As recent international publication by OECD or UNESCO well testify to, there is an increasing preoccupation in educational settings for student wellbeing. School problems (behavioral problems, school failure or dropouts) are more and more interpreted as the result of a psychological or emotional deficit (stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, etc.). Wellbeing is then perceived as a necessary requirement for learning, which leads to the multiplication of various educational therapeutic practices meant to insure it. 

This research aims at 1) identifying emerging practices of wellbeing in schools and the discourses that justify them, 2) understanding how the conception and promotion of student wellbeing should be understood in a particular way in the current context. I will be defending that the new culture of wellbeing in schools is not only driven by a few school psychologists whose primary professional preoccupation is student wellbeing, but at a much more general level by the entire school systems. Indeed, this phenomenon does not simply testify to an increase in the student population of individual biological or psychological problems, but is closely linked to the development of the sociopolitical and epistemological global conditions deriving from neoliberalism and the uncertainties of our times. Even more importantly, this phenomenon should not be understood only as a consequence of new ideological forces, but as strongly participating in enforcing them: the insistence on student wellbeing also contributes to the fabrication of the type of subjects required by the neoliberal economy and the current era of risk. 

The theoretical framework that underlies this analysis in largely inspired by the grounding work of Michel Foucault on governmentality and the care of the self (1984, 1990, 2001). Our research draws on sociological and philosophical work that analyze socialization or formation processes as processes of subjectivation (Dardot et Laval, 2015; Olssen, 2009; Rose, 1998; 1999; 2013; Simons et Masschelein, 2008; 2009) The power of subjectivation does not function by imposing directly norms or rules upon a person, but, through a series of apparatuses, by getting him or her to become a certain type of person. These apparatuses may take different forms: discursive, institutional or the techniques of self(Audureau, 2003).

The discursive apparatuses concern the discourses that structure and justify good and acceptable school practices: for example, the conception of childhood or of what it means to be well educated that dominate the language and the educational possibilities at a given time. For example, the place of the language of humanist psychology (self-actualization, congruence, satisfaction of needs, etc.), or of behaviorism (conditioning, reinforcement, punishment, etc.), or neuroscience (nervous system, brain, attention, memory, etc.). These apparatuses may be observed and analyzed through official statements, such as national policies or international reports, as well as in the discourse of everyday life, in the way teachers discuss their work for example. The institutional apparatusesconcern the norms or rules that organize ways of behaving and work by guiding or forming the conduct of individuals in order to reach particular predefined goals (Lemke, 2007). These apparatuses may be located in official discourses (curricula, programs, plans, etc.), as well as in the practices actors initiate in order to « discipline » students (assessment practices, diagnostics, routines, interior designs, etc.). The “techniques of self” concern technologies that prompt the subject (student) to care for, and thus to work on him or herself (for example, diets, meditation, some readings, discussions, physical exercises, etc.). Because they encourage the subject to care, work and transform, these apparatuses may shape subjectivities in profound ways. As such, they act as a network inscribed in relations of power and participate in determining or limiting possibilities of thought and action.

The main objective of this presentation is to reflect on the ways in which the current discourses on student wellbeing contribute or not to the fabrication of a particular type of subjects (or students) required by the demands of our times, that is to say of subjects that have a positive mindset, that are creative, reflective, that have a will to perform, that are resilient, and can function in the era of risk and the neoliberal economy that accompanies it. In order to do so, this research is based on different types of discourse analyses. Firstly, the analyses of official discourses on student wellbeing that may be found in international report (OECD, UNESCO), national curriculums, intervention programs, major newspapers, etc. that can help us have a better understanding of the overt, official objectives of wellbeing practices in schools. Secondly, the analyses of interviews conducted with 15 K-12 teachers or educational psychologists, who routinely apply techniques of wellbeing in the classroom. These discourses are analyzed using the theoretical categories described above as well as other discursive metacategories that I did not have the space to describe above. Three are of particular importance for the understanding of the discursive formation surrounding wellbeing in schools: the neoliberal discourse (where practices of wellbeing serve as a way to counteract or cope with the pressures of neoliberalism (Bruniila & Sivonen, 2016)), the postmodern discourse (where notions of wellbeing serve as a way to grant value to things in a context of uncertainty and relativism (MacIntyre, 1981)) and the biomedical discourse (where the individual, or more precisely of the brain, is conceived as plastic and malleable and where the flexible subject becomes responsible for acting on his or her wellbeing (Rose, 2013)). The data is analyzed using using a data analysis program (Nvivo) in order to capture the state of the current discourse. The analyses are conducted in parallel with philosophical research in order to reflect on the meaning of wellbeing in schools and more specifically on the formation of subjects (students). The philosophical research draws mainly on sources cited above.

There is a lot of interest in practices aimed at promoting wellbeing in schools, such as meditation, yoga, respiration, visualization, brain gym, stress management exercises, etc. Supported by neurosciences and other branches of psychology, and promoted by international organizations such as OECD and UNESCO, much of these practices are being openly promoted in most parts of the world (especially America, Europe, Asia). The international and official discourse about student wellbeing is voluntarist and entrepreneurial: it relies on the idea that individuals, especially students, are malleable and that schools should contribute actively to develop the character traits that will help them learn how to lead a happy life by learning how to control their emotions and thoughts in a positive way and how to be proactive about it. Happiness is presented as an individual responsibility and teaching the competences that lead to happiness as the way to introduce students to this responsibility. When discussing the wellbeing practices with teachers (from Quebec), the discourse is not yet dominated by this voluntarist and entrepreneurial stance, but more by a will to resist the acceleration of time and the pressures of performance in schools. Although teachers’ discourses are characterized by forms of social critique, an ambiguity between teaching wellbeing practices as a mean to cope with the stress and anxiety imposed by neoliberal demands in schools or as a way to resist and denounce them remains. As such the discursive apparatus surrounding students’ wellbeing seems to suggest to students that the only way to address the alienating and debilitating aspects of the school system is through individual coping mechanisms. This has important repercussions the way they are socialized, envision their role for social change rather than only for interior change, and learn more broadly their political and social function as future citizen, etc.

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