Affective Pedagogy Research Articles

Education beyond the limits: Addressing Violence against Women and Girls

Abstract This article is a contribution to a suite of papers on violence against women and girls. It sets out the context in which this issue is currently discussed, how it might be understood and how it can be addressed. Education is seen as a key mechanism for the prevention of gender-based violence through the transformation of the attitudes and beliefs that boys and young men hold about women and girls and what it means to be a man. This article considers the challenges of achieving this in the face of online influencers like Andrew Tate with their appeal to masculine entitlement and supremacy, often expressed in terms of misogynistic violence and coercion. Drawing on the work of Jacqueline Rose, Judith Butler and others, the paper argues that this is a task that involves creative and affective pedagogy as well as sustained critical engagement. There is, therefore, an important role for the arts and humanities in providing spaces for exploration, conversation and reflection about the embodied experience of violence and abuse. Through difficult educational encounters it may be possible to initiate a change in boys and young men from impervious thoughtlessness to a greater recognition and understanding of the impact of harassment and violence, both within the educational setting and beyond.

Hopeful Things as Minor Interventions in Educational Atmospheres

Drawing on scholarship on affects, moods, and affective pedagogies in education, we explore how educators in a Danish gymnasium weaved hopes and anxieties into a school space and the specific things, such as books and bookshelves, to address and improve the inclusion of racialized students in school life. Based on a feminist new materialist and diffractive reading through translation of English-language based concepts through Danish grammar and language, we explore how the concept of the "happy object" as delineated by feminist scholar Sara Ahmed takes on a more hopeful interpretation when analyzed within the Danish educational context and language. We argue that ‘foreign’ concepts require careful consideration and adaptation to suit another (Danish) linguistic, cultural, and racial context. Making such adjustments is not just a matter of taking specificities of local contexts seriously, it is also a means of advancing theory that can inspire analyses conducted in a wider range of educational time-space-coordinates.

The affective pedagogies of horse-human interventions: a more-than-human perspective on equine assisted learning with marginalised young people

ABSTRACT This article offers a more-than-human perspective on an equine assisted learning programme undertaken by marginalised young people attending a flexi-school in Australia. In contrast with therapist led equine programmes, our research examined horse assisted activities as a site of embodied learning. Paying attention to the affective dimension of horse-human relationality we explored how student and teacher narratives articulated learning in terms of affective pedagogies (being moved to learn differently). We discuss the theory-method tensions that arose through our shift from a mixed methods humanist design to a more-than-human analysis. Questioning the limitations of traditional humanist theories of attachment and individualised agency, we trace the agentic capacities afforded by the horse-human learning assemblage involving horses, volunteer coaches, young people, teachers, yards, grooming tools, etc. Our article contributes to explorations of more-than-human learning at the intersection of embodied movement, therapeutic interventions and informal education.

Being a positive influence(r): Exploring affective pedagogies of wellbeing and positivity on Instagram

ABSTRACT Influencers attract praise—and censure—for how they are perceived to influence followers. These discussions are strongly gendered: representations of mainstream influencers are highly feminised, and it is typically women and girls who are imagined as the targets—or victims—of influence. We suggest that the value influencers can offer is increasingly understood in affective and emotional terms and materialises in the form of mindset advice and modelling emotional management strategies. In this paper, we draw on theories of affective practice to examine “teachable moments” of positivity, optimism and resilience as influencers model and educate followers in emotion-laden styles and standpoints. Our analysis centres on data gathered in confidential interviews with eight established and aspiring Instagram influencers, who work in mainstream, lifestyle domains. We focus on the affective pedagogies influencers mobilise to show followers how to adopt culturally favoured emotional styles. Our analysis sheds light on the pedagogical work of influencing as gendered labour, its psychosocial utility and socio-political entanglements. To conclude, we reflect on how the patterns we identify index broader shifts in neoliberal wellness repertoires away from the management of time and towards the management of emotional energy.

