Effective or affective schools? Technological and emotional discourses of educational change

Citation

Williamson B (2012) Effective or affective schools? Technological and emotional discourses of educational change. Discourse, 33 (3), pp. 425-441. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2012.681901

Abstract
British schools have been positioned by recent educational policy discourses as sites of innovation and transformation in new technological contexts, but more recent concerns about well-being suggest a more 'affective turn' in educational policy-making. This article provides an analysis of a project which has explored the ways in which schools are being re-imagined as spaces of effective technology-centredness, as well as sites for more emotional or affective child-centredness. I argue that far from being mutually exclusive categories, these technology-centred and child-centred orientations are conjoined in what I call 'high-touch-tech' discourse where the effective and the affective are mutually constitutive. Finally, I situate these changes as consequent upon 'emotion management' in work and social life, and suggest that an implication of the new policy focus on well-being for schools will be their requirement to perform 'affect management'.

Keywords
technology; media; emotion; affect; high-tech; high-touch

Journal
Discourse: Volume 33, Issue 3