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A genealogy of the whole child

Jones, Bronwen MA; (2020) A genealogy of the whole child. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London). Green open access

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Abstract

This research is an investigation into how the essentially ‘progressive’ pedagogical construct of the whole child became a neoliberal policy subject. In short, it is a presentation of the production/ or productions of the whole child in the neoliberal policy process. Specifically, it is focused on policies of well-being and character from the time of New Labour to the 2014 Conservative government. During the course of the research, three different yet thoroughly connected productions of the whole child have emerged: the whole child constituted in policy document definitions through psy- scientific discourses; the whole child constituted through the processes and practices of a neoliberal education system and the whole child constituted through classroom practices of well-being and character programmes. They occur at different stages of the policy process and in different sites yet are inseparable. Together they constitute a kind of anatomy of the whole child in neoliberal education policy. I have found it helpful to employ Foucault’s concept of the dispositif to both explore and connect the notion of the whole child and neoliberalism. I have understood those three articulations from the perspective of his constructs of bio power, governmentality and technologies of the self. My research then suggests that this ‘whole child’ of education policy represents and facilitates an increasingly systematic extension of neoliberal governance into/through the emotional and moral ‘life’ of the child. The whole child functions as a bio political or etho political subject that is a critical and developing constituent part of the neoliberal dispositif.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: A genealogy of the whole child
Event: UCL
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Author 2020. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Learning and Leadership
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10091740
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