“Know Your Kids, Understand Yourself, and Find a Way”: One Elementary School Physical Education Teacher’s Efforts at Employing Character Education

Background: Research concerning the philosophy of character education has been largely inadequate and anticlimactic. Purpose: Informed by a combination of emergent, novel, and nontraditional techniques, the purpose of this study is to describe one elementary school physical education teacher’s efforts at employing character education. Method: The participant was Paris, a White, abled-bodied female with 41 years’ experience. Utilizing an exploratory case study design, data were collected with eight interpretive techniques and analyzed using thematic methods. Findings: Paris employed a “content-based approach” to teaching character education and taught the moral content of human flourishing, virtue, and practical wisdom via jump rope, rock climbing, and parachute-based physical education content. Her character pedagogies of affect were explicit and implicit in nature and shaped around the skills themes, multiskill, and multiactivity pedagogical models. The factors influencing Paris’ efforts were identified. Conclusion: This study contributes to the affective literature from a theoretical, methodological, and practical perspective.

Affective pedagogy in pre-service teacher education: a twofold approach combining explicit and vicarious learning

What happens when affection and the awareness of affectivity, in the sense of ‘love’ or ‘tenderness’, become the objects of training and evaluation in pre-service teacher education? Our theoretical framework describes the link between positive emotional arousal and learning, the role played by the emotional dimension in the construction of a professional teaching identity, and the relevance of a teacher’s historical-emotional background for the cognitive construction of heuristics. We developed a teaching program designed to energize the experience of pre-service teachers in the university classroom. Through positive emotional arousal, we aimed to provoke a series of creative reflection processes regarding the teaching profession. Our research goal was to describe and interpret the program’s potential effects on the learning process and the construction of these pre-service teachers’ professional identity. The method applied in this paper was action-research carried out during three academic years of fieldwork with a total of 365 students. We coded the students’ narratives regarding their learning process and teaching identity into several conceptual nodes representing their insights and feelings concerning those topics. Our results and discussion highlight the importance of affective teacher education as a means of enhancing pre-service teachers’ learning, contributing toward the growth of their professional identity, and cultivating a culture of care and love in the classroom. Keywords: pre-service teacher training, teacher-student interaction, emotions, cultural models, action-research

Editorial [IJEE, 15,2

The Covid-19 pandemic has provided a window of opportunity for education and schools to become more caring and compassionate, with wellbeing and social and emotional education becoming more established as a primary goal of post-covid education. Such a process, however, needs to start with the adults themselves, with initial teacher education becoming a transformative personal and social process where teachers develop the requisite competences to become caring, responsive and inclusive educators and mentors through an experiential, reflective and collaborative approach. In the first paper in this edition, Falcón-Linares (Spain) evaluates an affective pedagogy action research programme aimed at arousing positive emotions such as kindness and tenderness amongst preservice teachers through an integrated explicit and vicarious learning. The narratives of over 360 student teachers highlight the role of affective teacher education in fostering the growth of their professional identity and of an ethic of care in the classroom.

EXPLORING PEDAGOGIES OF AFFECT IN SECONDARY SCHOOL PHYSICAL EDUCATION FOR ENHANCED EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

This paper aims to comprehensively analyze the pedagogies of affect in secondary school physical education, with a specific focus on their role in promoting students' emotional well-being. It addresses existing gaps in the literature by integrating Self-Determination Theory (SDT), examining teacher awareness and motivation, promoting a holistic concept of health, considering the Indonesia educational context, and utilizing a pragmatic mixed methods approach. A literature study approach is employed. The findings reveal that teacher engagement in pedagogies of affect significantly influences students' emotional well-being. Need-supportive teaching behaviors directly impact affective learning outcomes, emphasizing the importance of autonomy, relatedness, and intrinsic motivation. Teachers' self-awareness and the quality of teacher-student relationships play pivotal roles in shaping emotional experiences in physical education. This research contributes novel insights into the field, offering a comprehensive framework for promoting emotional well-being in physical education. It highlights the transformative potential of education in nurturing not only the bodies but also the hearts and minds of young individuals in the pursuit of overall well-being.

