Whose wellbeing is it anyway?

Sunny Dhillon

doi:10.47408/jldhe.v0i0.460

Abstract

In this opinion piece, I suggest the need for a critical examination of the ‘wellbeing’ agenda currently being developed throughout Higher Education (HE) in the UK. I suggest that problems arise when notions of ‘wellbeing’ are used without being sufficiently well-defined, and are then accepted as the barometer of student health. This approach will be elucidated by contextualising the situation students find themselves in contemporary neoliberal universities; situating the crucial intermediary role that learning developers and student support services fulfil between academics and students; and exploring different modes of engagement available to those in these roles. Drawing upon the critical pedagogy of Biesta (2013), I argue that the remit of cultivating critical thinking and independent study skills means that learning developers, through one-to-one meetings, may sometimes be as well-placed as those with specific wellbeing roles (such as counsellors or mental health workers) to acknowledge and explore students’ personal and social anxieties and concerns with compassion. This approach may seem to be at odds with wellbeing rhetoric, which, I argue, can act to detract from critical engagement with the explicit challenges facing students in the contemporary socio-political milieu. My aim is therefore to reintroduce the notion of criticality within the discussions taking place among academics and professional support staff, which in turn may inform practice. Central to my aim in this is to raise broader questions around the primary role of academics and professionals in HE; for example, is it to train students to passively ‘fit in’ within society or to educate them in a manner such that they will act agentively in society?

Highlights

I have been in the post of Learning Development Tutor at Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU), a small, Cathedrals Group university in Lincoln, since Autumn 2016
The current wellbeing agenda being rolled out through Higher Education (HE) in the UK is a dangerous path to travel. It enacts a logic of soma, whereby students are encouraged to become well-adjusted to the status quo
This paper does not argue for a route three logic and disavow HE professionals of any consideration of students’ wellbeing but, rather, deems route two, a pedagogy of discomfort, the most appropriate course of option

Summary

Introduction

I have been in the post of Learning Development Tutor at Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU), a small, Cathedrals Group university in Lincoln, since Autumn 2016. Route two draws upon the notion that whilst paying for a gym membership does not make one fit, working alongside a qualified trainer to achieve goals through diligence and a great deal of effort and commitment can, and usually does In this way, in the role of an academic and/or professional support staff in learning development, for example, one is akin to a gym trainer, and can enable students to develop their critical thinking skills and independence of thought. Policies which encourage academics and support staff to respond to students’ difficulties, frustrations, anger and criticisms of their HE experiences by referring them for wellbeing support, produce collusion with the neoliberal agenda and serve to stifle or deflect opposition to the status quo In my mind, this raises a central philosophical and pedagogical question about what the underlying principle of the contemporary university is. If it is to create critical, independent thinkers, routes one and three clearly fall short, but route two might be productive

Wellbeing Symptoms

Individualisation of Social Problems

BGU Learning Outcomes

Pedagogy of Discomfort

Findings

Conclusion