Educational Studies

ISSN: 0305-5698 (Print) 1465-3400 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceds20

Performativity, wellbeing, social class and

citizenship in English schools

Pamela Fisher

To cite this article: Pamela Fisher (2011) Performativity, wellbeing, social class and citizenship
in English schools, Educational Studies, 37:1, 49-58, DOI: 10.1080/03055691003799073

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055691003799073

Published online: 11 May 2010.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 506

View related articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ceds20

Download by: [University of Dundee] Date: 03 November 2016, At: 03:15

Educational Studies
Vol. 37, No. 1, February 2011, 4958

Performativity, well-being, social class and citizenship in

English schools
Pamela Fisher*

Division of Criminology, Politics and Sociology, Department of Behavioural Sciences, School

of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield, UK
Educational
10.1080/03055691003799073
CEDS_A_480429s.sgm
0305-5698
Original
Taylor
02010
00
p.l.fisher@hud.ac.uk
PamelaFisher
000002010
&
and
Article
Francis
(print)/1465-3400
Francis
Studies (online)

A range of initiatives to promote well-being and empowerment have been

introduced into English schools. These ostensibly support the citizenship
curriculum that seeks to foster a more active and engaged populace. Whilst
children are being encouraged to view their own well-being as a personal project
(and as a badge of successful citizenship), this process is being undermined by an
informal curriculum of citizenship, embedded within the culture of performativity,
that is promoting a climate of misrecognition within schools. This form of
symbolic violence (that affects working-class families disproportionately) is
encroaching into the private sphere, traditionally a potential refuge providing
opportunities for the development of forms of well-being that were not dependent
on institutional endorsement. It is suggested that some of the counter-hegemonic
values developed in the face of marginalisation might usefully inform issues of
citizenship and well-being in schools in ways that would encourage genuinely
empowered forms of citizenship.
Keywords: empowerment; well-being; citizenship; education; performativity;
class; recognition; feminism

New Labour conceptualised the ideal citizen as self-reflexive, autonomous and in

control; young people are to construct empowered identities by interpreting challenges
as opportunities. Well-being is attainable through positive choices. Good mental
health, including high self-esteem, is viewed as a key in raising educational standards,
especially among hard to reach groups (DfES 2002). Young people in England have
increasingly being encouraged to view their well-being as a personal project whilst
citizenship is tacitly embedded within cultures of institutional control and performa-
tivity. Ball characterises performativity as follows:

Performativity is a technology, a culture and a mode of regulation that employs

judgements, comparisons and displays as means of incentive, control, attrition and
change based on rewards and sanctions (both material and symbolic). The performances
(of individual subjects or organizations) serve as measures of productivity or output, or
displays of quality, or moments of promotion or inspection. (2003, 216)

Here, it is argued that performativity is contributing to a climate of misrecognition

within schools whilst also encouraging similar forms of symbolic violence
(Bourdieu 1991) within the private sphere, which has traditionally provided a

*Email: p.l.fisher@hud.ac.uk

ISSN 0305-5698 print/ISSN 1465-3400 online

2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/03055691003799073
http://www.informaworld.com
50 P. Fisher

potential refuge for the development of forms of well-being not dependent on insti-
tutional endorsement. Those marginalised, by whatever factors, are most at risk.
This paper focuses on disadvantaged children and their families, referred to here as
working class (including those excluded from labour market participation). These
are people who experience enduring patterns of inequality, which inform their
everyday experiences via an interaction of objective constraints and subjective
consciousness (Nind 2008, 89). From a Bourdieuian perspective, material disad-
vantage adversely affects the legitimation of social and cultural capital within the
public sphere. There are tensions inherent in the home/school relationship, espe-
cially regarding parenting the responsibility for which falls predominantly on
mothers (Gillies 2006). Working-class women, often vilified for poor parenting,
could usefully inform issues of citizenship and empowerment within schools. By
exploring intersections between the private sphere and institutional contexts, the
approach underpinning this paper owes much to a body of feminist writing
(Gewirtz 2001; Lister 2008; Reay 2000) whilst also drawing on the politics of
recognition (Honneth 2003). The starting point is that individual empowerment
(and therefore active citizenship) is achieved within relationships of recognition.
Many marginalised groups contend with forms of misrecognition (see Kiwan
2008) and it is important to recognise that multiple axes of difference (Benjamin
et al. 2003) interact to reinforce disadvantage. In relation to citizenship and education,
the working class remains a largely neglected group (Lister 2008). Whilst I associate
certain values with either the private or public sphere, it is conceded that this risks
glossing over complexities in both areas and it is important not to construct a binary
division.