‘it’s about bringing people together’: one middle school physical education teacher’s attempt at deploying character education

ABSTRACT Background Despite the field’s rich history and relationship with the concept of character education, to date, there would appear to be no in-depth empirical case studies that describe in pedagogical terms, how a physical educator can cultivate character through a school-based physical education setting. Purpose The purpose of this investigation, therefore, was to describe how one teacher deployed character education in the context of middle school physical education. Method An in-depth case study design was used to study how Joseph, a first-year teacher located in the Mid-South region of the United States attempted to cultivate character through physical education. Data were collected using eight interpretive techniques (formal and informal interviews, observations and field notes, film of teaching, critical incident reports, documents, and artifacts) and analyzed using thematic analysis. Data trustworthiness and reliability of the data analysis were established using four techniques. Findings Joseph deployed a ‘thematic approach’ to teaching character education. The organizational structure, methods, and content used to inform this approach were identified. The factors acting to support Joseph’s character-related pedagogies of affect included school support and teacher autonomy. Components undermining Joseph’s efforts were factors outside of his control. Conclusion This case study provides one in-depth insight into how a school-based physical educator attempted to cultivate character in the context of physical education. It would appear that Joseph’s experience deploying character education was overwhelmingly positive and that more factors acted to compliment his efforts as opposed to undermine it. To that end, much more in-depth empirical research utilizing philosophically informed interpretations of character formation are needed if we are to continue to use this terminology within the language of physical education.

Knowing-being-doing with digital stories: affective and collective potentialities in the higher education classroom

ABSTRACT Creative assessments hold the potential to counter outcome-oriented and utilitarian approaches to teaching, characteristic of neoliberal academia. This paper explores the potentialities of digital stories as one form of creative assessment that may help rupture normative ways of teaching-learning and engaging with affective pedagogies. The authors are a group of teacher-learners who engaged with digital stories as a part of teaching-learning assemblages at two universities in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Drawing on our collective dialogue and writings, this paper explores the potentialities of breaking ‘dichotomies’, including personal/academic, good/bad affect, and certainty/uncertainty. The ways in which digital story assessments can unsettle but also affirm teaching-learning assemblages are explored. Various moments of glow from the authors’ reflections on engaging with digital stories as teacher-learners are followed to consider affective pedagogies for the 21st century. Through openly sharing vulnerabilities between students and teachers the paper affirms, imagines, and creates openings for pedagogical praxis.

Examining how observed need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behaviours relate to pupils’ affective outcomes in physical education

This study aims to investigate the complexity of the practices of pedagogies of affect in physical education in response to urgent mental health issues among children and young people. As a proxy for measuring the effects of pedagogies of affect on pupils’ outcomes, self-determination theory (SDT) has informed teaching approaches for student motivation and psychological wellness and, thus, it could be an indicator perspective for mental health. Previous SDT studies in physical education have shown the relationship between pupils’ perceptions of need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behaviours and affective outcomes. Nevertheless, no attempts have been made to test this teacher–pupil relationship involving observations of naturalistic teaching behaviour. Accordingly, this study examined how these observed teaching behaviours relate to pupils’ affective outcomes represented by basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration, (de)motivation, positive and negative affect, and sense of coherence. Employing a cross-sectional design, this study conducted observations of one indoor lesson per class and administered a set of questionnaires to pupils. In total, 20 teachers and 381 pupils aged 11 to 15 from seven different Scottish secondary schools participated in this study. The results showed that the factor of the observed structure before the activity was significantly related to affective outcomes, while the observed controlling teaching behaviour was related to negative outcomes. Although non-significant relationships between some factors of observed teaching behaviour and pupils’ variables were also found, this observational study is significant as it provides direct evidence of teacher–pupil interactions in the real-life context for developing pedagogies of affect.

