Intrusive Teaching: The Strain of Care Labor, Identity and the Emerging Majority in Higher Education

Abstract

United States publicly-funded higher education systems are experiencing increasing pressures. In response, higher education institutions have broadened their appeal to students less likely to attend college as part of their fiscal strategies. This growing student population consists of first-generation students and individuals from marginalized backgrounds who often enter college underprepared, and higher education must retain these emerging-majority students to ensure fiscal stability. When enrollment and retention are viewed from a business model, faculty duties expand into triage care and student emotional support. This qualitative investigation of faculty in a publicly-funded state university explores intrusive teaching practices marked by monitoring and intervening in their students’ emotional and social issues.

20. One-one coco full basket — on the value of critical pedagogy of caring for learning and teaching in higher education

“…However, my perspective and advocacy did not fit neatly into what was then the norm in higher education -an emphasis on requiring autonomous, self-directed learning from adult learners (Merriam et al, 2007). Caring was valued but was not regarded as a significant part of the duties of faculty (Goode et al, 2020). As Pranjic (2021) argues: "In the academic world, there is a common understanding that nurture is not the job of the university and that it is a matter of the family, primary and secondary school, while colleges [and universities] should deal exclusively with education" (p. 152).…”

Higher Education for Good

“…However, my perspective and advocacy did not fit neatly into what was then the norm in higher education -an emphasis on requiring autonomous, self-directed learning from adult learners (Merriam et al, 2007). Caring was valued but was not regarded as a significant part of the duties of faculty (Goode et al, 2020). As Pranjic (2021) argues: "In the academic world, there is a common understanding that nurture is not the job of the university and that it is a matter of the family, primary and secondary school, while colleges [and universities] should deal exclusively with education" (p. 152).…”