: (1) creating manageable workers; (2) endorsing a view of self and personhood that is class-based; and (3) contributing to efficiently and effectively reproducing a class hierarchy. Environments that teach and reward SLR may pose greater disadvantages for working-class students than their middle-class counterparts.

Narrow identity resources for future students: the 21st century skills movement encounters the Norwegian education policy context

“…In agreement with previous criticism of 21st century skills (Morgan, 2016;Vassallo, 2013Vassallo, , 2014Williams et al, 2013) our analysis identifies neo-liberal discourses about what constitutes an ideal student. However, these neo-liberal discourses intertwine with more familiar discourses in the document, such as social democratic progressivism and Bildung, 3 understood as cultivation of abilities related to humanistic values.…”

“…17. Vassallo (2013Vassallo ( , 2014 claimed that there are clear alignments between the discourses of self-regulated learning and the ideology of neo-liberalism. 'The self-regulated learner' identified in our analysis also resembles Foucault's (2008) notion of homo economicus and Rose's (1992) concept of the enterprising individual.…”

Homo neoliberalus: From personality to forms of subjectivity

“…The NLFS is thoroughly individualized or psychologized, as reflected in the use of psychological/business terms to refer to addressing, understanding, and working on the self: self-regulation, self-management, self-promotion, self-mastery, self-reliance, selfcontrol, or the resilient self, are all examples of such terms. Thus, the popularized and empirically supported idea of self-regulated learning reproduces inequality and neoliberalism (Vassallo, 2015), while the concept of resilience aligns with the idea of governmentality and individual responsibility (Joseph, 2013). Psychological self-control scales can be read as measures of the degree to which an individual has submitted/ embraced neoliberal values and behaviors.…”

Psychology education and the neoliberal episteme in Australia

“…Dominant narratives about what it means to be fit for the 21 st century have become culturally normalized (Connell, 2013;Vassallo, 2015) and they seek to not only describe and rationalize market relations in a particular way, but they seek to naturalise neoliberal subjectivities as essentially human (Adams et al, 2019;Rutherford, 2018;Sugarman, 2015).…”

“…Dominant narratives about what it means to be fit for the 21st century have become culturally normalized (Connell, 2013; Vassallo, 2015) and they seek to not only describe and rationalize market relations in a particular way, but to naturalize neoliberal subjectivities as essentially human (Adams et al, 2019; Rutherford, 2018; Sugarman, 2015). A strong case for the ways in which these subjectivities are maintained via the bidirectional relationship between psychology and neoliberalism has already been established (Adams et al, 2019; Binkley, 2014; Ratner, 2019; Teo, 2018) and there is ample historical evidence of psychology’s direct involvement in capitalism (Duckett et al, 2011; Roberts, 2015; Sloan, 1996).…”