ABSTRACT

The governance of emotions has become part of the educational experience of many, if not most, school pupils in England. Governance, as understood by Foucault (1991), is a particular form of encounter between states and subjects. Rather than acting directly on subjects, the state instead ‘responsibilises’ subjects, so that they turn on themselves to monitor, act and thus produce the right kind of selfhood. Schools, as the main site for the formation of future subjects, offer a realm in which this kind of responsibilisation can take place. While this might happen across a variety of registers, the one under discussion here is emotional governance. The right kind of emotional subjecthood, framed via a wider ‘cultural and political “therapeutic” sensibility’ (Ecclestone, 2010: 62), serves an immediate instrumental aim to create children to function as ‘pupils’ in the institutional context of the school (i.e. non-disruptive, conforming to disciplinary norms, able to learn) and is seen as increasingly important in its own right (as a fundamental part of individual wellbeing and happiness), as well as being positioned to be ‘integral to personal development, life and work success’ (Ecclestone, 2010: 63).