Network
NW 21. Education and Psychoanalysis
Title
Intersubjective Processes in Learning Communities
Abstract
Learning is often treated as individual and cognitive, yet it unfolds within relationships, institutions and collective histories. Following Freud, individual psychology is always social psychology. This call, aligned with ECER 2027's theme Learning Communities and Shared Futures in Education, invites contributions on the affective, unconscious and intersubjective dimensions of learning communities — identification, belonging, anxiety, resistance, authority — from diverse psychoanalytic traditions in dialogue with psychosocial studies, critical pedagogy, feminist/decolonial thought, and posthumanist approaches. The Hungarian setting invites renewed attention to Ferenczi and Pikler's legacies. Formats: posters, papers, symposia, research workshops; possible dialogue with Network 19.
The Call
Learning is often regarded as an individual, cognitive and measurable process. Yet learning always takes place within the context of relationships, institutions and individual and collective histories that extend beyond the individual. Following Freud, “the very first individual psychology, in this extended but entirely justifiable sense of the words, is at the same time social psychology as well” (1921, SE, p. 69). Psychoanalytic perspective invites us to pay attention to the affective, unconscious and intersubjective dimensions of education: relationship to knowledge, dependence, identification, anxiety, ambivalence, aggression, authority, loss, resistance, hope, etc.
In line with the ECER 2027 theme, Learning Communities and Shared Futures in Education, this special call welcomes contributions that explore how learning communities are shaped by subjective processes, both at the level of individual experience and at the level of groups, organisations and wider social imaginaries. For those interested in psychological processes and intersubjective relationships in teaching and learning contexts, what meaning could be given to the term ‘learning community’?
We welcome theoretical, conceptual, methodological and empirical contributions drawing on diverse psychoanalytic traditions and their dialogue with adjacent perspectives, including psychosocial studies, critical pedagogy, feminist and decolonial thought, group analysis, and posthumanist approaches.
Proposals may address one or more of the following questions:
● How do unconscious processes shape individual and collective learning?
● How do the desire for knowledge, not knowing, curiosity, anxiety and resistance contribute to educational processes?
● What do learning communities produce in terms of identification, belonging, rivalry, idealisation, solidarity or exclusion?
● What roles do transference, countertransference, projection, splitting, denial, group defences play in educational relationships?
● How do assessment systems, platforms, AI or data collection transform our relationship to knowledge?
● How can discourses on success, excellence, well-being or inclusion produce new norms and new forms of exclusion?
● How do the experiences of ecological, social, democratic or geopolitical crises affect education and the possibilities for building shared futures?
● What methodologies enable us to rigorously study the conscious and unconscious dimensions of education?
● What effects might the inclusion of non-academic or experiential knowledge may have on relationship to knowledge and processes of recognition?
● What forms of evaluation might go beyond a simple recording of ”performance indicators” to capture the subjective transformations taking place within a learning community?
Hosting the ECER 2027 in Hungary could provide an opportunity to focus specifically on Ferenczi’s contributions to education. As the author of the first lecture on the application of pedagogy to education (1908), what contributions did Ferenczi and the so-called “Hungarian school of psychoanalysis” made to education? Later on, how did Emmy Pikler’s (1902-1984) experience in Lóczy (David & Appel, 2001) spread throughout the field of education in Europe?
Possible presentation formats in Network 21 are Posters, Papers, Long papers, Symposia, Research Workshops.
ECER 2027 could provide an opportunity to continue discussions with Network 19 “Ethnography”, in the form of a symposium or research workshop.
Contact Person(s)
Arnaud Dubois – arnaud.dubois(at)u-pariscite.fr
Patrick Geffard – patrick.geffard(at)univ-paris8.fr
References
Ferenczi, S. (1938). Psychoanalyse und Pädagogik. Vortrag auf dem 1. Psychoanalytischen Kongress in Salzburg. In S. Ferenczi, Bausteine zur Psychoanalyse (Bd. 3, S. 9–22). Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag. (Original work published 1908)
Freud, S. (1966). Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (pp. 69-143). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1921)
David, M. & Appel, G. (2001). Loczy. An Unusual Approach to Mothering. Pikler-Lóczy Association for Young Children.