Citizenship education
Education is seen as key in preparing citizens to participate in their political commu-
nities (Delanty 2003). In response to what were viewed as worrying levels of apathy,
ignorance and cynicism regarding public life among young people, the White Paper,
Excellence in Schools (DfEE 1997) pledged to strengthen the teaching of democracy
and citizenship within schools. This vision of empowered citizenship was evident in
the Crick Report (the final report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship chaired by
Professor Bernard Crick) (QCA 1998).
This report laid out the framework and goals for citizenship education. Largely
based on T.H. Marshalls conceptualisation of citizenship as made up of three dimen-
sions: (1) civil, (2) political, and (3) social (see Crick 2000), the Crick Report was
ambitious, aiming at no less than a change in the political culture of this country
(QCA 1998, para. 1.5). Within the ensuing discourse, problems of social exclusion
have tended to be attributed to damaged self-esteem (SEU 2005).
The Government sought to address this by improving understandings of mental
health by professionals working with children through Every Child Matters (ECM)
(DfES 2003). This was based on a view that emotional skills were crucial to good
citizenship and that children with emotional disorders were more likely to suffer from
mental illness, as well as exposure to social ills such as marital breakdown, offending
and anti-social behaviour. The earlier DfEE Guidance (DfEE 1999, 1) relating to the
National Healthy Schools Standard (NHSS) emphasised the importance of education
in promoting health and emotional well-being for all children, but especially those
who were socially and economically disadvantaged.
 Educational Studies 51

The imperative to raise achievements, based on the individualism associated with

middle-class experience (Reay 2000; Skeggs 2004), has to be reconciled with a
discourse that identifies emotional well-being as central to social inclusion. Teachers
are effectively being re-positioned as therapeutic experts (as well as promoters of
educational excellence) and are expected to facilitate the development of dispositions
that will raise educational standards whilst simultaneously empowering children to
enjoy fulfilled lives. Debate in relation to this has focused on whether schools are suit-
able places in which to promote good mental health; a problem being that teachers
generally lack time, as well as expert knowledge (Hornby and Atkinson 2003). Doubts
over teachers competence as promoters of good mental health have been accompa-
nied by an unease towards an increasingly therapeutic culture which may construct
young people as vulnerable (Ecclestone and Hayes 2008). Hyland (2009), however,
has persuasively argued for more attention to the affective domain in education.
Active citizenship underpinned by emotional health is promoted, whilst a hidden
curriculum of citizenship an expression of performativity has exclusionary tenden-
cies that undermine well-being and self-esteem. Those most at risk from exclusion are
most likely to suffer misrecognition. Policy stresses the importance of self-esteem, but
I prefer to highlight the impact of misrecognition. Those who observe poverty from
afar may be tempted to overplay issues of esteem, underestimating the impact of
structural and cultural misrecognition and humiliation that poor people experience
(Wilkinson 2005).

Analytical framework
Following principles drawn from symbolic interactionism, through recognition from
others people develop a positive practical-relation to self (Yar 2001, 299) that is
necessary for empowerment and agency. Honneth (2003, 171) rejects any distinction
between distributive justice and issues of recognition, arguing that redistribution
cannot be understood independently of any experience of social disrespect. Lack of
recognition and distributional injustices are therefore to be understood as the
expression of social disrespect. Similarly Yar (2001, 295) (emphasis in original) states
that, redistributive claims, as moral claims irredeemably have the character of
recognition claims.
Honneth (2003) has argued that different forms of intersubjective recognition are
associated with three separate domains of life. Firstly, the private domain should
ideally provide relationships of love, friendship and intimacy; secondly, the legal
domain should provide equality before the law; and, thirdly, the public domain should
enable the subject to enjoy self-esteem from abilities respected and valued by others.
In all three domains, the establishment of ones understanding is inextricably depen-
dent on recognition of affirmation of ones independent worth, and all three types
of recognition lead to human dignity and integrity (Yar 2001, 294). Honneth (2001,
50) describes integrity in this context as the ability of a person to rest secure in the
knowledge that the whole range of their practical self-orientation finds support within
society.
Whilst Honneths model may be questioned, the crucial point is that recognition
across different spheres of life is required for individuals to achieve a positive sense
of self. Honneths formulation may also be linked to MacIntyres ([1981] 2007)
understanding of recognition as related to internal goods and external goods.
Whilst the latter refers to resources that attribute recognition in the public sphere, for
52 P. Fisher

