2. Understanding the Significance of WellâBeing
And why are you so firmly and triumphantly certain
that only what is normal and positiveâin short
wellâbeingâis good for man? Is reason mistaken
about what is good? After all, perhaps prosperity
isnât the only thing that pleases mankind, perhaps
he is just attracted to suffering. Perhaps suffering
is just as good for him as prosperity.
Dostoyevsky, 1983, 41 (Notes fron the Underground)
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3. OverviewâArguing for WellâBeing and a âCareful
Societyâ
Exploring Wellâbeing and quality of lifeâincluding the area of
relationships, the work of care theorists and researchers
Making the case for the affective context of life and care in public and
private contextsâcare and citizenship, and the wellâbeing of society
Care as a âgoodâ for wellâbeing and education: Raises issues of
distribution, recognition, power and resources
Care, wellâbeing and educationâ âa new ethicsâ and ethical practices in
secondary sphere of care relations
Interrelationship between care, wellâbeing, education and social
justice 3
4. The Significance of the Affective Domain to
Understandings of WellâBeing
Allardtâs (1993) sociological welfare model âHaving, Loving and Being
Equality Model (2009)âeconomic, cultural, affective and political
contextsâ care, love and solidarity are forms of relationship which
occur across primary, secondary and tertiary care contexts primary,
secondary and tertiary care.
Nussbaum and Senâs human development work: The Capabilities
Modelârelationships are based in emotions which make us fully
human care as a capability
Psychoanalytic perspectives on wellâbeing: care experiences and care
relations, Intersubjectivityâthe ethical subjectâs capacity to care
(Benjamin, Hollway, 2005)
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5. Care Scholarship Concepts and WellâBeing
Feminist moral philosophers and political theorists suggest that
relationships of care are based in inescapable states of dependency,
interdependency and vulnerability (Tronto, Bubeck, Nussbaum,
Kittay, Sevenhuijsen, Fraser, Fineman)
A very different view of the human being and of human flourishing
relative to the post modern rational conception of a detached rational
economic actor
A different conception of a citizen, âŠ.as having care needs and the
capacity to care, to be caring and to have caring ethical dispositions.
Care as crossing the public private divide..the withering away of the
state and care!
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6. Making Human Vulnerability Explicit: The
Vulnerable Society and its Institutions
Finemanâs (2008) theorisation of the human subject as vulnerable and
institutions as also vulnerable â education and schooling
(we need to)..to redirect focus onto the societal institutions that are
created in response to individual vulnerability. This institutional focus
has the effect of supplementing attention to the individual by placing
him/her in social context. The institutions that are of particular
interest are those that are created and maintained under the
legitimating authority of the state, since the ultimate objective of
vulnerability analysis is to argue that the state must be more responsive
to, and responsible for, vulnerability. (ibid: 13).
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7. Key Issues for wellâbeing: responding to
vulnerability, dependency and interdepenence
Taking care seriously as key to wellâbeing means considering:
Relationships and the private space of lifeâwork/life balance.What
counts as workâcare as work, the nonârecognition of care in the home,
defined as love, as natural
That problem that care has been dichotomised as love or labour and
not as both
What does that mean for educators and for schooling?
Nell Noddings, wellâbeing and happiness as an aim of educationâthe
need for care and to learn for relationality. Teachers in particular
contextsâsocial disadvantage, teacher education.
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8. Gender Inequalities, Care and WellâBeing: within
public and private institutions
Women, wellâbeing and caring identities, identity and the moral
imperative to care
(Bubeck, Delphy and Leonard, Lynch et al., OâBrien)
Men and exclusion from care (Hanlon, 2009)
Women in the home and the imperative to perform educational
support work (Lareau, 1989, Griffith and Smith, 2005, Reay, 1998,
OâBrien, 2005, 2008)
Schooling teaching and caring, what is valued, recognised and
rewarded? (Farrellyâs (2008) work on âwalking the tightropeâ of care).
