Building emotional intelligence and self-esteem in education the implications of personalised learning

Outline some implications emotional dimensions in education self-esteem emotional intelligence and well-being some influences/sources personalised learning, personalised public services therapeutic culture some implications diminished aspirations? empowerment?

Emotional dimensions in education emotional intelligence: self-awareness, management of emotions, empathy, expression of feelings, recognising the power of feelings self-esteem: self-worth, confidence, self-concept circle time in schools personal advisers for young people, personal tutorials in colleges diagnosis of EI and SE new labels: ‘vulnerable’, ‘fragile’ learners, ‘fragile identities’, learners ‘at risk’ research interest: identity, biography

Some reasons personalised public services therapeutic culture reaching a disaffected public through emotional engagement concerns about social exclusion and disaffection from formal education therapeutic culture therapeutic interventions in all areas of life and public policy a mindset, symbols and language that constructs a new form of subjectivity cultural preoccupation with the ‘diminished self’

Therapeutic culture cultural, social and political beliefs that life has become hard to handle for some groups for everyone – ‘we’re all vulnerable and damaged’ [the diminished self]...characteristically suffers from an emotional deficit and possesses a permanent consciousness of vulnerability (Furedi, 2004: 414). distinction between legitimate, necessary therapy and therapeutic culture/ethos

Some implications latest evangelical bandwagon or progressive development? lack of theoretical and empirical evidence for ET and SE influence of catalytic validity, ‘Hawthorne effect’, ‘evidence from practice’ and commercial interests abandoning educational goals for personal ones institutionalising the diminished self essentialising particular groups dubious and intrusive interventions reifying an endless quest to understand and accommodate the emotional self ‘I feel therefore I am’ ‘I am what my feelings are telling me’

Challenging the new orthodoxy questioning the empirical and theoretical evidence locating EI and SE in a wider cultural and political context reinstating structural causes and effects of social exclusion and resisting emotional ones questioning therapeutic culture: a culture becomes therapeutic when this form of thinking expands from informing the role between the individual and therapist to shaping public perceptions about a range of issues. At that point, it ceases to be a clinical technique and becomes an instrument for the management of subjectivity (Furedi, 2004, 413-414). reasserting the importance of the rational