instance money, qualifications and other forms of worldly success, internal goods
may be gained through the satisfaction and enjoyment that are acquired by taking a
pride in and excelling in sport, art, etc. Sayer (2005, 958) has argued that MacIntyres
definition is restrictive and arguably elitist, suggesting instead that the definition of
internal goods should be extended to a wider range of practices that includes parent-
ing (e.g.). Adopting Sayers inclusive understanding of internal goods, I suggest that
the culture of performativity bars some children from the external goods of recog-
nition whilst potentially devaluing the internal goods associated with the private
sphere.

Misrecognition in schools
Terms such as well-being, empowerment and ability constitute a form of
cultural politics that involve an introduction to, preparation for, and legitimisation of
certain ways of seeing and behaving in the world (Morgan 2000, 274). This is
achieved through processes of governmentality (Foucault 1991) exercised through
repressive authority located at the micro level of everyday practices and discourse.
These are internalised as technologies of the self and act to reconstruct citizens iden-
tities according to systems of knowledge and truth. As Johnson (1993, 142) has put it,
the characteristic outcome of power is not a relationship of domination but the
probability that the normalized subject will habitually obey.
Schools are sites where children are encouraged to view successful citizenship and
well-being through narrow interpretations of educational success. This discourse is
embedded within key policy documents, including ECM (DfES 2003, 7) which
identifies five outcomes including Enjoying and achieving and Economic wellbe-
ing. The links between achievement and well-being, and between well-being and
economic well-being, are embedded throughout the ECM agenda. Definitions of
success risk being limited to interpretations defined according to performance in
National Curriculum tests and in public examinations. The oppressive potential of such
limited understandings is bolstered by a discourse that highlights the salience of abil-
ity, which is too often seen as a fixed and enduring characteristic. Gillborn and
Youdell (2001) have suggested that the notion of ability has largely replaced an
earlier emphasis on IQ, with a similarly oppressive impact. As Gillies (2008, 1088)
points out, brightness is not a stand-alone concept. It is necessarily constructed in
relation to the alternatives of being average or dim. Brightness, therefore, provides
a child with an individualised discourse of entitlement, one that mainly middle-class
parents claim for their children (Gillies 2008; Skeggs 2004). In this way, middle-class
success tends to be defined in relation to working-class failure (Bourdieu and Passeron
1977), without acknowledgement of the social relations that contribute to this. From
this perspective, educational failure can be attributed to cultural (parenting) or inherent
deficits. The potential for stigma is obvious, and consequently widespread test anxi-
ety has been observed in schools, particularly in response to Standard Assessment
Tests (SATS), which have been found to discourage learning (Hall et al. 2004). Reay
and Wiliam (1999) argued that children were internalising the perspective that SATS
results defined their individual worth, determining whether they were likely to have a
successful life. As one pupil disturbingly put it, Im hopeless at times tables so Im
frightened Ill do the SATS and Ill be a nothing (Reay and Wiliam 1999, 349).
Insecurity is an inevitable outcome of a policy direction that requires schools to
become high performance organisations (Fielding 2007) whose primary aim is
 Educational Studies 53

to achieve excellence auditable by measurable outcomes. Within this regime,

reflexivity is encouraged only so far as it helps to achieve key performance indicators
without raising questions that might challenge the rules themselves (Gur-Zeev,
Masschelein, and Blake 2001). The tacit assumption is that the techniques of manage-
ment act to assess the performance of individuals and organisations in ways that
encapsulate their worth according to specific criteria (Ball 2003). The underlying
message is that although society may be unequal, equality of opportunity and high
social mobility mean that unequal rewards are justified. This commonsense contin-
ues to be perpetuated despite the fact that education is less likely to facilitate social
mobility than it was 20 years ago (Blanden, Gregg, and Machin 2005). Social class
remains the greatest predictor of academic success (see Dunne and Gazely 2008).
Ironically, the processes of misrecognition may be reinforced by the construction of
citizenship in terms of codes, categories and modes of classification. According to this
model, each pupil is expected to conform to this pre-given framework by acquiring the
necessary skills and competences (Delanty 2003). The emphasis is largely on political
literacy and on the imperative of inculcating shared values that unite. There is little
scope for the social dimensions of understandings of citizenship, as originally
conceptualised by Marshall (see Crick 2000), and individualised understandings of
success are reinforced whilst the complex processes of exclusion are neglected.

