Todd, Sharon
(2016)
Facing uncertainty in education:
Beyond the harmonies of
Eurovision education.
European Educational Research Journal, 15 (6).
pp. 617-627.
ISSN 1474-9041
Abstract
One of the most pressing concerns identified in current European educational discourse is about
the transitions of students from school to higher education and from educational institutions to the
labour market. Government anxieties over the precariousness of the future has led to increasing
regulation and measurement of ‘skills’ and ‘competences’ for students in an attempt to suture
over these transitions. However, in doing so, policies risk further alienating and dehumanizing
students in turning classrooms into testing zones and places of high risk assessment that pigeonhole students into limited futures. I argue in this paper that if youth are to contribute meaningfully
to a future that is, by definition, not something that is certain or knowable in advance, a more
appropriate response will be to think about the kinds of sensibility that would help students
orient themselves toward a changing and unpredictable world. This paper outlines how a project
of facing uncertainty (what the poet John Keats referred to as ‘negative capability’) actually shifts
the terms upon which policies and curricular reform can be constructed.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Buddhism; European policy; negative capability; skills and competences; transition; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Education |
| Item ID: |
12821 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904116669731 |
| Depositing User: |
Prof. Sharon Todd
|
| Date Deposited: |
28 Apr 2020 10:05 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
European Educational Research Journal |
| Publisher: |
SAGE Publications |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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