Theorising social and emotional wellbeing in schools: a framework for analysing educational policy

Theorizing the affective regime of “best practice” in education policy

“…The first manifestation of the affective regime of best practice in digital citizenship found in the Digital Citizenship Education Handbook (CoE, 2019) is the so called "skills and competencies" approach, which draws from the psychological literature and has achieved the greatest success by way of translation into good practices (Brown and Donnelly, 2020). As it is emphasized in the handbook's Forward, "What is needed now [in Europe] is a structural approach to provide children and young people with the competences they need to become healthy and responsible citizens in the online environment" (CoE, 2019: 5), hence this handbook "builds on the Council of Europe's Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture" (CoE, 2019: 6).…”

“…responsibility, self-efficacy, empathy). As competences are understood to be the mastery of ability by individuals (Brown and Donnelly, 2020), the atomization of these competencies promoted by good practices in digital citizenship education invokes an affective regime of individual and psychologized competencies.…”

“…Hence, best practice functions not only as an affective regime of policy mobility but also as an affective regime of psychological competences in digital education. When best practice is conceptualized in education policy as an instrument of cultivating a set of competences or skills to be learned, the implication is an individual focus upon the agential power of the child or the adult “in their learned capacity to identify, react and manage their thoughts, feelings and behaviors in interaction with others” (Brown and Donnelly, 2020: 5)—in this case, in their engagement in online and offline communities. In other words, the burden is upon the individual to control and manage their emotions in order to promote “positive” and “responsible” engagement in online and offline communities.…”

“…In other words, the burden is upon the individual to control and manage their emotions in order to promote “positive” and “responsible” engagement in online and offline communities. While schools and teachers may use good practices to facilitate the development of such competences, ultimately these competences “are viewed to be owned or lacking in the individual: the onus is on the child as the agent of change” (Brown and Donnelly, 2020: 5). This approach reveals a psychologized orientation to social problems that also reflects governmentality techniques which emphasize emotion self-management as a policy mechanism to social challenges (Zembylas, 2020).…”

“…Hence, the regulation of emotions—for example, through the promotion of positive emotions—is considered crucial in maintaining and preserving European well-being (Zembylas, 2020). However, as Brown and Donnelly (2020) have recently argued, the social and emotional understanding that is facilitated through a competence perspective does not de facto lead children or adults to use such skills for ethical purposes. Therefore, best practices that promote these competences, as those are situated within a psychologized framing, become an integral part of an affective regulatory system that understands citizenship education as a form of individual therapy.…”