Misrecognition and the private sphere

Whilst critiques of performativity have tended to emphasise its disassociation with the
personal (Ball 2003) and its lack of attention to issues of care, the discourse of care
paradoxically incorporates performativity. Ostensibly, stress on the values of
emotional health, well-being and community appears to provide a respite from high
performance schooling (Fielding 2007). However, the danger within a culture of
performativity is that relationships are instrumental and inauthentic, constituting a
simulacra of care (Fielding 2007, 389). As Furedi (2004) has argued, recognition is
being conceptualised as an individual right conferred by institutions rather than
embedded within meaningful relationships. The result is that distinctions between
functional and personal relationships are eroded (Macmurray 1950). Relation-
ships, instead of being valued in themselves, may be seen as the means of achieving
specific ends. Individual interests are subsumed into those of the organisation, namely
performance targets. Teachers and pupils alike are valued according to their
contribution to the overall performance. As Fielding puts it:

The high performing school is an organisation in which the personal is used for the sake
of the functional: community is valued, but primarily for instrumental purposes within
the context of the market-place. (2007, 400)

Ultimately, what is required from parents is that they ensure that their children produce
the results that will reflect well on the school (Brain and Reid 2003). Schools are
expected to engage with parents to ensure that values congruent with performativity
are embedded within the private sphere. Critically however, the current move to
dismantle family/school barriers is not based on an equal partnership: the flow of
cultural knowledge is one-way from schools to families, who are expected to inculcate
and then self-govern according to a given set of values. Recognition is thereby achieved
through conforming with institutionally endorsed forms of success, and this requires
54 P. Fisher

regulation of subjectivity at the level of the family. This essentially approaches work-
ing-class parents as deficient in their parenting skills (Brain and Read 2003; Gillies
2008). The logic is that if middle-class children are more successful, this must be largely
attributable to superior parenting skills, and the myth is perpetuated that aspiration,
education and the right attitude will result in success and well-being for all.
The deficit model of working-class parenting is highly questionable. Most
working-class mothers display strong commitment to their childrens welfare, but this
is often interpreted as trouble-making rather than as concerned mothering (Nind
2008, 92). Lareau (1987, 74) described how familyschool interventions, like other
social relationships, carry the imprint of the larger social context. Middle-class
families are more likely to invest in normative educational aims as they have the
cultural and financial resources (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977). Reay (2000) found
that whilst both working- and middle-class mothers sought to provide emotional
support for their children in relation to education this tended to be displayed differ-
ently. It was more problematic for working-class mothers, with their own negative
experiences of school, to engender confidence and enthusiasm for educational
achievement. However, working-class mothers were more likely to give their children
positive feedback they also sought to ensure that their childrens sense of well-being
was not merely bound up with success at school.
Having little to gain by emulating middle-class child rearing models orientated
towards individualised understandings of success, working-class parenting has been
identified as more concerned with helping children develop coping skills and
resilience. Authentic relationships may constitute a key factor in this as they enable
the development of a positive sense of self based on resources outside the public
sphere (Gillies 2008; Reay 2000; Skeggs 2004). Whilst working-class children and
their parents are denied the recognition required to construct themselves as worthy
citizens according to the dominant order, they may develop a more interpersonally
constructed sense of self, perhaps in response to a greater need for solidarity. This can
result in a sense of self more grounded in values of mutuality and trust (Gillies 2008).
Identities constructed through interdependencies are not writ large in educational
policy, though Giddens (1991, 54) argued that ontological security is gained by
children through relationships of trust with their primary care givers. Through these
relationships, Giddens suggested, children develop a protective cocoon, which
filters out many of the dangers that threaten the integrity of the self. The resulting
positive sense of self constitutes, according to Giddens, a defence against the humili-
ation and shame (or misrecognition) that may be encountered in the wider world.
Given their greater likelihood of facing misrecognition through the multiple axes
(Benjamin et al. 2003) of gender, class (and in some cases ethnicity), this may explain
why relationships of solidarity are apparently valued by working-class women (Gillies
2008; Lareau 2003; Reay 2000). Despite this, socio-economic marginalisation
continues to be associated in policy terms with an atomisation of working-class
relationships; middle-class parents, on the other hand, are seen as able to galvanise
social networks to their own and their childrens advantage.
Middle-class parenting more aligned as it is with the model endorsed by
schools may focus overly on children acquiring skills and resources for economic
and educational success (Gewirtz 2001). As Gillies (2005, 77) puts it, parenting is
depicted not as an intimate relationship, but as an occupation requiring particular
knowledge and skills. Middle-class children are more likely to achieve well-being
through educational success, but they are vulnerable to having their subjectivity
 Educational Studies 55