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9. Caring and Resourcing Wellâbeing in Education
Resourcing Caringâthe issue of nurturing and emotional capitals
(Lynch, 2008, Reay 2000, OâBrien, 2009)
How these are created and used.
Perspectives of those under the care of educators. Listening to
students.
Intersection of caring contexts and socio economic and cultural
contexts
(Feeley, 2009, state harm) (OâBrien, 2009, social class, poverty,
marginalisation and care)
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10. Intersection of Capitals for Care and WellâBeingâEconomic, Social,
Cultural and Emotional Resources (see OâBrien 2009)
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11. (Lack of)WellâBeing and Schooling
Lack of focus and a need to focus on aims of education (Noddingsâ
critique)
Education needs to be concerned with a broad conception of wellâ
being (in mainstream and alternative provision)
Climate and culture of the schools are significant to wellâbeing, and
related to curricula, streaming, assessment and quality of relationships
(Konu, Lintonen and Rimpela, 2002âfriendship and absence of bullying
for SWB, Engels, Aaelterman, Van Petegem and Scepens, 2004â
teachersâ relationships impact on student wellâbeing)
Equality and wellâbeing: resources, recognition, power and affectâin
education, the impossibility of an internal settlement (Baker et al.
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2004)
13. Contested and Multiple Well-Being and Schooling-current
Well- Schooling-
Perspectives on Well-Being
Well- thinking and problematics
Happiness as Eudaimonia-the good life or
Eudaimonia-
Hedonistic happiness and Subjective well- Happiness as an aim of education
being. (Noddings, 2003) and/or education for a
Defining or prescribing norms of well-being competitive market and the need for public
as problematic for individual meaning dialogue around this
seeking.
The need for education for self- development
The tensions and overlaps between SWB and for participation in democracy and for
and social indicator perspectives-need for
perspectives- citizenship, social solidarity
subjective and objective perspectives
Equality and Well-being-care and love (Baker
Well- being- ( For well-being and equality across all
et al. 2004) contexts of life including intimate and social
spaces
Capabilities and Well-Being (Sen, 1993)
Well- For our unique sets of functionings and for
flourishing within our societal context
Having, Loving and Being (Allardt, 1993) To have skills, resources to participate in
society, for relationships and for being in our
unique ways
Achieving health of populations through
critical literacy
As part of the Allardt model: The problem for teachers and students of
Health Promotion and the WHO agenda, acquiring the cultural power and tools of
having health in Allardtâs model analysis to define our reality
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14. Educating for WellâBeing and Democracy
Educating in and for care (Cohen, 2006, OâBrien and
Flynn, 2008, Lynch, 2008, Feeley, 2009, OâBrien
forthcoming 2010).
Character education and the virtues and caring
climates (Cohen)âa need for social, emotional, ethical
and academic educationâ SEEA but not to be reduced to
mere lists of skillsâpractical education (Dewey)
Health Promoting Schools MovementâWHO/ Mental
Health 14
15. Conclusions
Recognising the significance of affective life and human relationalityâ
intersubjectivity and vulnerability
Recognising caring or affective resources and skills and the capacity to
and for care
Recognising the labour in relationships of care and the attendant costs
Recoding care as gender neutral and extending informal care work
outside the nuclear family to extended networks of affiliation
Recognition of affect in schools
âaims directed at wellâbeing and practice
âcurricula and evaluation that are responsive to models of wellâbeing
âindividual and collective aspects of wellâbeing
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16. Which Model of Citizenship? What kind of
teacher?
Fraser 2000
The Citizen Carer as opposed to Citizen Breadwinner or a
combinationâ Citizen Carer/WorkerâA citizen who is recognised as
vulnerable (Fineman) and in need of care and also capable of caring
for others
The Teacher Carer Citizen: Language of care and Relationalityâ
language can be used for purposes of liberation or of subjugation
(Wittgenstein, Irigaray, Freire), we need a language of care, wellâbeing
and relationality in the field of education that is recognised⊠and
leads to care praxis.
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