TY - JOUR
T1 - Refusal and disowning knowledge: re-thinking disengagement in higher education
AU - Fulford, Amanda
PY - 2017/3/31
Y1 - 2017/3/31
N2 - This paper addresses both ‘student engagement’ in contemporary universities, and student ‘disengagement’–where the latter is often seen as a failure of performance, or absence of will. In a bold move, the paper asks whether students should be engaged in their university education, and whether there is value in forms of disengagement. It finds an original way in which student disengagement can be understood by drawing on the writings of Stanley Cavell–on the philosophical appeal to what we say, our search for criteria, and on ideas of acknowledgement and avoidance in his work on Shakespearian tragedy. It shows what is at stake in our attunement with, and dissent from, criteria, and how such dissent can be educative. The paper considers the film ‘Stella Dallas’, in which Stella’s aversion to, her disengagement from, her culture’s criteria, is not a passive withdrawal, but rather the finding of voice, her education as a grownup. The paper concludes that disengagement, understood as aversion, dissent and refusal of voice, is not to be seen always as a lack of action or of care, but as the opposite: the active voicing of what we will, or will not, consent to in our education.
AB - This paper addresses both ‘student engagement’ in contemporary universities, and student ‘disengagement’–where the latter is often seen as a failure of performance, or absence of will. In a bold move, the paper asks whether students should be engaged in their university education, and whether there is value in forms of disengagement. It finds an original way in which student disengagement can be understood by drawing on the writings of Stanley Cavell–on the philosophical appeal to what we say, our search for criteria, and on ideas of acknowledgement and avoidance in his work on Shakespearian tragedy. It shows what is at stake in our attunement with, and dissent from, criteria, and how such dissent can be educative. The paper considers the film ‘Stella Dallas’, in which Stella’s aversion to, her disengagement from, her culture’s criteria, is not a passive withdrawal, but rather the finding of voice, her education as a grownup. The paper concludes that disengagement, understood as aversion, dissent and refusal of voice, is not to be seen always as a lack of action or of care, but as the opposite: the active voicing of what we will, or will not, consent to in our education.
KW - Cavell
KW - Engagement
KW - consent
KW - criteria
KW - disengagement
KW - dissent
KW - voice
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85009971828&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85009971828&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17449642.2016.1271578
DO - 10.1080/17449642.2016.1271578
M3 - Article (journal)
SN - 1744-9642
VL - 12
SP - 105
EP - 115
JO - Ethics and Education
JF - Ethics and Education
IS - 1
ER -