shaped in such a way that they see well-being as highly dependent on this. As a
result, relationships may tend less towards the pure relationship (Giddens 1991)
in which well-being and recognition are embedded within the quality of the rela-
tionship itself. Reay (2000) notes that differences between middle- and working-
class mothers are often reflected in the language they use: working-class mothers
tended to talk about their children having fun and playing, whereas middle-
class mothers viewed their childrens out-of-school time as crucial for reinforcing
learning objectives. Relationships based on interdependence may be seen, from this
perspective, as suspect, undermining the notion of the self-reflexive citizen who
must focus on individualised forms of well-being and success. The assumption that
working-class parents should bring up their children according to a normative
middle-class model tends to impose the individualised self-seeking citizen as an
ideal (Gillies 2006).

Conclusion
At the Labour Party Conference on 1 March 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown (2008)
announced that opportunity and security were attainable for all who play by the rules.
This is what I mean by fairness to hardworking families. This is based on a belief in
what Sayer (2005) terms moral well-orderedness, that is the assumption that citizens
are appropriately rewarded. Within this discourse, there is no acknowledgement that
the rules should be open to negotiation or that playing by the rules appears to maximise
the potential of advantaged children whilst shoring up educational inequalities around
class, gender and ethnicity (Hallgarten 2000; Hanafin and Lynch 2002).
An ideological link has been established between parenting, educational
achievement, and good citizenship (Gewirtz 2001; Gillies 2008). The more ambitious
working-class parents are for their children according to dominant values, the more
likely they are to puncture the protective mechanisms that shield them from the
misrecognition that could have long-term psychological and material consequences.
By endorsing the culture of performativity, parents may contribute to the processes
that seek to define recognition as something that is attributed institutionally; which
may in turn devalue forms of interpersonal recognition that challenge hegemonic
interpretations of successful citizenship. If working-class parents fail to subscribe to a
pro-school culture of individualised achievement, they are excluding themselves from
dominant understandings of good parenting. Fraser (1997, 81) asserted that socially
excluded groups were more likely to further their interests through the constitution of
counter publics that enable them to develop alternative discursive frameworks. This
phenomenon has been noted in disability studies (Fisher 2007, 2008) and parallels
have been identified between the empowerment strategies employed by those margin-
alised through disability and those disadvantaged by class (Fisher and Fisher 2007).
Arguably, all marginalised groups have a motivation to develop forms of well-being
and empowerment that rely on intersubjective recognition (Honneth 2001; Sointu
2006; Yar 2001). Similar insights are offered by feminist theorists who have explored
working-class identities in relation to institutional contexts (Gillies 2006; Lareau
2003; Reay 2000; Skeggs 2004).
Fanon (1967) classically argued that psychical violence is committed when a
dominant cultural group or class invades a subjects discursive mindscape and shapes
what they are able to feel or think. MacIntyre ([1981] 2007) suggested that empower-
ment comes when the subject gains a degree of authorship, enabling them to define
56 P. Fisher

