Why joy in education is an issue for socially just policies

Abstract

The paper presents an argument that the usual account of social justice in formal education is too narrow. That account concerns itself only with the outcomes of education or only with general ethical precepts, such as 'recognition'. I argue that it should also concern itself with living educational experiences as part of what makes a good life. I begin by noting that people find value in education for three linked but analytically separable reasons which I label: instrumental, inherent and integral. The last of these focuses on the value of education as part of what it is to live a good life. I point out how the usual accounts of social justice in education are seldom concerned with specifically educational experiences within formal education and that there is little clarity about the contribution of such experiences to living a good life. I offer a provisional account of specifically educational goods in experiences of education, and compare this to research and policy on enjoyment and engagement concluding that the significance of joy in education should be recognised within education policy.

Post-Identitarian Postgraduate Pedagogy: Deleuzian Mediation and Resistance to ‘Measuring Up’

“…Tamboukou (2012) mobilises the concept of desiring-assemblage to explain the ambivalent response to marketisation and its corollaries within academia, but looks primarily to later Foucault (1985Foucault ( , 1988 and Arendt (1968) in conceiving resistance as truth-telling and action, respectively. This strategy is outlined in the section below and then contrasted with that of Griffiths (2012); both draw on Arendt (1968) in acknowledging that these are 'dark times' in education and both refer to education policy, albeit to varying degrees. One truth which Tamboukou (2012) insists should not be hidden is that: 'academics as intellectuals have actually been marginalised and even erased from the language and the grammar of higher education policy ' (p. 861).…”

“…When Deleuze insists that critique is not enough (2004b, p. 192), what is being suggested is that we try to grasp the problems which gave rise to the particular solutions in question, such as concern for social justice in education for all in Griffiths (2012); it is through such understanding that immanence or life is intensified or 'recharged' and new planes of immanence (rather than oppositional or negative movements of the same plane) are forged (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, p. 74). Given the experimental dynamic evidenced throughout Deleuze's engagements with varied philosophers and collaborations with Guattari, there is no single unified counter-theory which can be readily mobilised as such a negative movement (Stagoll, 2005).…”

“…The connection between Arendt (1958) and Aristotelian ethics forms the basis of Griffiths' (2012) demand for a wider definition of distributive justice within education. It is debatable however whether Aristotelian ethics can provide an appropriate vehicle for thinking about achieving a fairer distribution of educational 'joys and delights' (p. 656), or for resistance to neoliberal instrumentalism in teacher education.…”

“…It implies a research landscape in which funding bodies increasingly demand research that measures the impact of remedial interventions (Ball, 2013) thereby reducing research to the technically proficient application of available neopositivist methods. Griffiths (2012) notes the insidious effect of marketisation and instrumentalism on education policy and advocates determination of the experiential and affective aspects of learning (such as joy) as a necessary prelude to securing their inclusion in policy documentation. This strategy contradicts Deleuze's suggestion that: 'It is not certain that the question what is this?…”

“…We compare and contrast varied treatments of affect -particularly joy and courage, and through that process set up a 'system of echoes' (Deleuze, 2004b, p. 192) relating to truth, praxis, resistance, the academic subject and pedagogic relationships. Griffiths' (2012) suggestion that policy and legislation can deliver a more socially just distribution of 'joy in learning' is rejected as a global solution that invokes affect but risks being read as an 'accommodation' strategy (Tamboukou, 2013, p. 512) which forecloses resistance to wider educational and social inequities.…”