Reimagining the language of disability and inclusion in primary teacher education through a translanguaging framework

ABSTRACT Whilst words such as ‘disability’ and ‘inclusion’ have some shared meanings across cultural and linguistic contexts, they also have meanings that are fluid and changing according to individual, institutional, and environmental dimensions. Deconstructing these differential understandings in special education needs and disabilities (SEND) provision is essential to challenge deeply-rooted societal deficit-based assumptions and stigmatisation that can have detrimental impacts on children and young people’s life experiences. In this UK-Vietnam collaborative project we aimed to uncover the ‘languaging of disability and inclusion’, using Vietnamese primary teacher education as an illustrative case study with experiential insights gathered from primary school teachers, leaders and teacher educators. This paper presents findings from our six in-depth qualitative interviews. Our analytical framework, informed by key concepts in translanguaging and affective pedagogies, enables us to uncover nuances in meanings that went beyond solely Vietnamese-English linguistic translations, to take account of semiotic understandings, body language, and movement. Key findings revealed a prevailing medical-based terminology associated with SEND, practice-based contradictions attached to bureaucratic recognitions of disability, as well as repertoires associated with ‘circles of friendship’. Our paper opens up an international dialogue that both challenges potentially homogenising and harmful labelling processes and celebrates the sharing of asset-based languaging practices.

Reading Racialization: Yadé Kara's Selam Berlin

In a context that denies the workings of race, engagements with its impact are not always easily discernible. This essay argues that Yadé Kara's 2003 novel Selam Berlin can be read as an overlooked literary negotiation of this "political racelessness" (Goldberg) through its nuanced attention to racialization. Building on critical accounts from Frantz Fanon to Sara Ahmed, the essay contours the specific nature of racialization from the vantage point of those subjected to it and demonstrates how the novel narrativizes the components of this quotidian process. Rather than merely describing it, however, the novel makes racialization's impact palpable via an affective pedagogy targeted at the reader.

Gender roles and equality through popular Asian drama series: critical interpretations and pedagogical implications

Abstract The paper draws on two drama series in Asia and demonstrates that studying issues related to gender roles and equality through popular historical Asian drama series is both challenging and fruitful. The present study not only illustrates the complexity involved in studying gender roles and gender equality, but also suggests several teaching pedagogies. Looking at gender roles and equality from a historical perspective and employing a comparative analysis of the past and present can help students assess whether gender roles and equality have remained the same or evolved in the Asian context. Critical literacy enables the broadening of perspectives when taking into consideration the gender roles adopted by the various characters to survive in the complex world. Critical literacy, pedagogies of affect as well as pedagogies of invitation and transformation can be utilized to examine how performing assigned gender roles can result in favouritism, which may in turn lead to atrocities. The implications of the study may be applicable to contexts outside Asia.

Exploring physical education teachers’ awareness of observed teaching behaviour within pedagogies of affect

ABSTRACTBackgroundAffective learning has been recognised increasingly as a significant outcome of physical education. This focus on the affective domain comes at a time when there is increasing concern about health and wellbeing of children and young people and, in particular about the rising prevalence of mental health issues. The literature established that a number of approaches that could produce affective learning outcomes that may offer a positive contribution to children and young people’s health and wellbeing. These approaches to physical education could be characterised as pedagogies of affect. One underpinning theory informing pedagogies of affect is Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Pedagogical research grounded in SDT has shown the significance of need-supportive teaching behaviour in physical education as it has a direct impact on pupils’ positive affective learning outcomes. However, little has been known about what is happening right before need-supportive teaching behaviour occurs during class.PurposeThis study aims to address the research questions of how aware are teachers of their own need-supportive teaching behaviour and why do they behave in the ways they do in practising pedagogies of affect.MethodsData were generated through filmed videos and self-confrontation interviews. We filmed two indoor lessons which the same teacher delivered to the same classes. Within a month after the observations, the teachers participated in the self-confrontation interviews about their teaching behaviour and concerns that arose during the observed lessons while watching selected recorded video clips. The scenes were selected when teachers were offering meaningful choices of activities, offering feedback including either aspect of need-support or control, and interacting with pupils individually. This paper reported data from five physical education teachers in Scottish secondary schools. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes in relation to teachers’ awareness of observed teaching behaviour.FindingsWe highlighted how the teachers responded through the following three themes: (1) recognised benefits of offering meaningful choices; (2) different intentions of offering feedback and individual interactions; (3) the need for supporting pupils with behavioural issues. The first theme indicated teachers’ knowledge in terms of being able to explain why offering meaningful choices works effectively in terms of pupils’ affective learning. The second theme demonstrated teachers’ intentions behind offering feedback and individual interactions. There were teachers’ intentions of securing their pupils’ confidence, motivation, positive mindset, and wellbeing as prioritised outcomes. In contrast, teachers offering feedback to keep running a lesson might not be effective for pupils’ affective learning. The third theme highlighted teachers’ expectations of pupils’ behaviour to implementing need-supportive teaching, especially for pupils with additional support needs. Meanwhile, we remain alert to the possibility that some of the teachers’ interactions with pupils who have additional support needs could be construed in SDT terms as controlling teaching.ConclusionWe conclude that how well teachers are willing to learn from their pupils and how well teachers know the contextual factors about pupils such as their feelings, needs, and interests could be a fundamental requirement for implementing need-supportive teaching behaviour for pupils’ mental health and wellbeing within pedagogies of affect.