success in their own terms. This is not to assert that educational achievement is not
important for children from disadvantaged groups, or that those on the margins would
be best advised to adopt alternative cultures of supposed moral superiority. However,
it seems particularly harsh that the mechanisms of performativity, that systematically
perpetuate misrecognition within schools, should now also seek to define the terms for
recognition in the private sphere.
The emerging curriculum of citizenship may be regarded as part of a history of
imposing narratives of the self on subaltern groups objectified by an authorial form
imposed by the powerful (Skeggs 2004). Policy-makers, whilst recognising links
between empowerment and self-esteem, have nevertheless disaggregated this consid-
eration from a framework of achievement necessarily leading to misrecognition of
many working-class children (and their families). By narrowing the terms that define
esteem, schools are constructing notions of well-being and citizenship that exclude
understandings based on interdependent models that conceptualise individual success
as necessarily embedded within relationships of recognition. Some of the insights
gained within families, particularly those facing the challenges of marginalisation,
could be usefully incorporated into educational discourses of citizenship and well-being
in ways that would benefit everyone. These might include: an awareness that individual
well-being and empowerment are achieved in relationships of recognition and should
not be sought exclusively through methods associated with competition; an acknowl-
edgement that a positive sense of self (required for empowerment) is unlikely to be
achieved through instrumentalised relationships; the recognition that esteem should not
be merely dependent on institutionally endorsed forms of success the latter is likely
to lead to the standardisation of citizenship rather than encouraging well-being and
participation through self-determined individuality; and, finally, an awareness that
genuine recognition is transmitted through networks of informal relationships. The
model of citizenship perpetuated within the culture of performativity detracts from
these; however, if the exchange of knowledge between home and schools were allowed
to flow in both directions, understandings of citizenship in schools would have some
prospect of embracing the communitarian virtues valued by Crick (2000). This would,
however, necessarily lead to a consideration of the structural and social relations that
often underpin educational failure, as well as an appreciation of some of the counter-
hegemonic values that have been developed in the face of marginalisation. Until this
happens, initiatives that aim to promote empowered and active citizenship (and higher
levels of self-esteem and well-being in schools) are likely to be greeted with a degree
of cynicism by those deemed at risk of educational exclusion.

Notes on contributor
Pamela Fisher is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Huddersfield. Her research
interests focus on understandings of social justice and citizenship in the sociologies of health
and well-being, disability and education.

References
Ball, S. 2003. The teachers soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education
Policy 18, no. 2: 21528.
Benjamin, S., M. Nind, K. Hall, J. Collins, and K. Sheehy. 2003. Moments of inclusion and
exclusion: Pupils negotiating classroom contexts. British Journal of Sociology of
Education 24, no. 5: 54758.
 Educational Studies 57

Blanden, J., P. Gregg, and S. Machin. 2005. Social mobility in Britain: Low and falling.
CentrePiece, Spring: 1820.
Bourdieu, P. 1991. Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P., and J.C. Passeron. 1977. Reproduction in education, society and culture.
London: Sage.
Brain, K., and I. Reid. 2003. Constructing parental involvement in an education action zone:
Whose need is it meeting? Educational Studies 29, nos. 23: 291305.
Brown, G. 2008. A common purpose for the age of ambition: New Labour. http://
www.guardian.co.uk/education.
Crick, B. 2000. In defence of politics. 5th ed. London: Continuum.
Delanty, G. 2003. Citizenship as a learning process: Disciplinary citizenship versus cultural
citizenship. International Journal of Lifelong Education 22, no. 6: 597605.
DfEE. 1997. Excellence in schools. London: Department for Education and Employment.
DfEE. 1999. National healthy school standard: Guidance. London: Department for Education
and Employment.
DfES. 2002. Transforming youth work: Resourcing excellent youth services. London:
Department for Education and Skills.
DfES. 2003. Every child matters. London: Department for Education and Skills.
Dunne, M., and L. Gazeley. 2008. Teachers, social class and underachievement. British
Journal of Sociology of Education 29, no. 5: 45163.
Ecclestone, K., and D. Hayes. 2008. The dangerous rise of therapeutic education: How
teaching is becoming therapy. London: Routledge.
Fanon, F. 1967. The wretched of the earth. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Fielding, M. 2007. The human cost and intellectual poverty of high performance schooling:
Radical philosophy, John Macmurray and the remaking of person-centred education.
Journal of Education Policy 22, no. 4: 383409.
Fisher, P. 2007. Experiential knowledge challenges normality and individualised citizen-
ship: Towards another way of being. Disability and Society 22, no. 3: 28398.
Fisher, P. 2008. Wellbeing and empowerment: The importance of recognition. Sociology of
Health and Illness 30, no. 4: 58398.
Fisher, P., and R. Fisher. 2007. The autodidact, the pursuit of subversive knowledge and the
politics of change. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 28, no. 4: 51529.
Foucault, M. 1991. Governmentality. In The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality, ed.
G. Burchell, C. Gordon, and P. Miller, 87104. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Fraser, N. 1997. Justice interruptus: Critical reflections on the postsocialist condition.
London: Routledge.
Furedi, F. 2004. Therapy culture. London: Routledge.
Gewirtz, S. 2001. Cloning the Blairs: New Labours programme for the re-socialization of
working-class parents. Journal of Education Policy 16, no. 4: 36578.
Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gillborn, D., and D. Youdell. 2001. The new IQism: Intelligence, ability and the rationing of
education. In Sociology of education today, ed. J. Demaine, 6599. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Gillies, V. 2005. Meeting parents needs? Discourses of support and inclusion in family
policy. Critical Social Policy 25, no. 1: 7090.
Gillies, V. 2006. Working class mothers and school life: Exploring the role of emotional
capital. Gender and Education 18, no. 3: 28193.
Gillies, V. 2008. Childrearing, class and the new politics of parenting. Sociology Compass 2,
no. 3: 107995.
Gur-Zeev, I., J. Masschelein, and N. Blake. 2001. Reflectivity, reflection and counter-
education. Studies in Philosophy and Education 20: 93106.
Hall, K., C. Collins, S. Benjamin, M. Nind, and K. Sheehu. 2004. SATurated models of
pupildom: Assessment and inclusion/exclusion. British Educational Research Journal 30,
no. 6: 80118.
Hallgarten, J. 2000. Parents exist, ok!? Issues and visions for parentschools relationships.
London: IPPR.
Hanafin, J., and A. Lynch. 2002. Peripheral voices: Parental involvement, social class and
educational disadvantage. British Journal of Sociology of Education 23, no. 1: 3549.
58 P. Fisher

Honneth, A. 2001. Recognition or redistribution? Changing perspective on the moral order of

society. Theory, Culture and Society 18, nos. 23: 4355.
Honneth, A. 2003. Redistribution as recognition: A response to Nancy Fraser. In Redistribu-
tion or recognition? A political-philosophical exchange, ed. N. Fraser and A. Honneth,
11097. London: Verso.
Hornby, G., and M. Atkinson. 2003. A framework for promoting mental health in schools.
Pastoral Care in Education 21, no. 2: 39.
Hyland, T. 2009. Mindfulness and the therapeutic function of education. Journal of
Philosophy of Education 43, no. 1: 11931.
Johnson, R. 1993. Expertise and the state. In Foucaults new domains, ed. M. Gane and T.
Johnson, 13952. London: Routledge.
Kiwan, D. 2008. Education for inclusive citizenship. London: Routledge.
Lareau, A. 1987. Social class differences in familyschool relationships: The importance of
cultural capital. Sociology of Education 60, no. 2: 7385.
Lareau, A. 2003. Unequal childhoods: Class, race and family life. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Lister, R. 2008. Recognition and voice: The challenge for social justice. In Social justice and
public policy: Seeking fairness in diverse societies, ed. G. Craig, T. Burchardt, and D.
Gordon, 10522. Bristol: Policy Press.
MacIntyre, A. [1981] 2007. After virtue: A study in moral theory. 3rd ed. London: Duckworth.
Macmurray, J. 1950. Conditions of freedom. London: Faber.
Morgan, J. 2000. Critical pedagogy: The spaces that make the difference. Pedagogy, Culture
and Society 8: 27389.
Nind, M. 2008. Learning difficulties and social class: Exploring the intersection through
family narratives. International Studies in Sociology of Education 18, no. 2: 8798.
QCA. 1998. Education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy in schools. The Crick
Report. London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.
Reay, D. 2000. A useful extension of Bourdieus conceptual framework? Emotional capital as
a way of understanding mothers involvement in their childrens education. Sociological
Review 48, no. 4: 56885.
Reay, D., and D. Wiliam. 1999. Ill be a nothing: Structure, agency and the construction of
identity through assessment. British Educational Research Journal 25, no. 3: 34354.
Sayer, A. 2005. Class, moral worth and recognition. Sociology 39: 94763.
SEU. 2005. Transitions for young people with complex needs. London: Social Exclusion Unit.
Skeggs, B. 2004. Class, self and culture. London: Routledge.
Sointu, E. 2006. Recognition and the creation of wellbeing. Sociology 40, no. 3: 493510.
Wilkinson, R. 2005. The impact of inequality. London: Routledge.
Yar, M. 2001. Beyond Nancy Frasers perspectival dualism. Economy and Society 30,
no. 3: 288303.