The COVID-19 sensorium and its vectors, victims, and violators

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic shifted relationships between hegemonic sensory perceptions and disease epistemologies. The affective pedagogies of the COVID-19 sensorium signal vectors and victims of disease through racialized, classed, and gendered assemblages of sensory presence and absence. Present sounds of weaponized coughing suture white consumerist entitlement to violate public health imperatives. The coughs in the film Corona critique the rise of anti-Asian violence and demonstrate how sound is intelligible through available stereotypes and circulating xenophobic rhetoric. Amid asymptomatic spread, appeals to “Typhoid Mary” Mallon—the first named asymptomatic typhoid carrier–re-emerged as another xenophobic sensory pedagogy to signify threatening absent symptoms.

Stephanie Springgay, Feltness: Research-Creation, Socially Engaged Art, and Affective Pedagogies

Stephanie Springgay, Feltness: Research-Creation, Socially Engaged Art, and Affective Pedagogies

The Interactive Effect of EFL Teachers' Emotions and Cognitions on Their Pedagogical Practices.

Emotion and cognition have long been considered as two influential factors determining the quality of teaching and learning. They form the foundation of all aspects of teaching as an emotional and thought-provoking profession. With the advent of Positive Psychology (PP) and affective pedagogy, now English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ inner states and emotions are placed at the center of every educational program all around the world. This consideration has led to a rise in various domains of teaching and teacher education. However, the interactive influence and association between teachers’ emotions and cognitions concerning their pedagogical practices has been mostly left ignored in EFL contexts. To fill this gap, the present study aimed to offer a mini-review of the concepts, definitions, related theories, and empirical evidence in this line of research. It also presented practical implications for different stakeholders together with research gaps and future directions for enthusiastic L2 investigators.

Precarity, the health and wellbeing of children and young people, and pedagogies of affect in physical education-as-health promotion

There has been a striking increase in the prevalence of health and wellbeing issues among children and young people in parts of the world since the 1990s. Mental illness in particular appears to be rising. Many believe the COVID pandemic has made this crisis even more acute, particularly for those children and young people who were already suffering from mental illness. A decade of austerity following the 2008 global recession and the running down of social and health services in countries su...

Crisis and Changes in Learning Behaviours: Technology-Enhanced Assessment in Language Learning Contexts

ABSTRACT The outbreak of COVID-19 has posed a sudden and unprecedented change to the educational system. This study investigated the impact of this sudden change on EFL learners’ perceptions of assessment in a technology-enhanced learning environment. Assessment dimensions such as affective factors, validity, reliability, practicality, security and pedagogy were explored through an online questionnaire administered among 345 Iranian EFL learners and a focus-group interview with 17 learners. In addition, through a quasi-experimental design, the study compared the learners’ academic achievements of online and in-person classrooms during the COVID-19 outbreak. The findings revealed that the flexibility of online assessment, immediate feedback and encouraging self-regulated learning are among the advantages and technical problems, technology dependence and technology literacy are among the challenges of technology-enhanced assessment. The findings indicated that while technology-enhanced assessment has a positive impact on learners’ performances, learners have various attitudes towards e-assessment that need to be addressed in future studies.